ohhh this is such useful context & such a gift of a comment, haha, i'm so glad i rambled here ty <3 that lore about the original words for "hark the herald angels sing" is so funny lmao.
and yes, Marianne is in the biography! in the book's telling, Fauré was quite close to the family & they nurtured his work at an early point in his career & he got on so well with the daughters that an engagement to Marianne just seemed the natural thing... but Marianne herself seemed sort of torn over the engagement, in a sort of "well I like him well enough but do I like-him like-him" kind of way—she postponed deciding on a wedding date, then postponed the wedding itself, sent some wishy-washy letters to friends that are quoted in the books, and then, yeah, in the end, broke the engagement off. Fauré was pretty upset (the book mentions it delaying the production of one of his big pieces & blames some of his Big Sad pieces on the broken engagement), and eventually got married to a different woman at an older age, but it sounds like that marriage wasn't a particularly happy one—they kinda did the thing where they both existed in separate "domains", with Fauré becoming a bit of a Don Juan and his wife becoming a bit of a germophobe and really focused on homeschooling her kids in a way that was obviously rooted in love for them, but also, uh, some projected anxieties (the author interviews the sons & they both mention they were a little unprepared in some big ways when adjusting to the "real world" after haha).
anyway: really liked your writeup of Louise's book! a shame so little of her work survives but i'll have to check out some of her music :D thanks again~
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2025-09-23 03:28 am (UTC)and yes, Marianne is in the biography! in the book's telling, Fauré was quite close to the family & they nurtured his work at an early point in his career & he got on so well with the daughters that an engagement to Marianne just seemed the natural thing... but Marianne herself seemed sort of torn over the engagement, in a sort of "well I like him well enough but do I like-him like-him" kind of way—she postponed deciding on a wedding date, then postponed the wedding itself, sent some wishy-washy letters to friends that are quoted in the books, and then, yeah, in the end, broke the engagement off. Fauré was pretty upset (the book mentions it delaying the production of one of his big pieces & blames some of his Big Sad pieces on the broken engagement), and eventually got married to a different woman at an older age, but it sounds like that marriage wasn't a particularly happy one—they kinda did the thing where they both existed in separate "domains", with Fauré becoming a bit of a Don Juan and his wife becoming a bit of a germophobe and really focused on homeschooling her kids in a way that was obviously rooted in love for them, but also, uh, some projected anxieties (the author interviews the sons & they both mention they were a little unprepared in some big ways when adjusting to the "real world" after haha).
anyway: really liked your writeup of Louise's book! a shame so little of her work survives but i'll have to check out some of her music :D thanks again~