Hyperion Records

Gabriel Fauré was an outstanding miniaturist – his ability to convey powerful musical ideas in a composition lasting sometimes only two or three minutes was one of the qualities that made him such a great composer of songs. Alongside these are a considerable number of chamber works, yet he wrote no music specifically for solo bassoon. Fauré composed this Pièce originally as a Vocalise-Étude pour voix élevée avec accompagnement de piano in E minor, which was first published in 1907. It has since been transcribed for numerous solo instruments, but the lyrical melody line in Pièce fits so perfectly into the bassoon’s expressive middle and tenor registers that it is hard to think of it as anything other than an original work.

from notes by Laurence Perkins © 2004