dominant of the Lydian mode is C, while that of the Hypolydian mode is A. The melody of “Lydia” lies entirely within the F4-F5 ambitus of the Lydian mode, yet the first phrase cadences on A minor, the dominant of the Hypolydian mode (mm. 5–6). The composer certainly knew the correct dominant for each mode from his school days. In their 1857 treatise on plainchant accompaniment, Louis Niedermeyer and Joseph d’Ortigue wrote of the Hypolydian mode, “F is the final as in the preceding [mode], but the dominant is a, which gives rise to the frequent use of the chord we know as a minor.”24 Evidently, Fauré chose the Hypolydian dominant for its antique quality, rather than the historically accurate C major, which would have sounded indistinguishable from a modern V chord.
The archaic spell of the modal dominant does not last long. No sooner does the melody cadence on A minor than a descending sequence in the piano restores tonal syntax, correcting the characteristic raised fourth of the Lydian mode. The deceptive cadence in m. 7 abruptly resumes the modal train of thought, as the Lydian B♮ returns within a hovering vi7 chord. Yet a descending sequence again sweeps the song back into the present, restoring B♭ and rotating downward through the circle of fifths (mm. 8–10). Modality and tonality maintain a delicate balance in Fauré’s assimilation of the church modes.
The opening modulation of “Lydia” became a signature of Fauré’s music. The song “Le secret” (1881), a hymnlike setting of another Parnassian poet, begins with a Lydian melody and the same I-iii progression. The Agnus Dei of the Requiem (1888) uses the same progression in F major; the Lydian B♮ infiltrates mm. 14–16, triggering a modulation to the modal dominant, A minor. “Fileuse,” the spinning song from the incidental music to Pelléas et Mélisande (1898), provides the classic example of Fauré’s “Lydia” modulation: the first phrase introduces the raised fourth of G major, C♯, which leads to a decisive cadence on B minor. As we shall see, Fauré used the modulation to great effect in La bonne chanson where he actually quoted “Lydia.” The composer explained the rationale behind the progression in a letter to his son Philippe from 1906. The composer analyzed the “Air de danse” from his incidental music to Alexandre Dumas père’s Caligula (1888), jotting down a Lydian scale on G:
You will find the elements of the G-major scale: G, A, B, D, E, F♯, and the elements of the B-minor scale: B, C♯, D, E, F♯, G, on one hand, that is, the tonic G, the major third B, and its dominant D; and, on the other, the tonic B, the minor third D, and the minor sixth G . . . I wanted to suggest a dance of antique character (one only becomes aware of such things after they are realized!) and since the ancients did not modulate in the same way we do, I decided on a scale composed of two keys. Plainchant is full of similar examples.25
Fauré’s commentary not only reveals that he intended the church modes as a signifier for Latin antiquity. More intriguingly, it shows that he understood the modal progression as an alternative harmonic syntax distinct from modern tonality whose roots lay in ancient music. The “Lydia” progression does not merely summon the past but introduces a dialogic tension between ancient and modern harmonic systems. As in the best Parnassian poetry, past and present coexist in a graceful, life-giving synergy.
POÈME D’UN JOUR AND THE TRIUMPH OF FORM
If “Lydia” is the locus classicus of Fauré’s Parnassian style, then Poème d’un jour is its ars poetica, a worthy companion to the programmatic poems of Leconte de Lisle and Gautier. Little information survives about the poet Charles Grandmougin. Best known today for his librettos to César Franck’s Hulda and Jules Massenet’s La vierge, Grandmougin distinguished himself as a regionalist poet devoted to his native Franche-Comté.26 He published two poems in the third volume of Le Parnasse contemporain (1876), and two years later, in the year of Poème d’un jour, he composed a “drame antique,” Prométhée (unrelated to Fauré’s 1900 lyric drama of the same name). The Parnassian influence in Grandmougin’s play peeks out in an original plot twist not found in Aeschylus. In the third scene, Venus appears with a chorus of Cupids to tempt Prometheus, promising him eternal love if he will but renounce humanity and join the immortal gods. With firm mind and manly resolve, the Titan resists the pull of the flesh:
Dans mes yeux apparâit mon âme courroucée;
Tu peux y voir le feu de toute ma pensée;
Le charme de ton corps les laisse indifférents.
Que peut leur importer la splendeur d’une femme?
My enraged soul appears in my eyes;
You can read therein the fire of my full mind;
The allure of your body leaves them unmoved.
What could a woman’s splendor matter to them?
By 1878, Grandmougin had published only one collection of poetry, Les siestes (1874), which treats the familiar Parnassian themes. “L’été” ends by mourning the lost vitality of antiquity:
Notre soleil paraît plus froid, nos cieux plus ternes;
Adieu, flamboîment pur des étés primitifs!
Qui rendra la vaillance aux poëtes plaintifs?
Qui rendra la lumière à nos âmes modernes?
Our sun seems colder, our skies duller;
Farewell, pure radiance of primitive summers!
Who will restore courage to the sorrowful poets?
Who will restore light to our modern souls?
Grandmougin included the obligatory ode to the Venus de Milo (“À la Vénus de Milo enfermée pendant la Commune dans une cave de la préfecture de police”), but Les siestes also takes gentle aim at the Parnassian sculptural fetish. The sonnet “Sur une Psyché” recounts a museum visit:
C’était au Louvre, dans la salle de sculpture;
Fatigué de Vénus et d’amours assez laids,
J’étais debout devant Psyché: je contemplais
Son corps aérien et sans musculature.
Once at the Louvre, in the sculpture hall,
Weary of Venus and the rather ugly Cupids,
I stood before Psyche: I contemplated
Her light, unmuscled body.
The poet embraces the lifelike statue, but alas, he does not experience the mystical palingenesis of “Lydia”:
Moi jaloux, j’embrassai la Psyché, plein de fièvre,
Désirant ardemment cette pâle beauté,
Et ne trouvai qu’un peu de poussière à sa lèvre.
Jealously, I embraced the Psyche in a fever,
Ardently desiring that pale beauty,
And found nothing but a bit of dust on my lips.
Les siestes reveals a poet who embraced the Parnassian project yet remained capable of a critical, even satiric distance.
Since the source of Poème d’un jour remains unknown,
