Description

Gabriel Urbian Faure was born May 12, 1845, in Pamires, Mid-Pyrenees, France. He was the youngest of 6 children born to Toussaint and Marie Faure. From the age of 9 he studied piano and organ with Camille Saint-Saëns at the Ecole Niedermeyer. Saint-Saëns encouraged young Faure to play piano music by Franz Liszt. In 1865 Faure was awarded first prize for composition, for his ‘Cantique de Jean Racine’, opus 11. In 1870 he served in the army during the Franco-Prussian war, and during the Paris Commune he was a music teacher in Switzerland, where his school Ecole Niedermeyer was relocated. Back in Paris he became organist at Saint-Sulpice.