Barcarolle No. 5
About this Piece
The barcarolle is the traditional song of the Venetian gondolier, usually rendered in a gently rocking 6/8 meter – the lapping wavelets of the canals. Highly stylized incarnations of the barcarolle by Mendelssohn and most famously by Chopin retained some of that swaying motion in their accompaniments, but in Gabriel Fauré’s (1845-1924) sweeping Barcarolle No. 5 the conditions are not always placid. Our pleasure craft is tempest-tossed on open water midway through our journey.