Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924) was a master of widely acknowledged influence on the subsequent generation of composers that included Maurice Ravel and Les six. He studied under Louis Niedermeyer and Camille Saint-Saëns, and sought a distinctive style in his piano pieces and numerous songs. The elusiveness of his musical style has meant that Fauré has been problematic from an analytical perspective. James Sobaskie has discovered that the secret to the seductiveness of Fauré's music is the principle of allusion, whose presence may be felt from the first work to the last, and whose power is expressed as a range of stylistic features and structural aspects. Sobaskie employs Schenkerian, motivic and contextual analysis, complemented by clear graphic examples to reveal the elements and techniques behind the music's engaging effects. Fauré's preferences regarding allusive techniques changed as his style and aesthetic evolved. Certain techniques which characterized his earlier music, like tonal implication and transient tonicisation, became less favoured in later years, while others, such as gestural signification and contextual processes, took on greater importance. Fauré's music from every period and genre is discussed to provide a comprehensive view of his musical language and manner.

Sobaskie places the music within its historical and aesthetic contexts in order to explore its interaction with the past, its gradual evolution, and innovations which determined its modernity. By applying recently developed and advanced analytical methodology Sobaskie presents theorists with a defensible interpretation of Fauré's language. In this way, the book will appeal to music professionals, including theorists, composers, musicologists, performers, and anyone with an interest in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century French music.