Gabriel-Urbain Faure (1845 - 1924) was the youngest member of an educated, but not particularly musical family living in the south of France. Gabriel’s father heard his eight-year-old son improving on the harmonium in the local church, and a year later he sent Gabriel to study at the Ecole Niedermeyer in Paris, where he studied piano with the director, Abraham Louis Niedermeyer. Faure continued his studies with Camille Saint-Saens after Niedermeyer’s death.

Faure spent his twenties working mainly as a church organist. Saint-Saens gradually introduced Faure as a composer into the elite musical circles of Paris, and in 1877 he had great success with the premiere of his Violin Sonata at the Societe Nationale de Musique. His Berceuse written for either violin or cello and piano during the late 1870s had its performance there on February 14th, 1880. The violinist was Ovide Musin, and Faure played the piano. 

The Berceuse was published in 1879 as Opus 16 by Julien Hamelle, who also published music by Saint-Saens, Brahms and Franck. Faure dedicated the publication to his good friend Helene Depret. The first edition specifies that the piece could be played on either violin or the violoncello, but that edition did not include a cello part. The solo part sounds best on the cello when played an octave lower than the violin part.

-Daniel Morganstern, December 2021

This edition contains the solo part and the accompanying piano part. The cello part and the piano part were edited by Daniel Morganstern.