Songs Without Words
Dedicated to Madame Léon Blum, the tenth barcarolle stays more closely within conventional tonality than its predecessor, "with a certain sedate gravity ... the monotony appropriate to a grey evening" (Koechlin). The melancholy theme is reminiscent of Mendelssohn's Venetian themes from "Songs Without Words", but is developed in a way characteristic of Fauré, with "increasingly animated rhythms and, at certain points, excessively complex textures" (Nectoux).