45 Vocalises for Voice and Piano (Medium-high Voice): Voice & Piano

Faure's hand as a composer shows throughout these exercises in ways that make them genuinely musical to perform and hear, not merely technical drills. The progressive arrangement means you can build a semester or year-long curriculum within a single book, and the fact that they've been locked in archives until now gives students access to material that reveals Faure's pedagogical thinking at the Paris Conservatoire directly.

The vocalises move through elegant French idioms with the lightness and clarity that Faure demanded of his students. The early exercises feel almost transparent, allowing focus on clean production, while the later ones bloom into passages that feel like miniature vocal landscapes, testing endurance and agility without melodrama.

Intermediate to advanced vocalists preparing for conservatory study or performance careers will find these exercises essential, but even recreational singers benefit from the progressive structure and musical quality. Pedagogically, this collection serves voice teachers who want material that teaches both technique and musicianship without separating them.

• Treat the simplest vocalises as opportunities to establish relaxed breath support and clean vowel transitions rather than rushing through to the harder material. Foundation work always repays itself.
• Pay attention to Faure's accompaniment writing, which is rarely neutral. The piano often outlines harmonic movement or contour that guides where the voice should place the phrase.
• When tackling the virtuosic passages near the end of the collection, isolate the intervallic patterns that recur across different exercises; recognizing these shapes speeds up learning and builds flexibility faster than drilling pitches alone.
• Pair these with recorded accompaniments to develop independence from the piano while keeping the rhythmic anchor steady during longer technical passages.

Assign these progressively throughout a studio year, moving from elementary studies in fall semester to more ambitious material by spring, or extract individual vocalises as warm-ups in group vocal classes. They also work beautifully as recital encores when performed in small groups, showcasing technical work in a concert setting.

• Vowel consistency across registers and dynamic levels
• Legit facility with sustained passages and scalar passages
• Phrase shaping using harmonic and textural cues in accompaniment
• Intervallic precision and intonation in larger leaps
• Articulation control at varying tempos and dynamic ranges
• Sight-singing fluency in French harmonic language
• Breath management across longer musical lines