<P> Fauré's new position left him better off financially . However, while he also became much more widely known as a composer, running the Conservatoire left him with no more time for composition than when he was struggling to earn a living as an organist and piano teacher . As soon as the working year was over, in the last days of July, he would leave Paris and spend the two months until early October in a hotel, usually by one of the Swiss lakes, to concentrate on composition . His works from this period include his lyric opera, Pénélope (1913), and some of his most characteristic later songs (e.g., the cycle La chanson d'Ève, Op. 95, completed in 1910) and piano pieces (Nocturnes Nos. 9--11; Barcarolles Nos. 7--11, written between 1906 and 1914). </P> <P> Fauré was elected to the Institut de France in 1909, after his father - in - law and Saint - Saëns, both long - established members, had canvassed strongly on his behalf . He won the ballot by a narrow margin, with 18 votes against 16 for the other candidate, Widor . In the same year a group of young composers led by Ravel and Koechlin broke with the Société Nationale de Musique, which under the presidency of Vincent d'Indy had become a reactionary organisation, and formed a new group, the Société musicale indépendante . While Fauré accepted the presidency of this society, he also remained a member of the older one and continued on the best of terms with d'Indy; his sole concern was the fostering of new music . In 1911 he oversaw the Conservatoire's move to new premises in the rue de Madrid . </P> <P> During this time, Fauré developed serious problems with his hearing . Not only did he start to go deaf, but sounds became distorted, so that high and low notes sounded painfully out of tune to him . </P> <P> The turn of the 20th century saw a rise in the popularity of Fauré's music in Britain, and to a lesser extent in Germany, Spain and Russia . He visited England frequently, and an invitation to play at Buckingham Palace in 1908 opened many other doors in London and beyond . He attended the London premiere of Elgar's First Symphony, in 1908, and dined with the composer afterwards . Elgar later wrote to their mutual friend Frank Schuster that Fauré "was such a real gentleman--the highest kind of Frenchman and I admired him greatly ." Elgar tried to get Fauré's Requiem put on at the Three Choirs Festival, but it did not finally have its English premiere until 1937, nearly fifty years after its first performance in France . Composers from other countries also loved and admired Fauré . In the 1880s Tchaikovsky had thought him "adorable"; Albéniz and Fauré were friends and correspondents until the former's early death in 1909; Richard Strauss sought his advice; and in Fauré's last years, the young American Aaron Copland was a devoted admirer . </P>

French impressionist composer whose music sounds free and spontaneous almost improvised