The exuberant amorousness of a newly-wed couple pulsates in every note of Gabriel Fauré’s Dans les ruines d’une abbaye (In the ruins of an abbey). In this piece, the reverent silence of prayer no longer prevails, but within the venerable walls "various shouts of joy" and "sparkling laughter" are now heard. The old graves have long been overgrown by stinging nettles, and a new dawn of spring and of love fills the air. Napoleonic post-revolutionary France, which drove the author of the poem, Victo...