Known for one of the world's most popular operas,
Carmen, Georges Bizet deserves attention as well for
other works of remarkable melodic charm. Many of his
works received cool receptions on their premieres but
are now considered central to the repertory of
classical music.
Bizet was born in Paris on October 25, 1838, and grew
up in a happy, musical family that encouraged his
talents. He learned to read music at the same time he
learned to read letters, and equally well. Entering the
Par...(+)
Known for one of the world's most popular operas,
Carmen, Georges Bizet deserves attention as well for
other works of remarkable melodic charm. Many of his
works received cool receptions on their premieres but
are now considered central to the repertory of
classical music.
Bizet was born in Paris on October 25, 1838, and grew
up in a happy, musical family that encouraged his
talents. He learned to read music at the same time he
learned to read letters, and equally well. Entering the
Paris Conservatory before he was ten, he earned first
prize in solfège within six months, a first prize in
piano in 1852, and eventually, the coveted Prix de Rome
in 1857 for his cantata Clovis et Clotilde. His
teachers had included Marmontel for piano and Halévy
for composition, but the greatest influence on him was
Charles Gounod, of whom Bizet later said "You were the
beginning of my life as an artist." Bizet himself hid
away his Symphony in C, written when he was 17, feeling
it was too much like its models, Gounod's symphonies.
The two years spent in Rome after winning his prize,
would be the only extensive time, and a greatly
impressionable one, that Bizet would spend outside of
Paris in his brief life. When he returned to Paris, he
lost confidence in his natural talents and began to
substitute dry Germanic or academic writing for his own
developing idiom. He composed a one-act opera for
production at the Opéra-Comique, but the theater's
director engaged him to write a full-length opera
instead, Les pêcheurs de perles (The Pearl Fishers).
It was not a success at the time, but despite a few
weaknesses, the work was revived in 1886, and its sheer
beauty has earned it a respected position among the
lesser-played operatic repertory. In 1863 Bizet's
father bought land outside Paris where he built two
bungalows, one of which Bizet frequently used as a
compositional retreat. He began a friendship
(apparently not a physical one) with a neighbor-woman
named Céleste Mogador, a former actress, author,
courtesan, circus rider, and dance-hall girl. She is
said to have been the model for his masterpiece's title
role of Carmen.
Both L'Arlésienne suites are taken from the incidental
music Bizet wrote for Alfred Daudet's play of the same
name, a melodrama about the love of the hero,
Frédéri, for a girl from Arles in Provence, France.
In a little over six weeks, and limited to an orchestra
of 26 players, Bizet produced 27 numbers, some no more
than a few bars long. Taken together, they are an
orchestral tour de force. The orchestra includes a
saxophone in E flat, tambourine, piano, and harmonium,
with the addition of a small chorus. A few passages are
for string quartet alone. The overall effect is of a
fully developed, closely integrated set of movements
that, as concert performances of the original version
have shown, easily stand on their own, and benefit from
being freed from the dialogue that accompanied them in
the play.
A month after the first production Bizet rescored the
four extracts that form the first suite for full
orchestra, with the equally sunny and melodious second
suite arranged by his friend, the composer Ernest
Guiraud, after Bizet's death. Both have proved more
durable than the play. Lyrical and spirited by turns,
the melodies are rooted in Provençal folk songs and
dances, yet have all the color and drama associated
with the composer of Carmen.
The first suite comprises four movements: Prelude,
Intermezzo (with its title changed to Minuet),
Adagietto, and Carillon. Apart from the scoring, the
Prelude and Adagietto are unchanged from the original.
The latter, a calm reverie for strings, has some
magical effects that could not have been conveyed by
the original small orchestra. Brass chords set against
exultant strings vividly suggest the sound of bells in
the Carillon.
Guiraud was closely associated with Bizet's music,
having supplied recitatives for Carmen. The choral
sections make a satisfying whole when the two suites
are played consecutively. Guiraud uses almost the same
orchestra as Bizet, though in places with less
subtlety. A Pastorale and its following chorus are
treated in a similar way to Bizet's Carillon. The
Intermezzo, with some fine woodwind passages in the
trio section, reinstates the Minuet from the first
suite. A second Minuet imported from Bizet's opera The
Fair Maid of Perth is pleasant, but sounds rather odd
in this context. Guiraud's version of the Farandole
(slightly altered from Bizet's) captures the
exhilarating nature of this moderately fast traditional
"chain" dance.
Although originally composed for Orchestra, I created
this Arrangement of the Menuet from L'Arlésienne
(Suite No.1 Op. 23 No. 2) for Small Orchestra (Bb
Trumpets, Flutes, Oboes, Bb Clarinets, Bass Clarinets,
French Horns, Bassoons, Timpani, Violins, Viola, Cellos
& Basses).
PARTITION