Georges Bizet: Arlesienne (L') No 1 Menuet

Transcribed by Jules Herman for Flute and Piano this item contains the Flute and Piano parts for the music for the play L'Arlesienne composed by Georges Bizet. This is the first minuet one of the surviving pieces of music composed for Alphonse Daudet's play which was less than favourably received by contemporary audiences but nevertheless is still performed regularly today.

Par BIZET / CHARDON. Les Soli de L'Arlésienne de Georges Bizet. Transcription pour Saxophone Alto Mi b et piano pzr Félix Chardon. 2 cahiers séparés./ Répertoire / Saxophone en Mib et Piano

The première of Daudet's play L'Arlésienne with incidental music by Bizet given at the Théâtre du Vaudeville on 30 September 1872 was a devastating event for both playwright and composer and the production was removed from the repertory after 19 performances. The critic Johannès Weber however was alert to the quality of Bizet's score and suggested that the composer should excerpt and rescore several pieces for the Concerts populaires where 'the lovely music would be better appreciated than at the Vaudeville'. Bizet must have moved rather quickly to follow Weber's suggestion for the première of the first Arlésienne suitetook place only six weeks later at the Concerts populaires on 10 November 1872 and the work in its new abridged form was soon taken up by many other orchestras. Bizet however did not turn to preparing a second suite from L'Arlésienne. Some four years after Bizet's death the success of the first suite may have prompted his original publisher to commission the arrangement of more excerpts from the Arlésienne MS from Bizet's good friend Ernest Guiraud who had earlier written recitatives and put together a ballet for Carmen.