Symphony in C major (1855)
Written at 17; lost until 1933 and first performed in 1935
Music
Georges Bizet
1838–1875 · French
Romantic
Bizet was a French composer whose opera Carmen (1875) became one of the most popular operas ever written. He died aged 36, three months after its lukewarm premiere, never knowing its eventual triumph; his Pearl Fishers and L'Arlésienne music are also enduring favourites.
How to spot them
- ▸Sun-drenched Spanish colour: castanets, habanera and seguidilla rhythms, bullfight swagger
- ▸Crisp, bright French orchestration with irresistible, instantly hummable tunes
- ▸Clues about a cigarette factory in Seville, a toreador, a soldier called Don José, or Ceylon pearl divers
Key works — listen
Les pêcheurs de perles (The Pearl Fishers) (1863)
Opera set in Ceylon, famous for the tenor–baritone duet "Au fond du temple saint"
Recording: Unknown · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
L'Arlésienne (1872)
Incidental music to Daudet's play; the suites include the Farandole
Carmen (1875)
Opéra comique after Mérimée: gypsy Carmen, soldier Don José and toreador Escamillo in Seville
Recording: Musopen · CC0, Wikimedia Commons
Habanera, "L'amour est un oiseau rebelle" (Carmen) (1875)
Carmen's entrance aria over a sultry habanera rhythm
Toreador Song, "Votre toast, je peux vous le rendre" (Carmen) (1875)
Escamillo's swaggering Act 2 aria
Recording: Musopen · CC0, Wikimedia Commons
Quick-fire facts
- •Carmen premiered at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 3 March 1875; its libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy after Prosper Mérimée's novella.
- •Bizet died at Bougival on 3 June 1875, aged 36, exactly three months after Carmen's premiere.
- •The Habanera melody was adapted from "El Arreglito" by the Spanish composer Sebastián Iradier, which Bizet mistook for a folk song.
- •Ernest Guiraud replaced Carmen's spoken dialogue with sung recitatives for the Vienna production of 1875; he also arranged the second L'Arlésienne suite.
- •Bizet won the Prix de Rome in 1857.
- •He married Geneviève Halévy, daughter of his composition teacher Fromental Halévy.
- •His Symphony in C, written in 1855 while he was a student at the Paris Conservatoire, was not performed until 1935, under Felix Weingartner in Basel.
- •He also wrote Jeux d'enfants, a suite of children's games for piano duet (1871).
Drill it — 9 cards
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Sources
- Grove Music Online (Oxford University Press) — Bizet, Georges [Alexandre-César-Léopold]
- Encyclopaedia Britannica — Georges Bizet