Download Georges Bizet: L`Arlesienne Suite

Greg Waxberg is Music Director of Mississippi Public Broadcasting Radio, program
annotator for opera companies and a freelance writer covering the arts.
Georges Bizet: L’Arlesienne Suite
This charming collection, arranged by Crafton Beck, comprises six of the 27
pieces that Bizet composed for Alphonse Daudet’s play. “L’Arlesienne,” or “The Girl
from Arles,” is a tragic story about unrequited love in which the title character never
appears. Bizet wrote his incidental music for 26 instruments, first heard on October 1,
1872. Although we are most familiar with the two orchestral suites, the first was Bizet’s
creation. The second suite was arranged and re-orchestrated by Bizet’s friend, Ernest
Guiraud, based on additional music for the play.
“Having gotten to know the play itself and the original entire work, I was taken by
how much great music is there, and I wanted to present as much of it as I could. Then,
having decided to join the two suites together, as it were, I had to move things around a
bit to make…a nice flow,” Maestro Beck said.
The Pastorale (Suite No. 2) is an orchestration of an off-stage chorus, and the
main theme is presented in broad strokes with timpani, horns and strings. The woodwinds
play the same melody and the original orchestration returns twice more.
In the Adagietto (Suite No. 1), slow strings accompany the reunion of two people
who used to be in love. The Minuet (Suite No. 1) is the intermezzo between the play’s
third and fourth acts.
Carillon (Suite No. 1) is a combination of two pieces from the original score. A
rhythmic theme in the horns introduces the strings and continues while they play. The
horn motif returns in the midst of a pastoral section for the woodwinds and strings, then
the woodwinds play the earlier string melody. The original combination returns for the
conclusion.
The next Minuet (Suite No. 2) was taken from Bizet’s early opera The Fair Maid
of Perth. It is mainly for harp and woodwinds, with orchestral chords reminiscent of
Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann.
The final movement, Farandole (Suite No. 2), begins with a grand orchestral
statement of the motif that opens Bizet’s first suite (“March of the Kings,” a Christmas
song from Provence). Next, one group of strings plays the melody right after the other
group. Guiraud introduces a new rhythmic motif in the flutes that leads to faster versions
for woodwinds and strings, and the orchestra. He alternates the two melodies and
ultimately combines them.
Maurice Ravel: Daphnis and Chloe, Suite No. 2
Ravel described his ballet as a “choreographic symphony in three parts.” Serge
Diaghilev commissioned it for the Ballets Russe, the same impresario and company
responsible for Stravinsky’s The Firebird, Petrouchka and The Rite of Spring. When he
approached Ravel, Diaghilev was looking for French music and Russian choreography.
In fact, according to critic and musicologist Hans Heinz Stuckenschmidt in his
book “Maurice Ravel: Variations on His Life and Work,” Ravel’s orchestral sound and
sense of rhythm fit very well with the stage world that Diaghilev wanted to create.
Stuckenschmidt also points out the ambitious level of Ravel’s score for Daphnis and
Chloe – his richest orchestration, including two harps, various drums, cymbals, triangle,
castanets, celeste and glockenspiel.
The ballet was a three-year project for Ravel. He began work in 1909, and the
first performance took place at the Theatre du Chatelet on June 8, 1912 (the Suite No. 2 is
from 1913). Waslaw Nijinsky was Daphnis, Tamara Karsavina was Chloe, the
choreography was by Mikhail Fokine and Pierre Monteux conducted. Fokine’s scenario
is based on a romance by the Greek poet Longus. The action takes place at the edge of a
forest sacred to the god Pan, and Ravel arranged the second suite from Part III of the
ballet.
Ravel evokes dawn in the first part of the suite, with a misty vapor of woodwinds.
The strings come to life, from lower to higher ranges, and the composer masterfully
expands the orchestra. The second part (when Daphnis and Chloe perform a pantomime
of Pan wooing the nymph Syrinx) is quieter, musical phrases are more fragmented and
Ravel briefly introduces cymbals and other percussion before the swirling woodwinds
return. The final part (a bacchanal) has fantastic rhythms as a dance develops with brass,
percussion and timpani, leading to dramatic chords and swells of sound.
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1
Tchaikovsky was rather humble about approaching his first piano concerto, which
he composed in the winter of 1874. He was not a pianist and never had written for piano
and orchestra. So, to try to gauge his progress, he sought the advice of Nikolai
Rubinstein, a friend and colleague at the Moscow Conservatory and his intended
dedicatee. After playing the piano score for Rubinstein, the composer related that silence
filled the room. Then, Rubinstein hurled every possible nasty word of description and
said he would still perform the piece if Tchaikovsky made changes.
But the composer had none of that. He defiantly told Rubinstein that he would
publish the concerto anyway and, after finishing the orchestration, dedicated it to Hans
von Bulow, who praised the concerto and gave the first performance in Boston on
October 25, 1875. The incident recalls Beethoven erasing Napoleon from the dedication
of his Symphony No. 3, although Tchaikovsky eventually made some changes and
Rubinstein later played the concerto.
The piece incorporates folk tunes and, as with the Fourth Symphony, is set in
motion by the horns: four descending notes played three times, separated by orchestral
chords. The soloist enters with vigorous chords while the strings play a romantic version
of the four notes – one of the most beloved moments in Tchaikovsky’s music. When this
opening settles, the pianist plays the motif with each note doubled and continues with the
motif in its original form. The strings return while the pianist continues to play
vigorously. Later, the strings quietly begin a new theme that subtly advances to the
woodwinds and piano, and it’s interspersed with the woodwinds playing the four-note
motif. The newer melody expands through the orchestra and the movement ends in grand
style.
The second movement quotes a waltz that was sung by Desiree Artot, a Belgian
singer whom Tchaikovsky came close to marrying. There are combinations of pizzicato
(plucked strings), woodwinds and strings. Even though this is a slow movement, the
piano develops wonderful rhythms.
A scherzo dominates the first part of the third movement, starting with the
timpani, strings and woodwinds. It transfers to the piano, then woodwinds, then full
orchestra. Tchaikovsky alternates this scherzo, in various versions, with a new romantic
theme in the strings that the piano absorbs. In the midst of a slower version of the
scherzo, the romantic melody builds and finally erupts in glorious fashion. The scherzo
returns quickly before the finale.