"L’Arlésienne": Suite No.1
Prélude
Minuetto
Adagietto
Carillon
When, in 1872, Bizet was commissioned to compose incidental music for a production of Alphonse Daudet’s play "L’Arlésienne", he had for the first time in his career the opportunity of working with a writer whose gifts equaled his own. The play caught his imagination, and he responded with a suite of 27 short numbers scored for chorus and small orchestra. The music ranged from brief mélodrames (played underneath the action on stage) to substantial entr’actes and preludes. It responded both to the colourful Provençal setting of the drama and the psychology of the individual characters to an extent which was unusual for 19th century French theatre, where the incidental music to a play was generally considered to be rather less important than the actors’ hairstyles. The production ran for only 21 performances, to largely empty houses. The audience’s objections seem baffling today; some appear to have resented the fact that the title character, the "Girl from Arles", does not actually appear in the play, while others, sad to say, felt that there were "too many overtures". Despite this, Bizet’s faith in the quality of his music was unshaken, and he took immediate steps to ensure its survival outside the theatre. He drew a four-movement concert suite from the score, arranged for full orchestra, and this was performed within a month of the play’s closing at one of Jules Pasdeloup’s concerts of contemporary music. As a suite, the music was an immediate success, so much so that the orchestrator Ernest Guiraud created a Second Suite from "L’Arlésienne" four years after Bizet’s death. Both suites have held the repertoire ever since, although the First Suite, performed tonight, was the only one sanctioned by Bizet himself.
Set in Provence, "L’Arlésienne" is the story of two young peasants, Fréderi, who is obsessed by a girl from Arles, and his simple brother, known as "L’Innocent". The girl from Arles never appears but is a femme fatale in the mould of Bizet’s most celebrated dramatic creation, Carmen. Fréderi’s unrequited passion gradually drives him to distraction, and at the climax of the play he throws himself from a high window as the villagers dance a farandole in the streets below. To the Parisian of 1872 Provence was every bit as exotic as Spain, and the plot gave Bizet ample opportunity for sun-drenched orchestral colours and folk melodies, as well as some sensitive musical character-studies. The Prélude is in three sections; first a short set of variations on the Marcho dei Rei, a melody of unknown Spanish or Provençal origin, then the expressive saxophone melody which characterises "L’Innocent", and finally the impassioned, chromatic music associated with Fréderi’s hopeless longing. The graceful Minuetto, with its flowing trio section, was one of the entr’actes to which the original audience objected so strongly, while the touching Adagietto (for strings alone) is a mélodrame, originally played beneath a scene in which two elderly peasants, childhood sweethearts, are re-united. The suite closes with the sonorous Carillon, the prelude to Act 4 of the play – the bells of the village ring out to celebrate the festival which will be the setting for the drama’s tragic climax. The short central section, pastoral in character, comes from another mélodrame, after which Bizet skillfully re-introduces the bell music to bring the suite to a vigorous conclusion.
R.G. Bratby, 2000
Copyright Classical Notes.co.uk 2000
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