L'Arlésienne (Bizet)
L'Arlésienne is incidental music composed by Georges Bizet for Alphonse Daudet's drama of the same name, usually translated as The Girl from Arles.
However, key pieces of the incidental music, most often heard in the form of two suites for full orchestra, have become some of Bizet's most popular compositions.
On the other hand, seven numbers, including the Prélude, four entr'actes (later known as the Pastorale, Intermezzo, Minuetto, and Carillon), one longer mélodrame (the Adagietto) and the Farandole, are both distinctive and lengthy enough to stand on their own outside of their stage setting.
To help give the composition Provençal color, Bizet used three existing tunes from a folk/traditional music collection found in the book Lou Tambourin, Istori de l'Estrumen Prouvençau (The Tambourin, Avignon, 1864) by writer and tambourinaire François Vidal:[1] The premiere took place on 30 September 1872 in the Théâtre du Vaudeville.
[1] Bizet played the harmonium (alternately with his publisher, Antony Choudens, and associate, Ernest Guiraud) backstage at the theater in support of the chorus.
[1] Daudet later bitterly remarked: "It was a resounding flop amid the prettiest music in the world, silk and velvet costumes, and comic opera scenery.
23bis (1872) Bizet was assured that the best numbers from the incidental music, arranged for a full symphony orchestra, would be successful in the concert hall.
[1] The Carillon, on the other hand, is considerably enlarged by the addition of the andantino that framed the Adagietto, followed by a shortened repeat of the opening section.
1 became so popular that the publisher Choudens commissioned a second set, L'Arlésienne, 2me Suite d'Orchestre, in 1879, four years after Bizet's untimely death.
[1] The Minuet was taken from Scènes bohémiennes, a suite of material originally composed for Bizet's 1866 opera La jolie fille de Perth.
This is the effect Bizet had in mind when he set the tune "Danso dei Chivau-Frus", used in the Farandole to evoke the sound of tambourinaires playing during a festival celebrating Saint Eligius.
This was the circumstance in the premiere production, during which critic Arthur Pougin of Le Soir complained that the tambourin provençal had been replaced by an ordinary drum (tambour).
Act 1 Tableau 1: The Farm of Castelet In Scene 1, Francet Mamaï tells Balthazar of Frédéri’s passion for a girl from Arles.
Francet and Balthazar agree that Frédéri would be better off marrying an industrious local girl, such as Vivette Renaude, rather than a "town hussy".
Rose's brother Marc, who lives in Arles, and is due to arrive soon, has been tasked with investigating the Arlésienne and her family to be sure they are respectable.
When l'Innocent climbs high up into the hayloft in the turret, Rose, annoyed, expresses her dread that someone might fall from there onto the flagstones in the courtyard.
5), with offstage chorus 'Grand soleil de la Provence', also introduces the theme of the gardian Mitifio, whom Balthazar notices skulking about.
As wordless offstage chorus sing (№ 11: the shepherds's call), Balthazar leaves, having failed to make Frédéri destroy the letters from the Arlésienne which he reads night and day.
At the end of the act (№ 16: Final) when Frédéri decides that Vivette can help him forget his obsession, Balthazar and Rose express their relief.
The farandole (№ 22, Danso dei Chivau-Frus), which begins quietly and builds to a climax, sees Frédéri respond with fury to Mitifio, who has come to recover his letters.
Tableau 2: The Magnanery A brief statement of the 'Dance of the Frisky Horses' theme is heard, then the March of the Kings is sung by the chorus, after which the two are combined (No.
After Frédéri has leapt from the hayloft to his death on the courtyard pavement, the orchestra plays a powerful tutti version of his theme (№ 27: Final) which brings down the curtain.
1885) [8] The suite opens with a strong, energetic theme in C minor, which is based on the Epiphany carol "March of the Kings", played by the violins.
The Carillon portions of the music are written in E major, 34 meter, Allegretto moderato tempo, and feature an ostinato bell-tone pattern (G♯, E, F♯) on the horns, perhaps suggesting tolling church bells, throughout.
The main melody of the Carillon theme is scored for strings (and later the flutes); the other instruments for the most part play bell tones in support of the horns.
Sometime after this second suite was prepared from the L'Arlésienne music, Guiraud extracted the Intermezzo movement, added the Latin sacred text of the Agnus Dei to it, and published it as yet another "new" work of Bizet.
The menuet in E-Flat major, which is not from L'Arlésienne, but from Bizet's 1866 opera The Fair Maid of Perth, features solos by harp, flute, and, later, saxophone (this replacing the vocal parts of the original).
The "Carillon" was used in a very successful media campaign in Puerto Rico, launched in the late 1980s by the local importers of Finlandia vodka.
It featured French-born photographer Guy Paizy playing the role of a sophisticated, womanizing classical orchestra conductor.
French choreographer Roland Petit created a ballet L'Arlésienne in 1974 which has been performed throughout the world, based on Daudet's short story and set against a Van Gogh landscape.
