Notes for: August 4, 2021
6. Trompette et tambour – marche (Trumpet and drum)
3. La Poupée – berceuse (The doll)
2. La Toupie – impromptu (The spinning top)
11. Petit mari, petite femme – duo (Little husband, little wife)
12. Le bal – galop (The ball)
Bizet was a deeply disappointed man. He had hoped that his new opera, Carmen, would be his breakthrough work. But the public reaction to it, while respectable, was not overwhelming. Three months after its premiere, Bizet died of a heart attack at the age of 36, and thus he never was to know that Carmen would become one of the most popular operas of all time.
Bizet already had shown that he was a composer of immense talent. A child prodigy, he entered the Paris Conservatory at the age of nine, an exception to the Conservatory rule against accepting children, and at 19 he won the school’s coveted Prix de Rome. But success as a composer eluded him. He partly supported himself by transcribing and arranging the works of other composers. He was a brilliant pianist – he amazed Liszt by sight-reading one of Liszt’s most difficult pieces – but he wrote few keyboard works and chose not to pursue a career as a concert pianist. His main focus was on opera, several of which he started but never finished. One work that did find an enthusiastic audience was the orchestral suite L’Arlésienne. Another was Jeux d’enfants, a picturesque set of twelve miniatures for piano four hands that call up a child’s world. After Bizet wrote these evocative pieces, he chose five, rearranged their order, and orchestrated them as the Petite Suite for orchestra. Those are the five we are playing today, arranged in the same order as in the Suite but played in the original four-hand version.
Each of these little character pieces is distinctive in mood and spirit. Together they showcase Bizet’s great gifts for melody and harmony as he captures the joy and charm of children’s play. The set opens with a flourish with Trompette et tambour (Trumpet and drum), a perky march that evokes toy soldiers parading around the playroom. (It’s a short distance from this march to the “Children’s March” in Carmen.) While the soldiers cavort, La Poupée (The doll) is lulled to sleep with a beguiling lullaby. Meanwhile La Toupie (The spinning top) swirls and whirls over a perpetual-motion base, while two children play house in the lyrical and affectionate duo Petit mari, petite femme (Little husband, little wife). The suite ends with a rousing galop, Le bal (The ball), an exuberant finale to a work filled with youthful wonder and delight.
Notes for: August 2, 2022
Bizet was a deeply disappointed man. He had hoped that his new opera, Carmen, would be his breakthrough work. But the public reaction to it, while respectable, was not overwhelming. Three months after its premiere, Bizet died of a heart attack at the age of 36, and thus he never was to know that Carmen would become one of the most popular operas of all time.
Bizet already had shown that he was a composer of immense talent. A child prodigy, he entered the Paris Conservatory at the age of nine, an exception to the Conservatory rule against accepting children, and at 19 he won the school’s coveted Prix de Rome. But success as a composer eluded him. He partly supported himself by transcribing and arranging the works of other composers. He was a brilliant pianist – he amazed Liszt by sight-reading one of Liszt’s most difficult pieces – but he wrote few keyboard works and chose not to pursue a career as a concert pianist. His main focus was on opera, several of which he started but never finished. One work that did find an enthusiastic audience was the orchestral suite L’Arlésienne. Another was Jeaux d’enfants, a picturesque set of twelve miniatures for piano four hands that call up a child’s world. After Bizet wrote these evocative pieces, he chose five, rearranged their order, and orchestrated them as the Petite Suite for orchestra. Those are the five we are playing today, arranged in the same order as in the Suite but played in the original four-hand version.
Each of these little character pieces is distinctive in mood and spirit. Together they showcase Bizet’s great gifts for melody and harmony as he captures the joy and charm of children’s play. The set opens with a flourish with Trompette et tambour (Trumpet and drum), a perky march that evokes toy soldiers parading around the playroom. (It’s a short distance from this march to the “Children’s March” in Carmen.) While the soldiers cavort, La Poupée (The doll) is lulled to sleep with a beguiling lullaby. Meanwhile La Toupie (The spinning top) swirls and whirls over a perpetual-motion base, while two children play house in the lyrical and affectionate duo Petit mari, petite femme (Little husband, little wife). The suite ends with a rousing galop, Le bal (The ball), an exuberant finale to a work filled with youthful wonder and delight.