Bizet

«Light Classics», un jure pour beaucoup, mais c'est exactement ce qui vient à l'esprit de la musique de Georges Bizet (1838-75). Bizet se révèle être un important créateur de mélodies accrocheuses et un grand expert en instrumentation. Il a créé un son orchestral romantique tardif de légèreté française et de richesse des couleurs, ce qui montre la grande compétence de Bizet. L'interprétation de Chung avec l'Orchestre de la Bastille est impeccable et souligne cette légèreté musicale sans tomber dans la douce kitsch. Le CD offre ainsi 68 minutes de pur plaisir d'écoute, musique simple au plus haut niveau.

Camille Saint-Saëns was only fifteen years old when he composed his first symphony in 1850, which is known as his Symphony No. 0 — his official Symphony No. 1 would not arrive for another three years. Gounod was thirty-seven years old when his La nonne sanglante was removed from the repertoire of the Paris Opera by a new director; he swiftly restored his spirits by composing a symphony for the Société des Jeunes Artistes in March 1855. Bizet, aged seventeen, began work on his Symphony in C major that same year. Gounod’s symphony clearly influenced Bizet’s work, as Bizet had just completed a transcription of it for piano four hands. This recording marks the beginning of a collaboration between the Alpha Classics label, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo and its music director Kazuki Yamada, a great lover of the French symphonic repertoire and also music director of the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and principal guest conductor of the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra and the Seiji Ozawa International Academy.

A collection of Bizet's piano music is a bit more desirable as a purchase than instrumental music by other composers known primarily for opera; Bizet was a fine pianist and made money through his keyboard skills while he was struggling as an opera composer. He wasn't happy about it, however, and his complete compositions as a group reveal his ambivalent attitude.

Georges Bizet - Symphony in C / L'Arlesienne-Suites 1 & 2
Academy of St Martin in the Fields / Sir Neville Marriner
EAC+LOG+CUE | WV: 249 MB | Full Artwork: 269 MB | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: EMI Classics # 7243 4 76785 2 3 | Country/Year: Europe 2005, 1994
Genre: Classical | Style: Romantic

The Symphony in C is an early work by the French composer Georges Bizet. According to Grove's Dictionary, the symphony "reveals an extraordinarily accomplished talent for a 17-year-old student, in melodic invention, thematic handling and orchestration." Bizet started work on the symphony on 29 October 1855, four days after turning 17, and finished it roughly a month later. (…) The symphony was immediately hailed as a youthful masterpiece on a par with Felix Mendelssohn's overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream, written at about the same age, and quickly became part of the standard Romantic repertoire. It received its first recording on 26 November 1937, by the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Walter Goehr.

Unlike some of the old RCA and Columbia Records classical works on LP, the DGG performances are excellent for getting the dynamics as realistic as possible, and this is an excellent example of this. Lalo I believe was French but with Spanish ancestry, I presume that is why he was paired with Bizet. But I find their styles of composition are not alike. Lalo loves to use various tempos of 3, either waltz type tempos or 6/8, but what I find interesting is that his music can at times be very fiery, probably due to the Spanish influence. This is displayed in many of the pieces in CD#2, and I've not found another composer who does this so effectively. He also is a master of orchestral color, using castanets, cymbals, and other percussion perfectly.