Orchestra - Farandole from L'Arlésienne Suite no. 2
Channel: Music Department, King Edward VI School, Stratford
Date: 2020-03-16

Farandole from L’Arlésienne Suite no. 2 - Bizet (1838–1875)

In 1872, Léon Carvalho, director of the Théâtre du Vaudeville, asked Georges Bizet to write incidental music to a play by Alphonse Daudet, L’Arlésienne (The Woman from Arles). Bizet quickly supplied a score with 27 interludes. Both playwright and composer agreed that Bizet’s music far outshone the play. Daudet himself is credited with making this perceptive remark after the play’s lacklustre premiere: “a most dazzling failure with the most charming music in the world.”  
Bizet quickly assembled four of his score’s original 27 movements into an orchestral suite, which found immediate success in the concert hall. Four years later, after Bizet’s untimely death at age 35, his friend and colleague Ernest Guiraud compiled a second orchestral suite from music Bizet did not use in the first. Giraud found this project somewhat challenging, as Bizet had already extracted the best musical excerpts for L’Arlésienne. 
The closing Farandole is an ingenious fusion of popular tunes from Provence: the majestic Christmas hymn, “March of the Three Kings,” and a buoyant Provençal folk dance, “Danse dei Chivaux-Frus” (Dance of the Fiery Horses). 

Performed by Orchestra at the Gala Concert 2020
Conducted by Mrs Madden

Images courtesy of Nick B Images https://www.nickbimages.com/p464440876