L’Arlesienne Suite No. 1

• Bizet arranged this suite from his incidental music to the 1872 play L’Arlésienne ¹ (“The Young Woman from Arles”)² by French novelistand short-story writer Alphonse Daudet (1840-1897).
  • The play was unsuccessful and Bizet salvaged the music in this suite.³
• The author Daudet asked Bizet to compose the incidental music.⁴
• Much of the music is in a genre called mélodrame: live music played under dialogue, like film underscoring.⁵
• Story: Frédéri falls in love with a mysterious young woman from Arles (who is never seen onstage). When he learns the girl from Arles loves another man, Frédéri agrees to marry an innocent country girl. However, he is driven mad with heartbreak over the girl from Arles, and takes his own life the night before the wedding.⁶

“It was a glittering flop with the loveliest music in the world.”

Alphonse Daudet reportedly said this of his play L’Arlésienne.⁷

Adagietto

• This movement originally underscored a tender conversation between a man and a woman who meet for the first time after fifty years. They talk about the love they never expressed for each other when they were young.⁸

1. Hugh Macdonald, “Bizet, Georges,” Grove Music Online (Oxford University Press, 2001), accessed July 25, 2019, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000051829.
2. Betsy Schwarm, “L’Arlésienne,” Encyclopædia Britannica (March 15, 2016), accessed July 25, 2019, https://www.britannica.com/topic/LArlesienne-incidental-music-by-Bizet.
3. Macdonald, “Bizet, Georges,” Grove Music Online.
4. Schwarm, “L’Arlésienne,” Encyclopædia Britannica
5. Macdonald, “Bizet, Georges,” Grove Music Online
6. Schwarm, “L’Arlésienne,” Encyclopædia Britannica
7. Phillip Huscher, “Program Notes: Suite No. 2 from L’arlésienne,” The Chicago Symphony Orchestra, accessed July 25, 2019, https://cso.org/uploadedfiles/1_tickets_and_events/program_notes/programnotes_bizet_larlesienne.pdf.
8. James Reel, “Georges Bizet: L’Arlésienne, incidental music for voices & orchestra for the play by Alphonse Daudet,” All Music, accessed July 25, 2019, https://www.allmusic.com/composition/l-arl%C3%A9sienne-incidental-music-for-voices-orchestra-for-the-play-by-alphonse-daudet-mc0002657849.