Dance Music Archives - Port Townsend Symphony Orchestra

February 19, 2019August 11, 2019

CARMEN SUITE NO. 1 by Georges Bizet, 1838-1875

French composer Georges Bizet’s “Carmen,” written in 1874, became the world’s most performed opera. Despite its eventual success, Bizet died in Paris of a “broken heart” (a ruptured artery) at age thirty-seven due to the initial “failure” of the work.

Some critics considered this piece “indelicate” in its depiction of the opera’s subject matter — the downfall of a soldier after Carmen seduces and abandons him. However, the story appealed greatly to the Parisian theatre-goers.

The “Carmen Suite” contains music derived from the opera and was published between 1882 and 1887, years after Bizet’s death.

The opening prelude introduces the ominnous theme associated with both Carmen and her fate at the hands of her lover, Don Jose. The following aragonaise (a dance from the region of Aragon in Spain) is the festive yet sinuous music that opens the final act of the opera as crowds arrive for a parade outside the bullring. An intermezzo, a serenely melancholic section based on the prelude to the final act, leads to a seguiedille that Carmen sings to seduce Jose. The suite ends with a jaunty military march, “Les Dragons d’Alcala,” followed by the famous march “Les Toreadores,” the entry of the bullfighters, which is actually the opening piece of the opera.

February 5, 2019August 11, 2019

FANTASIA PARA UN GENTILHOMBRE by Joaquin Rodrigo, 1901-1999

(Fantasia for a Gentleman)

Joaquin Rodrigo is the most popular Spanish composer of the 20th century. Although he wrote music for many different instruments and ensembles, he is best remembered for his pieces for the guitar.

At age three, he completely lost his eyesight after contracting diptheria. His blindness did not diminish his musical abilities. He began to study piano and violin at age eight, and harmony and composition at age sixteen. He was accepted into the Conservatoire de Paris where he was a pupil of Paul Dukas.

Rodrigo’s own compositions were written in Braille, then transcribed into standard musical notation for publication. His most famous works, both for Spanish guitar and orchestra, are “Concierto de Aranjuez” and “Fantasia para un Gentilhombre.”

Rodrigo composed “Fantasia for a Gentleman” in 1954 at the request of guitar virtuoso Andres Segovia. It is in four movements based on short dance melodies from a 17th century instructional guitar manual by Spanish composer Gaspar Sanz. Many believe that the “gentleman” referred to in the title is Sanz. But Rodrigo probably intended this concerto to honor Segovia, the guitarist.

This piece was premiered on March 5th, 1958, in San Fransisco, with Segovia as the soloist.

January 29, 2019August 11, 2019

PAVANE, OP. 50 by Gabriel Fauré, 1845-1924

Gabriel Fauré was born in the south of France in 1845. At age nine, he was sent to Paris to be trained as a church organist and choirmaster. Among his teachers was Camille Saint-Saens, who became a lifelong friend. As a young adult, Fauré made a modest living as an organist and teacher, leaving him little time for composition.

By middle age ha had become the director of the Conservatoire de Paris (the Conservatory of Music in Paris), and during the summers he would retreat to the countryside to relax and concentrate on composing.

On an 1887 creative outing, Fauré wrote to his wife, “while I was thinking about a thousand different things of no importance whatsoever, a kind of rhythmic theme in the style of a Spanish dance took form in my brain… This theme developed itself, became harmonized in different ways, changed and modulated, in effect, it germinated itself.”

That theme became Fauré’s Pavane Op. 50, and it recieved its premiere in Paris the following year (1888). The pavane is bnased on one basic melody first introduced by solo flute with pizzicato strings imitating a guitar accompaniment. Its pattern and form were used by Fauré’s student at that time, Maurice Ravel, for his “Pavane pour une infante defunte.”