born Alexandre-César-Léopold Bizet
(Paris, October 25, 1838 - Bougival, June 3, 1875)
Coming from a family of musicians, he was a pupil of Halévy in Paris, and in 1857 he won the coveted Prix de Rome of the Conservatory, then spent until 1860 a fruitful period of creative results in Rome, Naples, and Venice. Back in Paris, he works at the Théàtre Lyrique, while his opera production fails to establish itself and is harshly criticized. In 1869 he married Halévy's daughter and moved to the Opéra as a singing teacher, tirelessly continuing his work as a composer despite his difficulties and misunderstandings. Not even his masterpiece, Carmen, met the success of the public at the first performance: only after his death, which took place in circumstances not yet clarified, the ascending parable of his fortune was to begin in theaters and concert halls all over the world.
Between 1873 and 1875, Bizet worked on Carmen, his masterpiece, fascinating work for the richness of musical invention, soft and sensual melodism, ductility of harmony, lightness of dances, and folkloric elements. A work that will have among its most enthusiastic admirers Friedrich Nietzsche, Pëtr Il'ič Čajkovskij, Giacomo Puccini, Johannes Brahms, and later the young Sigmund Freud.
But the subject, taken from a short story by Prosper Mérimée and set in the Spai an intense for the gypsies and bullfighters, arouses a substantial scandal, and the disappointing outcome of the "premiere" is followed by the harsh and violent reaction of the press. Bizet's fragile nervous system is deeply troubled. The situation is aggravated by a violent angina attack with suffocation, so much so that the thirty-seven-year-old composer is confined to a wheelchair. On May 28, 1875, he left with Geneviève for Bougival, where, refreshed by a couple of days of peaceful walks, he allowed himself a bath in the river: an imprudence that caused him a fit of rheumatic fever and a heart attack. On 2 June, the crisis seems to have been overcome. In the evening, at the Opéra-Comique, the 33rd replica of Carmen is staged; Bizet dies in the night (June 3, 1875). The family provides conflicting versions of the causes of death: it was never clear whether Bizet died of a heart attack, angina or if his severe depression led to suicide.
The funeral takes place on June 5 in Paris, in the Trinité church in Montmartre, in the presence of four thousand people.
Bizet's orchestral compositions are distinguished by the all-French clarté for their elegance and lightness, the sclidity of solidityructure, and inventive richness. If his name remains linked above all to Carmen, the immortal symbol of French opera, also his orchestral production presents that vividness of colors and that luminous balance that audiences from all over the world praise in his masterpiece.
The composer's models are classical - from Beethoven to Rossini -. Still, he has a lot of his own to say. He says it with incisiveness, with a meaningful speech, it goes directly to the expressive purpose he proposes: Bizet is an almost Mozartian spirit in his clarity, but it is intensely colored by a romantic vein that makes him one of the most complete and significant representatives of French music.
Composed at only 17 years of age, this Symphony remained unknown for a long time, and only in 1935 was it performed with considerable success with audiences and critics. Despite the very young composer's inexperience, this composition's linear and terse smoothness, a miniature model of elegance, and a flowing and well-drawn page exudes a soft romantic aura. As a demonstration of this composition's linear and terse smoothness, we will only say that it was used in recent times by George Balanchine to make it a pure ballet, which is an abstract interpretation of the musical drawings of the Byzetian score.
The formal structure of the Symphony, which could be considered a study essay were it not for the freshness and already remarkable personality of the musical ideas, is agile and rapid.
The Allegro vivo at the beginning is followed by an Adagio culminating in a delicious fugato, then the Scherzo in tempo. Allegro is lively and has an equally quick finish, savory and biting in the transparency of its lines.
