DOI article:
Willeby, Charles: The composer of "Carmen"
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21215#0074
yo The Composer of " Carmen "
handed to the management of the Th^ätre Lyrique. Then
Bizet, recognising as suddenly that he had made a mistake, with-
drew the score and burned it.
M. Charles Pigot, who is chiefly responsible for this Störy,
goes on to say that the libretto was the work of MM. Louis
Gallet and Edouard Blau. But in that he is not correct, for
Gallet himself teils us that he knew Bizet only ever so slightly at
the time, and that neither to him nor to Blau is due a single line
of this " Ivan."
Then there were " Griselidis," of which, in a letter dated
February of 1871, Bizet speaks as trh avande; "Ciarisse
Harlowe " ; and the " Calendal " of M. Sardou, to each of which
he referred in the same year as a peine commencle, There was also
an opera in one act written by M. Carvalho, and actually put
into rehearsal at the Opera Comique. But none of these saw the
light, and I have little doubt they all met their fate on a certain
eventful day, shortly before he died, when Bizet remorselessly
destroyed a whole pile of manuscript. And in truth these early
works had little value of themselves. They were but so many
rungs of the ladder by which he climbed to the heights of
" Djamileh," of " L'Arlesienne," and of " Carmen." No musician
ever took longer to know himself than did Georges Bizet. His
period of hesitation, of vacillation, was unduly protracted. For
why, it is hard to teil; but one cannot help feeling that the
terrible lutte pour la vie had a deal to do with it. Those early
years in Paris were very hard ones. " Believe me," he wrote from
le Vesinet (always a favourite spot with him), " believe me, it is
exasperating to have one's work interrupted for days to write
solos de piston. But what would you ? I must live. I have just
rushed off at a gallop half-a-dozen melodies for Heugel. I trust
you may like them. At least I have carefully chosen the verses.
My
handed to the management of the Th^ätre Lyrique. Then
Bizet, recognising as suddenly that he had made a mistake, with-
drew the score and burned it.
M. Charles Pigot, who is chiefly responsible for this Störy,
goes on to say that the libretto was the work of MM. Louis
Gallet and Edouard Blau. But in that he is not correct, for
Gallet himself teils us that he knew Bizet only ever so slightly at
the time, and that neither to him nor to Blau is due a single line
of this " Ivan."
Then there were " Griselidis," of which, in a letter dated
February of 1871, Bizet speaks as trh avande; "Ciarisse
Harlowe " ; and the " Calendal " of M. Sardou, to each of which
he referred in the same year as a peine commencle, There was also
an opera in one act written by M. Carvalho, and actually put
into rehearsal at the Opera Comique. But none of these saw the
light, and I have little doubt they all met their fate on a certain
eventful day, shortly before he died, when Bizet remorselessly
destroyed a whole pile of manuscript. And in truth these early
works had little value of themselves. They were but so many
rungs of the ladder by which he climbed to the heights of
" Djamileh," of " L'Arlesienne," and of " Carmen." No musician
ever took longer to know himself than did Georges Bizet. His
period of hesitation, of vacillation, was unduly protracted. For
why, it is hard to teil; but one cannot help feeling that the
terrible lutte pour la vie had a deal to do with it. Those early
years in Paris were very hard ones. " Believe me," he wrote from
le Vesinet (always a favourite spot with him), " believe me, it is
exasperating to have one's work interrupted for days to write
solos de piston. But what would you ? I must live. I have just
rushed off at a gallop half-a-dozen melodies for Heugel. I trust
you may like them. At least I have carefully chosen the verses.
My