Essay/Term paper: George bizek

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Music

George Bizek


Georges Bizet, who is best known for his opera, Carmen, has remained
somewhat of a mystery as far as his musical education, social life, and
personal life. He is not like so many other composers and musicians of the
Romantic Period who led a highly publicized life like Hector Berlioz, Peter
Ilyich Tchaikovsky, or Johannes Brahms. He spent his short life devoted to music
and he did not quite make it into the limelight like these other Romantic
composers. The most believable explanation for his obscurity would be the
lack of scandal in his life. He had a happy childhood, was well awarded with
musical scholarships, and a happy marriage.
Georges Bizet grew up in a musical house. His father was a singing
teacher and his mother was a well-known pianist who had attended the Paris
Conservatory. His parents encouraged him in music. His father was confident
that his son would become a great musician. His father was actually too
supportive of his musical education. He had been known to hide young Georges'
other school books so he would not be distracted from his musical studies. He
received his first music lesson from his mother when he was just four years old.
She was teaching him to read music at the same time she was teaching him his
alphabet.
Bizet was enrolled in the Paris Conservatory when he was nine years old.
This was a special exception arranged by his uncle who taught at the
Conservatory, since Bizet was still a year younger than the minimum age
requirement. Here he studied piano, organ, singing, harp, strings, woodwinds,
and composition. His instructors were the composers Charles Gounod, who is
known for his opera Faust, and who is considered the greatest musical influence
in Bizet's life. And Jacque Halevy, who wrote the opera LaJuive, is also
considered an important musical influence. He had a unique, unstructured
teaching style. Halevy would listen to and correct his students but he would
never require them to do any specific types of composition. This was to affect
Bizet throughout his life as he would be known to start and abandon work after
work. This was blamed directly on Halevy's lack of discipline. At age fifteen,
Halevy tried to convince Bizet to go and compete for the Prix de Rome. Bizet
refused sighting his immaturity and need for additional background.
During his time as a student he wrote Symphony in C Major (1855), which
was not performed during Bizet's lifetime, but from it's first performance in
1935 it has become an established symphony in a standard repertoire. Bizet
won a number of awards during his time at the Conservatory including First
prize in piano when he was fourteen. He also won a First Prize in fugue and
organ when he was seventeen; the year of his Symphony in C Major. Bizet
remained at the Conservatory until he was eighteen.
Bizet first competed for the Prix de Rome when he was eighteen. The
competition ended in a tie and the judges decided not to award a first prize but
two second prizes instead. Second prize was free tickets to all of the lyric
theaters in Paris. This in itself would have been a nice prize but not in
comparison to spending four years in Rome studying music. None the less, the
prize proved to be useful as Bizet's next composition turned out to be a theater
piece.
Finally on his second attempt at the coveted prize he was awarded the
Prix de Rome when he was nineteen. This prize entitled him to four years
at the Villa Medici in Rome with all expenses paid. It was in this same
year that he tied for first place in a contest sponsored by Jacques Offenbach
who was trying to raise awareness of the operetta, then very popular in
Paris. All contestants were given the same libretto, Le Docteur Miracle.
Bizet's winning composition was produced at a small Paris theater. Ten days
after his arrival in Rome Bizet was asked to play at one of the Villa Medici's
Sunday evening dinners. Of his experience Bizet said, "I had a great success,
it was the first time since M. Schnetz has been director that a musician has
been heard and applauded at the Academie. It is fair to say that there are
no pianists in Italy, and if you can play your scales with both hands you
are regarded as a great artist." This is a great example of Bizet's modesty.
Bizet had very positive things to say about his stay in Rome. He loved the
Academie and learned to love Italy and its people. He had even hired a tutor
to teach him Italian.
After attending Villa Medici Bizet considered returning to the Paris
Conservatory as an instructor or he thought of becoming a concert pianist. He
decided against both and decided to return to Paris to be an operatic composer.
While working on his first opera he supported himself by teaching private piano
lessons to students who wanted to learn for social purposes. He arranged many
opera scores for piano, and also composed third rate dance scores to make money.
His first major opera was La Guzla de l'Emir which was accepted by the Opera-
-Comique for production but it was never presented. Bizet withdrew it himself
because only one work by any composer could be underwritten by a money grant and
Bizet thought he could write better. In it's place he submitted Les Pecheurs
des Perles (The Pearl Fishers), which used many of the melodies from La Guzla de
l'Emir. This opera was accepted and presented when Bizet was twenty four. It
was not a success. It was received poorly by both the public and the press. It
was dropped after only eighteen performances but has since become a permanent
repertoire of the Paris Opera-Comique since 1932.
His next work was another opera La Jolie Fille de Perth (The Fair Maiden
of Perth). While this opera was in rehearsal Bizet announced his engagement to
Genevieve Halevy, the daughter of Bizet's teacher from his days at the
Conservatory. This was the only opera Bizet ever wrote that received good
reviews on it's premier performance from both the public and the press. Next he
wrote a melodrama, L'Arlesienne (The Girl From Arles). This was his attempt at
revitalizing the melodrama form. It's success was short lived however, but the
music was so well liked that Bizet made an orchestral suite from it and it
became known as L'Arlesienne Suite #1.
Bizet's next and best known opera was to be Carmen. This opera was
based on a play by Prosoer Merimee. The opera was prepared for the Opera-
Comique and in the tradition of that theater included spoken dialogue. The
opera was not well received at first but it held the public's interest. It went
on for thirty one performances. The Carmen that we know today has evolved over
many years and at the hands of many composers and musicians. For example, the
original version included spoken dialogue taken from the original Merimee story.
When it was performed just four months after Bizet's death Ernest Guiraud
substituted recitatives for the original spoken dialogue. Because these took
longer, many cuts in the original libretto had to be made. Carmen was not a
great success until years later when it was performed in England.
There have been rumors surrounding Bizet's tragically young death. Some
say that the unenthusiastic reception of Carmen prompted his early death. The
actual cause was throat angina which he had suffered since he was seventeen.
These bouts were always followed by emotional crisis leaving Bizet in the state
of nervous breakdown. Bizet described his illness in a letter to his friend as,
"colossal angina, imagine a double pedal from A flat to E flat going through
your head from ear to ear". His condition would improve for a few weeks and
then would reoccur. Toward the end of his life Bizet was confined to a
wheelchair and complained of fits of suffocation. Shortly before Bizet and his
family were to move to the small country town of Bougival, he suffered a severe
rheumatic attack, complete with high fever, and total immobility of his arms and
legs. Country living seemed to make him well for a time, but his illness
finally did him in on June 3,1875, at the age of thirty six. Bizet left behind
not only his wife and young son but also left behind a great opera with a
timeless story.