Four Arrangements: Piano Duo/Duet (1 Piano, 4 Hands): 0 (Kalmus Edition)

Oeser reintroduces material removed by Bizet during the first rehearsals, and ignores many of the late changes and improvements that the composer made immediately before the first performance; [21] he thus, according to Susan McClary , "inadvertently preserves as definitive an early draft of the opera".

Dean places Bizet's realism in a different category from the verismo of Puccini and others; he likens the composer to Mozart and Verdi in his ability to engage his audiences with the emotions and sufferings of his characters. Bizet, who had never visited Spain, sought out appropriate ethnic material to provide an authentic Spanish flavour to his music. However, Dean insists that "[t]his is a French, not a Spanish opera"; the "foreign bodies", while they undoubtedly contribute to the unique atmosphere of the opera, form only a small ingredient of the complete music.

The prelude to act 1 combines three recurrent themes: The mock solemnities of the changing of the guard, and the flirtatious exchanges between the townsfolk and the factory girls, precede a mood change when a brief phrase from the fate motif announces Carmen's entrance. The tranquillity is shattered by the women's noisy quarrel, Carmen's dramatic re-entry and her defiant interaction with Zuniga. Newman describes it as "an exquisite miniature, with much dialoguing and intertwining between the woodwind instruments". The music reflects their contrasting attitudes: Numbers are from the vocal score English version printed by G.

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Since then, many of the leading opera houses and artistes have recorded the work, in both studio and live performances. After Bizet's death, his friend Ernest Guiraud adapted key musical themes from Carmen into two symphonic suites that are frequently programmed by orchestras. In , the Spanish violinist and composer Pablo de Sarasate — wrote a Carmen Fantasy for violin, described as "ingenious and technically difficult". The character "Carmen" has been a regular subject of film treatment since the earliest days of cinema. The films were made in various languages and interpreted by several cultures, and have been created by prominent directors including Raoul Walsh , [] Cecil B.

The story is transposed to s Chicago, and employs an all-black cast. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. This article is about the opera. For other uses, see Carmen disambiguation. Cartoon from Journal amusant , Prelude to act 1 2: Entr'acte to act 3 2: Entr'acte to act 4 2: L'amour est un oiseau rebelle Carmen, chorus as above Carmen! Sur tes pas nous pressons!

Chorus of cigarette girls, soldiers, Zuniga Tra-la-la Tu ne m'aimes pas! Orchestral arrangement of music from Carmen. Performed by the Damrosch Orchestra in When the theme is used to represent Carmen, the orchestration is lighter, reflecting her "fickle, laughing, elusive character". Archived from the original on 19 October Retrieved 11 March Retrieved 18 February Retrieved 29 March Retrieved 1 March Chicago, New York and San Francisco: Archived from the original on 20 December Retrieved 28 July Archived from the original on 23 September Retrieved 22 May The First Complete Recording".

Archived from the original on 15 February Archived from the original on 8 April Retrieved 30 March Carmen — All recordings". Archived from the original on 5 March Retrieved 8 March Retrieved 5 June Archived from the original on 21 December Retrieved 14 March Archived from the original on 8 March Archived from the original on 11 July Retrieved 23 May The New York Times. Archived from the original on 23 June Archived from the original on 15 May Archived from the original on 1 December Archived from the original on 11 August Retrieved 22 March South African dancer who breaks the rules".

Archived from the original on 7 November Retrieved 4 November Georges Bizet 's Carmen. Carmen up to Data G. List of compositions by Georges Bizet. Retrieved from " https: Pages containing links to subscription-only content Featured articles Use dmy dates from March Articles with hAudio microformats CS1 maint: Views Read Edit View history. In other projects Wikimedia Commons. This page was last edited on 26 November , at By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

Opera by Georges Bizet. Soldiers, young men, cigarette factory girls, Escamillo's supporters, Gypsies, merchants and orange sellers, police, bullfighters, people, urchins. Problems playing these files? Problems playing this file? Voici l'ordre; partez Zuniga, Carmen Entr'acte orchestra. Orchestral arrangement of music from Carmen Performed by the Damrosch Orchestra in With his guidance you do not fear from anything.

The ordinary baritone lacks some weight to be fully convincing in some cases, where the real bass voice is sometimes too heavy to give full expression to every nuance.

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And he also sounds very natural in his expression. Nothing is forced and nothing is exaggerated. The accompaniment is of course non-HIP, but it has that aura of authority that leaves you speechless. I wonder if anybody would trust these wings to take him or her to heaven. On the other hand, Ruud van der Meer has a very pleasant and warm voice.

Its timbre is very similar to that of Pommerien, and his expression touches your heart. He reveals so many nuances that Huttenlocher, for example, fails to convey. But even Meer cannot overcome the problematic accompaniment that Harnoncourt supplies to him. If these are wings than they are waving wit strong movements.

Dolly Suite, Op.56 (Fauré, Gabriel)

On the other hand, The singing is not varied, inflexible and lacking warmth. The movements are larger and smoother and reflect more confidence. Varcoe interpretation has the needed authority and warmth, but his voice is not multi-layered as that of Meer, and consequently his rendition is less varied. The problem is that is done too fast. I believe that if somebody had to be taken into heaven, he would like to do it tranquilly and not in a rush. His rendition here has more vigour than usual. Probably he is encouraged by the fast movement of the accompaniment.

I think that in several places the he has some difficulties to cope with the speed of the accompaniment. The accompaniment here is also light but more cheerful and pungent. His tempo for this aria is slower and therefore better. Ramselaar voice is fuller and a little bit lower than that of Mertens, and I find it more suitable to this aria. Regarding the interpretation I find that Ramselaar has nothing to be ashamed of in comparison with his more famous colleague. He is pleased with them, and they feel comfortable with him, and so am I with both of them.

Conclusion My first choice for this cantata as a whole and the aria for bass in particular is Ehmann 1. After some research I managed to compile a short biography of him and I put it in the Bach Cantatas Website for anybody who is interested to know more about this excellent Bach conductor. I find that all his too few recordings of Bach cantatas are authoritative, satisfying and pleasing. As they say, what Ehmann had already forgot, other, more modern, conductors have not even started to learn. And as always, I would like to hear other opinions, regarding the above mentioned performances, or other recordings.

Thomas Braatz wrote May 30, Whereas it was not so difficult to find and detect the various motifs and descriptions of Mvt. Crist Oxford Composer Companions [Boyd. In a simplified overview of Mvt. This is the section that introduces and also develops!!! Crist's division is as follows: This is the important marker for the beginning of the last section that has soprano and alto with the instruments hushed a 'piano' is marked for the strings in the score continue a duet until joined a few bars later with the other voices after which the tenor and bass have a similar duet followed by a full chorus conclusion.

Was Bach in this music 'speaking' primarily from the standpoint of Lutheran theological doctrine, as Crist would have it: As a noted Bach scholar, he knows that he would have to supply more evidence of proof for any supposition he has. Perhaps he would rather leave that to a future doctoral disseration done by student pursuing this type of thing. But it is very interesting for me that he goes through the effort of supplying an elaborate illustration with musical examples that could offer a key to understanding this mvt.

With the help of examples from the score and elsewhere which I hope to supply, you should be able to gain a better understanding of what I am talking about. But until then, let me try to explain in many words what you are hearing as you listen to this mvt. Let's call this the 'belief'-motif with the long held note emphasizing the need to 'hold' on to this belief. While the long note is being held, the 2 nd oboe answers with a musical figure that will be the basis for many of the fugal entries consisting of half notes. But, at the same time, the 1 st violin begins the wonderful, contrasting, faster-moving quarter and eighth notes theme which is 'worlds apart' from the key elements in the oboes.

In the samples from the score, I will show you the melody of this hymn as it might appear in a hymn book of that day. On first inspection you might justifiably say that it might only vaguely appear to be related. However, when you examine BWV BWV , a fughetta, is already so melodically contorted that you would perhaps have difficulty recognizing it a choral prelude for organ, it becomes much more apparent how Bach treats a theme of this sort in an organ prelude, in which, by the way, the canonically stated pairs appear a total of 10 times with a crucial crux turning point occurring in the middle where one statement stands alone without pairing.

This then is the '10 Commandment'-motif taken from the incipet of a Luther chorale that everybody in church at the first performance of the cantata would know probably backwards and forwards. In the same 2 nd measure, the continuo makes its initial statement with material that is anything but introductory.

I am reminded here of the description that Forkel gave of a Bach family reunion where much time was spent musically with the impromptu creation of quodlibets. This is a musical form in which from songs widely known and sung by all who were present, were entered into quodlibet at just the right time and pitch to make music with all the other songs unrelated in text! Although incipets the first line in a song were usually used, this was not always the case.

The source could be a refrain or a striking or catchy turn of words and music in the middle of the piece. Such is the case here, except that now we are using only sacred music as a source and not folk songs etc. Would that be Bach's primary purpose here, to achieve a unity between various mvts. Would he be announcing to the listener in advance, what they would be hearing later on?

I found yet another hymn contained in a German hymnal dating from , but not in later editions: This hymn of only five verses is rather unusual in that four of the five verses have for this final line of verse the one in question here the exact same words each time: Let's call this the 'Praise-God"-motif. So far in measure 2, the only part not accounted for is the viola part, the very part, according to one of Bach's sons, he would occasionally play himself in the performance of his cantatas.

Besides a secondary theme consisting of a three-note pattern consisting of 2 eighth notes followed by a quarter note in a downward motion on the notes of the scale, there is a strong motif announced in the continuo for the first time in measure 6. This motif consists of an upward moving stepping at the interval of a fourth figure, all in half notes —very majestic in character -- followed by a step down by one note on the scale, to be followed by another leap upwards by another fourth to an even higher pitch.

This happens at least three times in section 1, twice in the middle section, and once in the conclusion. Just hearing the mvt now as I write this, it seems to occur even more frequently than this, but then it is of such a character that you will not miss it. With the help of an additional passing note that Bach sometimes includes in a choral prelude , the comparison becomes even more apparent. Here then is THE event that epitomizes what baptism was all about. For the librettist who was possibly also a pastor , the sacrament as a preordained, prescribed routine occurrence in church as one of the holy sacraments is uppermost in the mind, while Bach sees, in addition to this, with the help of his musical imagination based on pictures of the mind, the scene of a remarkable baptism, unlike the many others that John the Baptist had been performing all along, a singular event in mankind.

This is the picture that Bach conjures up by using the reference to the melody of the baptismal hymn that everyone listening at that time would know. Summary of motifs in Mvt. In my last posting I should have summarized the characteristics of each motif once again, so that a listener can hear them without the aid of a score. I had listed them as follows: The Belief-motif Two half notes at the same pitch followed by a dotted whole note held for 3 measures 1st oboe at beginning The other oboe states the fugal theme that is also used by the vocal parts later on.

The Commandments-motif A repeated quarter note pattern 4 times at the same pitch, then two eighth notes moving up the scale and a final quarter note. The latter pattern is reversed, going downward to finish out the ritornello. The Praise-God-motif Appearing at the beginning of the continuo part, this motif consists of half and whole only two notes on a downward movement on the scale The Baptism-of-Christ-motif This motif consists of two jumps upward at the interval of a fourth with a step downward either semitone or whole tone after the first jump before taking the final jump to an even higher pitch I have only four recordings for comparison of this first mvt.: Harnoncourt [3] , Rilling [4] , Koopman [6] , and Leusink [7].

The pitch for Harnoncourt, Koopman, and Leusink is a half step lower than Rilling's, with Harnoncourt's slightly higher than either Koopman and Leusink who are exactly the same. So as to prepare you for the type of performance that I will be looking for, allow me to present the context of the words used in Mvt. He rebuked them for their unbelief -- their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen him after he had risen. And then he told them, "Go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone, everywhere.

Anyone who believes and is baptized will be saved. But anyone who refuses to believe will be condemned. I do not care for the sound of these instruments as it is too thin, with no 'roundness' to the sound they produce. The strings are squeaky and scratchy as usual. You will simply have to become accustomed to this sound since it does not vary much throughout the entire series of cantatas. Harnoncourt's 'Dying-Note' syndrome seems to work in his favor some of the time here, particularly with the 'Commandments'-motif which requires the notes to be detached slightly from each other, thus creating a contrast towell, that's the problem!

Harnoncourt does not sustain even the half and whole notes in a series. Everything has to be 'cut up,' otherwise he is not satisfied. Thus there is little contrast to perceive here. The Baptism-of-Christ motif is dissected to such a degree that each jump upward at the interval of a fourth becomes a separate entity with a breath in between, as if to say, "Whew!

I made the first jump, let me catch my breath before I attempt the next jump which takes me even higher. The same is true of the stepwise downward descending notes of the 'Praise-God'-motif. All of this lack of extended phrasing lasting more than a measure or two causes the fragmentation which any normal listener will hear as such. The flowing continuity of the musical line is lost.

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This is a very typical characteristic of Harnoncourt's style in the Bach cantatas. When the chorus enters, the 'thumpiness' of the bass becomes somewhat disturbing, all of this caused by not hothe notes out for their full value. The basses and tenors tend to overwhelmed when the 'prima donnas' in the sopranos and altos take over. The volume of the latter group is much greater than the former. One place to watch for a good quality in singing and choral sound production is at the beginning of the final section when the sopranos and altos have a duet for 5 measures.

Listen for the uncontrolled volume in the voices as they try to 'hit' the high note. There are better ways of handling this situation than what is heard here - have the voices reduce volume when they attack the high note. Harnoncourt 'thumps' the Commandment-motif with appropriate energy, but fractures too many beautiful phrases to make this mvt. Above all, the oboes lack the restless sound of those in the Harnoncourt recording.

The string orchestra and continuo play legato. Did you hear that Nicholas? The statement of the 'Commandments'-motif by the strings is not very strong, but passable; but when the motif goes into the basso continuo particularly when it jumps up an octave , it loses the necessary 'punch' that Harnoncourt was able to provide. After a bit, it becomes clear that this is a much 'sweeter' version of this piece, that sounds as if an angelic choir from afar were attempting to bring us some pleasant news.

But we know from above Mark 16 that Christ was in more of an angry, scolding, threatening frame of mind. This is why I have a problem with this 'pleasant' interpretation which lacks real stamina, stamina that Harnoncourt had in some places where needed and in many others where it should have been expressed differently: With Leusink everything is generally on the light side with lax entrances and a general lack of conviction on the part of the singers. As usual the falsettist in the alto and soprano voice take over and tend to cover the tenors and basses. I have great difficulty with this type of vocal sound production because it sounds unnatural, strained, forced into the back of the throat from which it tends to 'nasalize' the sound and becomes unwieldy for the singer.

Listen to the beginning of the final section soprano, alto duet and what happens here? It's very predictable -- the jump of the seventh from the low part of the range where the volume is diminished to the higher part of the vocal range where it becomes uncontrollable. Listen to this part carefully!

It sounds amateurish, not worthy enough for singing Bach, let alone being recorded as well. It destroys the continuity and draws attention to itself for no reason that can be seen indicated in the score. Leusink has a good beginning, but after that the usual problems that he has become apparent.

Sometimes I wonder, what would happen if someone the caliber of Robert Shaw were to direct these singers. Could he have 'turned them around' and improved what he had there, or would he have had to choose different singers in order to reach his much higher level of choral conducting? Much of what we hear is subtle understatement of Bach's intentions. He has clean choral lines with crescendi and diminuendi, and the intonation is superb.

Listen for the jump of a seventh in the final section. Here it is done properly without a strong emphasis on the high note.

Cantata BWV 37 - Discussions Part 1

Another angelic choir sings to us from a great distance. It has some problems with interference from the various layers of the atmosphere. When the 'Commandments' -motif appears, everything becomes even more subdued than before, as if the 10 Commandments were something to hurry over and get out of the way quickly. Basically the strong foundation upon which this mvt. We once again have both Koopman and Leusink skipping lightly through the mvt, making it a sort of invitation to the dance.

It is very pleasant music from this standpoint.

However, we might as well have the chorus singing Oo's and Ah's, and put this on a CD for listeners only interested in Bach for the music and not the texts. The Swingle Singers could then add this to their repertoire as well. The unity between the message and the music is completely lacking, as much as I do like the sheer sound of this recording and the quality of choral singing that Koopman produces. This is the best version for those who enjoy a satisfying choral sound together with a nimble and precise instrumental accompaniment.

As background music, I could hear this version many times without tiring of it. Notice the slightly slower tempo which allows for a more deliberate statement of the music based on the text. Although the oboes are not as pleasant sounding as those of Leusink and Koopman which I prefer in this regard, the violins have a singing quality as they sweep through their extended phrases. The vocal lines are presented with enthusiasm and precision. The only blemish on this otherwise excellent recording is in the sopranos, among which there are one or two that should not have been singing for this recording.

There is a vibrato that refuses to blend in with the others and creates a 'shaky' sound on some notes.