The Art Songs of Georges Bizet

Cover of the album being discussed, showing an 1865 portrait of Bizet by Félix Henri Giacomotti

To mark the 150th anniversary of the death of French composer Georges Bizet, harmonia mundi has released a three-CD album accounting for all of the art songs he composed for voice and piano. This was a major undertaking involving four vocalists to account for each of the principal ranges: Marianne Croux (soprano), Coline Dutilleul (mezzo), Cyrille Dubois (tenor), Guilhem Worms (baritone-bass). Two pianists share accompanist duties, Luca Montebugnoli and Edoardo Torbianelli.

I suppose I should begin by citing Winton Dean as a “reputable source.” He was one of the leading English musicologists in the twentieth century, and he is best known for his scholarly research on the life and works of George Frideric Handel. Bizet’s Wikipedia page cites Dean’s withering assessment of the French composer’s approach to art song as “an unimaginative repetition of the same music for each verse.”

I cannot say as I disagree with Dean. Nevertheless, I feel that we need at least some awareness of Bizet’s achievements beyond the ones that receive significant attention, his Carmen opera and the suites from the music he composed for a performance of the play L’Arlésienne by Alphonse Daudet. I must also confess that I took great interest in the three different keyboard instruments, all Pleyel products from the nineteenth century. The fact is that, for those willing to listen to these performances in “small doses,” there is more than enough to draw attention to the sonorities that Bizet evoked, regardless of what one think of the texts (which one can read in the accompanying booklet).

Without trying to sound too dismissive, this is ideal material for those that like to play the guess-what-this-is game!