''Sicilienne'', Op. 78, is a short work by

Gabriel Fauré Gabriel Urbain Fauré (12 May 1845 – 4 November 1924) was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th-century composers. ...

, composed in 1893. It was originally an orchestral piece, written for a theatrical production that was abandoned. In 1898 Fauré arranged the unperformed music as a work for

cello The violoncello ( , ), commonly abbreviated as cello ( ), is a middle pitched bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), tuned i ...

and piano, and in the same year incorporated it into his

incidental music Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, or some other presentation form that is not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as th ...

for

Maurice Maeterlinck Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck (29 August 1862 – 6 May 1949), also known as Count/Comte Maeterlinck from 1932, was a Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist who was Flemish but wrote in French. He was awarded the 1911 Nobel Prize in ...

's play, '' Pelléas et Mélisande'', in an orchestration for theatre orchestra. It took its final form as part of a suite arranged for full orchestra by Fauré, published in 1909.

History and versions

In 1892 the manager of the Grand Théâtre, Paris, asked the composer

Camille Saint-Saëns Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns (, , 9October 183516 December 1921) was a French composer, organist, conductor and pianist of the Romantic music, Romantic era. His best-known works include Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso (1863), the Piano ...

to write

for a production of

Molière Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (; 15 January 1622 (baptised) – 17 February 1673), known by his stage name Molière (, ; ), was a French playwright, actor, and poet, widely regarded as one of the great writers in the French language and world liter ...

's '' Le Bourgeois gentilhomme''.Nectoux, p. 147 Saint-Saëns was too busy to accept the commission, and successfully recommended his friend and former pupil Fauré. The music, which included the first version of the Sicilienne, was nearly complete when the theatre went bankrupt in 1893. The production was abandoned and the music remained unperformed. Five years later, Fauré arranged the work for cello and piano. The Fauré scholar

Jean-Michel Nectoux Jean-Michel Nectoux (born 20 November 1946) is a French musicologist, particularly noted as an expert on the life and music of Gabriel Fauré. He has published many books on Fauré and other French composers, and has been responsible for major exhi ...

writes that the transcription was made for the Dutch cellist

Joseph Hollman Joseph Hollman (26 October 1852 – 31 December 1927), was a Dutch cello, cellist. Biography Hollman was born in Maastricht in 1852, and was admitted to the Brussels Conservatory at the age of fourteen. There he studied cello with Adrien-Fran� ...

. It was published in London and Paris in April 1898, with a dedication to the English cellist W. H. Squire.Nectoux, p. 548 At the same time, Fauré was working on incidental music for the first English production of

's play '' Pelléas et Mélisande'', which opened in June 1898.Duchen, p. 217 Needing a lighthearted piece for one of the few playful scenes in the drama, he included the Sicilienne along with the new music he wrote for the production. His former pupil

Charles Koechlin Charles-Louis-Eugène Koechlin (; 27 November 186731 December 1950), commonly known as Charles Koechlin, was a French composer, teacher and musicologist. Among his better known works is '' Les Heures persanes'', a set of piano pieces based on th ...

orchestrated the score for the theatre orchestra of 16 players. The final form of the Sicilienne is in the four-movement ''Pelléas et Mélisande'' suite for full orchestra, arranged by Fauré and published in 1909. Nectoux notes that the final orchestration differs from Fauré's original 1893 version, written for chamber-sized theatre orchestra: in particular, the main theme is given to the

oboe The oboe ( ) is a type of double-reed woodwind instrument. Oboes are usually made of wood, but may also be made of synthetic materials, such as plastic, resin, or hybrid composites. The most common type of oboe, the soprano oboe pitched in C, ...

in the original score and to the

flute The flute is a member of a family of musical instruments in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, producing sound with a vibrating column of air. Flutes produce sound when the player's air flows across an opening. In th ...

in the final version in the suite. The cello and piano version is in

G minor G minor is a minor scale based on G, consisting of the pitches G, A, B, C, D, E, and F. Its key signature has two flats. Its relative major is B-flat major and its parallel major is G major. The G natural minor scale is: Changes n ...

in time, typical of the

sicilienne The siciliana or siciliano (also known as sicilienne or ciciliano) is a musical style or genre often included as a movement within larger pieces of music starting in the Baroque period. It is in a slow or time with lilting rhythms, making it ...

genre. The score is marked '' andantino'' with a metronome indication of dotted

crotchet A quarter note ( AmE) or crotchet ( BrE) () is a musical note played for one quarter of the duration of a whole note (or semibreve). Quarter notes are notated with a filled-in oval note head and a straight, flagless stem. The stem usually poi ...

= 50. The full orchestral version, also G minor, is marked '' allegretto molto moderato''. The playing time of the piece is typically between three and a half and four minutes. The cello and piano and full orchestral versions of the Sicilienne have been recorded many times. There are also recordings of arrangements, not by Fauré, for

bassoon The bassoon is a musical instrument in the woodwind family, which plays in the tenor and bass ranges. It is composed of six pieces, and is usually made of wood. It is known for its distinctive tone color, wide range, versatility, and virtuosity ...

and piano; cello and guitar; cello and harp; flute and guitar; flute and harp; flute and piano; guitar and orchestra; solo guitar; solo harp; oboe and piano;

panpipes A pan flute (also known as panpipes or syrinx) is a musical instrument based on the principle of the closed tube, consisting of multiple pipes of gradually increasing length (and occasionally girth). Multiple varieties of pan flutes have been ...

and piano;

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to p ...

and orchestra; saxophone quartet;

tuba The tuba (; ) is the largest and lowest-pitched musical instrument in the brass instrument, brass family. As with all brass instruments, the sound is produced by lip vibrationa buzzinto a mouthpiece (brass), mouthpiece. It first appeared in th ...

and piano;

viola The viola ( , () ) is a string instrument of the violin family, and is usually bowed when played. Violas are slightly larger than violins, and have a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of the ...

and piano; vocal ensemble; and voice and harp.Centaur CD CRC2508, 2001.

Notes

Sources

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External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sicilienne (Faure) Chamber music by Gabriel Fauré Instrumental duets Incidental music by Gabriel Fauré 1898 compositions Compositions for cello and piano

History and versions

See also

Notes

Sources

External links