Conductor, Guy Warrack
Fromental Halevy (1799-1862), composer, teacher, and writer on musical subjects, was a pupil of Cherubini at the Paris Conservatoire, where he gained the Prix de Rome. After studying in Italy he returned to Paris and became in turn professor of harmony, counterpoint and fugue, and composition at the* Conservatoire, as well as teaching singing at the Opera. Among the many famous musicians who were his pupils were Gounod and Bizet, the latter eventually becoming his son-in-law. As a composer he wrote numerous operas.
Bizet's Symphony in C was probably composed during the time that he was studying under Halevy. Bizet was then about fifteen years of age. The manuscript is preserved in the library of the Paris Conservatoire. Its four movements are designed on the lines of a classical symphony, and although the composer uses the idiom of his period there is a striking individuality about the treatment, particularly as regards the orchestration, which is highly original and piquant in the French style.