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Composer of the Week

Music: Classical

An informative guide to composers' lives and their music.

An informative and accessible guide to composers' lives and their music.

Composer of the Week: Georges Bizet (1838-1875)

Composer of the Week: Georges Bizet (1838-1875): Episode 3: Pearl Fishing in Paris

Georges Bizet (1838-1875)

Episode 3

Episode 3: Pearl Fishing in Paris

Pearl Fishing in Paris

BBC Radio 3 - Composer of the Week, Georges Bizet (1838-1875), Pearl Fishing in Paris

Donald Macleod on Bizet's having to return to Paris and make his own way in the world.

Donald Macleod explains how, after having stayed in Rome with a full student grant, Bizet had to return to Paris and make his own way in the world.

After the prize of staying in Rome with a full student grant, Bizet must return to Paris and make his own way in the world. 

A man of multiple love affairs who became devoted to his neurotic wife; a superb pianist who studiously avoided the concert stage; a man for ever associated with Spain, even though he'd never been there - George Bizet is a mass of contradictions. As well as composing what is arguably the world's best known and most popular opera - Carmen - Bizet also composed some spectacular flops. Always seeking popular as well as critical success, that was the very thing that eluded him during his lifetime. And yet, despite the caustic discouragement of Parisian reviewers, Bizet wrote songs and operas of astonishing beauty, even if the plots and libretti didn't always match the composer's dramatic sense. 

In today's episode, Bizet returns from Italy to rush to his mother's sickbed. He comforts her, and he in turn is comforted by his mother's nurse - by whom he fathers a son. Despite his prodigious gifts as a pianist (praised by no less a genius than Franz Liszt) Bizet studiously avoids the concert platform, instead eking out a living through proof-reading, writing humdrum piano transcriptions and teaching piano. He will also write The Pearl Fishers.

Nocturne in F major
Julia Severus, piano

La marguerite a fermé sa corolle (from Vasco da Gama) 
Joan Sutherland, soprano 
Swiss Romande Orchestra 
Richard Bonynge, conductor

Les Pêcheurs de Perles (Act 2, excerpt)
Pierrette Alarie, soprano (Léïla)
Leopold Simoneau, tenor (Nadir)
Orchestre des Concerts Lamoureux
Jean Fournet, conductor 

Ivan IV, Act 2 (excerpt)
Paul Gay, bass (Temryuk),
Julian Gavi, tenor (Igor)
Orchestre National de France
Michael Schonwandt, conductor

Venise
Julia Severus, piano.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Donald Macleod explores the life and music of Georges Bizet

Donald Macleod explores the life and music of Georges Bizet, a composer who seldom enjoyed success in his lifetime but was known for writing what is possibly the best-known opera in the world

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Georges Bizet (1838-1875)

Episode 3: Pearl Fishing in Paris

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