Tchaikovsky
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Georges Bizet (1838–1875)

Georges Bizet

French composer (b. 25 October 1838 in Paris; d. 3 June 1875 in Bougival, near Paris), born Alexandre César Léopold Bizet.

Tchaikovsky's admiration for Bizet and especially his masterpiece Carmen (1875) was tremendous. Already by mid-1875 he was studying the piano-vocal score of the opera, which had been sent to him by Vladimir Shilovskii after attending the première of Carmen in Paris on 3 March 1875 [N.S.] [1]. In an article written in November 1875 about Saint-Saëns's concert tour to Russia (TH 312) Tchaikovsky discusses the avant-garde circle of French composers, referring to Bizet as "an exceptionally gifted composer who died this summer when he was just 36".

Celestine Galli-Marié (1840–1905), the first Carmen, whom Tchaikovsky heard at a performance of the opera in Paris in January 1876. A portrait painted in 1884 by Henri Lucien Doucet (1856–1895)

On 19 January 1876 [N.S.], during a brief stay in Paris, he heard Carmen for the first time at the Opéra Comique, with Celestine Galli-Marié in the title-role. Tchaikovsky's brother Modest later recalled this event: "Rarely have I seen my brother so deeply moved by a performance in the theatre […] In [Galli-Marié's] performance, Carmen, while retaining all the vitality of her type, was at the same time shrouded in a certain indescribable magic web of burning, unbridled passion and mystic fatalism" [2]. As Alexander Poznansky noted, this experience proved to be "one of the strongest musical impressions of his entire life".

In a letter to Nadezhda von Meck from San Remo at the start of 1878, Tchaikovsky reflects on how French music had been making great strides in recent years and mentions Carmen specifically: "It is a music without pretensions to depth, but so charming in its simplicity, so lively, so sincere rather than invented, that I have almost learnt the whole opera by heart from beginning to end!" [3]. While staying at Mme von Meck's cottage in Simaki in June 1880, Tchaikovsky was even considering writing an article on Carmen, which he considered to be "perhaps the most outstanding operatic work of our age" [4]. In this article, which he admitted he would never actually commit to paper, but whose main ideas he presented in a remarkable letter to his benefactress, Tchaikovsky wanted to show how unlike the great masters of the past (Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert) all modern composers were consciously striving after all kinds of fanciful orchestral and harmonic effects, but that this "purely rational process of musical invention" just led to music which was cold and lacked genuine inspiration. Then "suddenly a Frenchman [Bizet] turns up, whom I do not hesitate to call a genius, and in whom all these poignant and spicy effects are not made up, but rather pour out in a free-flowing stream, flattering the ear but at the same time also moving and affecting one […] He has given us a paragon of that element in art which can be described as prettiness—'le joli'. Bizet is an artist who pays tribute to the corrupted tastes of his age, but who is nonetheless imbued with true, genuine feeling and inspiration."

Tchaikovsky concluded his reflections on Bizet in this very same letter to Nadezhda von Meck with some truly prophetic words: "Carmen in my view is a chef d'oeuvre in the true sense of the word, that is one of those few works which are fated to reflect most intensively the musical tendencies of a whole age […] I am convinced that within some ten years or so Carmen will be the most popular opera in the world!" [5]. It is interesting that Tchaikovsky shared this enthusiastic admiration for Carmen with Brahms, who was otherwise so much his antagonist in musical tastes!

Several scholars have noted the influence of Carmen on Tchaikovsky's own music, starting from Symphony No. 4, and "citations" from this opera can indeed be picked out in a number of his later works (e.g. the Violin Concerto, the opening children's chorus in The Queen of Spades, and Symphony No. 6) [6].

Notes:

1. Timothy L. Jackson, Tchaikovsky. Symphony No. 6 (Pathetique) (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 137–138 [back]
2. Quoted from Susan McLary, Georges Bizet, Carmen (Cambridge, 1992), p. 116 [back]
3. Letter 705 to Nadezhda von Meck, 24 December 1877/5 January 1878 (translated by Luis Sundkvist) [back]
4. Letter 1541 to Modest Tchaikovsky, 18/30 June–19 June/1 July 1880 (translated by Luis Sundkvist) [back]
5. Letter 1539 to Nadezhda von Meck, 16/28 June–19 June/1 July 1880 (translated by Luis Sundkvist) [back]
6. See Henry Zajaczkowski, 'On Čajkovskij's Psychopathology', Čajkovskij-Studien, Heft 1 (Mainz, 1995), pp.307–328 (323), who refers to David Brown's discussion of the Fourth Symphony [back]