Bizet. By Hugh Macdonald. The Bizet Catalogue. By Hugh Macdonald.
2016; Oxford University Press; Volume: 97; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1093/ml/gcw024
ISSN1477-4631
Autores Tópico(s)Diverse Musicological Studies
ResumoHugh Macdonald’s new Bizet biography combines in an elegant narrative the findings of previous Bizet scholarship in English and French (Winton Dean, Mina Curtiss, Lesley A. Wright, Rémy Stricker, Hervé Lacombe, etc.) with valuable personal observations and insights, underpinned by the fruits of the new online Bizet catalogue. The latter aims for the first time to catalogue fully the composer’s work, and includes large amounts of detailed description of manuscript and published scores, orchestral parts, details of self-borrowings, letters, published libretti, excerpted and arranged materials, performance histories, discographies, and bibliographies. Together, these two new sources contribute significantly to the study of Bizet, his life, and his works. This biography forms part of the Oxford University Press ‘Master Musician’ series and is constructed in a traditional way: proceeding chronologically, each chapter covers a discrete period of Bizet’s life and, like any biography of a French composer working during the Second Empire and Third Republic, centres on an operatic work. While many of these operas— Djamileh , La Jolie Fille de Perth , Ivan IV , etc.—are little known to the wider public, Macdonald re-evaluates their musical materials and makes a strong case for their reinstatement in, if not a performance canon, then a traditional musicological canon that does not reduce the composer to Les Pêcheurs de perles and Carmen . The start of each chapter paints a vivid and engaging picture of Bizet’s life (and loves … ) and career in Paris, and of his travels during the years following his Prix de Rome. Large sections are dedicated to the genesis and musical description of the featured opera, together with those of smaller significant works, whether symphonic, religious, solo vocal, or chamber. Macdonald’s narrative is fluid and easy to read, making the most of some delightfully colourful quotations from Bizet’s letters (which are, however, only given in English, frustrating the scholar who might want to take their study further and prefer the original French).
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