Sunday 17 November 2013

Sicilienne (Op. 78) for Flute and Orchestra, by Gabriel Faure



From Classical collection:

Sicilienne was originally written in March, 1893 as part of the incidental music for Moliere’s “Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme” but was never used for that purpose; it was then used as a solo for cello (or violin) with piano accompaniment and first published in April, 1898, as his Op. 78, with a dedication to the British Cellist William Henry Squire (1871-1963). 

Faure also included it in his incidental music (first performed in June, 1898) for Maurice Maeterlinck’s 1892 drama “Pelleas et Melisande” - a work which inspired many composers to write music for it: Claude Debussy (1902), Arnold Schoenberg (1903), Jean Sibelius (1905) and Cyril Scott (1912); however, Faure was the first. The Pelleas et Melisande Suite (Op. 80) for Orchestra is made up of 4 selections from the incidental music, with Sicilienne as the third selection. 

A “Sicilienne” (in Italian “Siciliano”; in English “Sicilaina”) is an Italian dance, usually in a minor key, in the meter of 6/8, which uses the distinctive rhythmic figure dotted eighth, sixteenth, eighth (this rhythmic figure, of course, occurs in many other pieces in 6/8, “Greensleeves” and “Silent Night” are two examples). In this arrangement all of the rhythmic values have been doubled and the meter changed to 3/4 (the “Sicilienne” rhythm has, therefore, changed from dotted eighth, sixteenth, eighth to dotted quarter, eighth, quarter). 

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