Don Procopio - Music

Music

The music is a brilliant, youthful work, free of the influence of Bizet’s teacher Charles Gounod; it is a vital and sparkling imitation of Don Pasquale. The familiar idiom is infused with original touches of harmony, orchestration and melodic turn. The ensembles are particularly successful in using all the stock devices of opera buffa: voices in thirds, staccato chord accompanying and repetition of words. Ernesto’s "Non v’e signor" is an exact parallel of Malatesta's "Bella siccome un angelo" – in both, the baritone describes his sister's charms to the old man, in D flat.

Bizet used several episodes in later works:

  • a 2/4 section in the first finale – the Carnival Chorus in Act II of La jolie fille de Perth
  • the chorus “Cheti piano!” – “Chante, chante encore” in Act I of Les pêcheurs de perles
  • “Sulle piume” – Smith’s serenade in La jolie fille de Perth

while the March in Act I is taken from the finale of his Symphony in C of 1855.

Read more about this topic:  Don Procopio

Famous quotes containing the word music:

    Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid.
    Frank Zappa (1940–1993)

    So gladly, from the songs of modern speech
    Men turn, and see the stars, and feel the free
    Shrill wind beyond the close of heavy flowers,
    And through the music of the languid hours,
    They hear like ocean on a western beach
    The surge and thunder of the Odyssey.
    Andrew Lang (1844–1912)

    This music crept by me upon the waters,
    Allaying both their fury and my passion
    With its sweet air; thence have I followed it,
    Or it hath drawn me rather.
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)