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:
“People today are still living off the table scraps of the sixties. They are still being passed around—the music and the ideas.”
—Bob Dylan [Robert Allen Zimmerman] (b. 1941)
“And this shall be for music when no one else is near,
The fine song for singing, the rare song to hear!
That only I remember, that only you admire,
Of the broad road that stretches and the roadside fire.”
—Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894)
“Nearly all the bands are mustered out of service; ours therefore is a novelty. We marched a few miles yesterday on a road where troops have not before marched. It was funny to see the children. I saw our boys running after the music in many a group of clean, bright-looking, excited little fellows.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)