Farandole (from L’Arlésienne Suite No.2)

When L’Arlésienne (The Girl from Arles) - a play by Alphonse Daudet with extensive incidental music by Georges Bizet - was first performed in Paris in 1872 it was a failure. Disaster though it was for the author, it wasn’t so bad for the composer, who had the bright idea of arranging four of the most tuneful instrumental pieces for performance in the concert hall. The suite proved to be so popular that four years after Bizet’s death his friend and colleague Ernest Guiraud compiled a second L’Arlésienne suite - though not without some difficulty, since he had so much less of the incidental music to choose from. Fortunately for Guiraud, although Bizet had used the old Provençal carol “March of the Kings” in the Prelude to the first suite, he hadn’t exploited its full potential. Guiraud begins his Farandole on full orchestra with the “March of the Kings,” changes tempo for another traditional tune, “Dance of the Mad Horse” on flute and piccolo and finally puts the two together in an unlikely but brilliantly festive combination of dance and march.