Bizet’s stage works have always attracted more attention than his orchestral music, an imbalance that Jean-Luc Tingaud’s latest disc with the RTÉ National Symphony attempts to address. It offers a survey of Bizet’s entire career, from his first attempt in 1855, the Overture in A, to the nationalistic Patrie, written in 1873 in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War. Tingaud includes the familiar Petite Suite, arranged in 1871 from Jeux d’Enfants for piano duet, and tellingly adds Les Quatre Coins, a movement omitted from the final orchestral version. The most substantial work is the rarely played Roma, a symphony that occupied Bizet on and off from 1860 to 1871, the freshness of which belies its protracted genesis. Throughout, you get a real sense of Bizet’s concise, highly individual voice emerging after a period of careful imitation of his chosen models: Auber for the Overture in A; Berlioz, more surprisingly, for a brooding Marche Funèbre in B Flat, dating from 1861. The performances are supremely elegant, if occasionally lacking in panache. But this is an important release, and highly recommended.
