51

Herminie

cantate

fragments

  • Contents, based on Halévy’s cantata:
  • [1 Introduction] and Récit 'Le jour frappe nos yeux' - 8 bars extant
  • 2 Cantabile 'Longtems hélas ! gémir fut mon partage' - 34 bars extant
  • [3 Récit 'Mais sur cette arène guerrière']
  • [4 A Cavatine 'Tancrède ô mon seul bien, je te perds pour jamais']
  • B Romance 'Tancrède me devra le jour, doux espoir ravissante ivresse' - 72 bars extant
2 flûtes, 2 hautbois, 2 clarinettes, 2 bassons, 4 cors, 2 trompettes, 3 trombones, ophicléide, timbales, cordes

Poem: J.-A. Vinaty, who wrote the poems for the Prix de Rome cantata Herminie in 1819 and in 1828. Bizet set the same 1819 text as set by his teacher Halévy when he won the Prix de Rome that year. Halévy’s manuscript is at F-Pn MS 7754.

Composition: 1853-57. These fragments, like those of Ange et Tobie, Loyse de Montfort, Le Chevalier enchanté and Le Retour de Virginie, were composed as preparatory exercises while Bizet was Halévy’s composition student at the Conservatoire.

Autograph score: F-Pn MS 433, the gift of Reynaldo Hahn. 16-stave paper, 355 x 272 mm., 8 f. (16 p. of music paginated 12–19 and 42–49, also paginated 25–32 and 55–62), full score. On f.1r is written in another hand:
Fragment 1:

8 p., 16-stave paper, paginated 12–19 (also paginated 25–32), beginning on a recto ‘ ...[a]larmes va retrouver Tancrède, ô généreux vainqueur’, 8 bars, then no. 2 Cavatine, beginning ‘Longtemps hélas gémir fut mon partage’, 34 bars.

Fragment 2:

8 p., 16-stave paper, paginated 42-49 (also paginated 55-62): B. Romance ‘Tancrède me devra le jour’ 72 bars, the last ten of which are only sketched.

Bibliography:
Lesley Wright, 'Bizet et le prix de Rome: de l'initiation à l'accomplissement', Le Concours du Prix de Rome de musique (1803-1968) (Lyon, 2011), p. 529-548.