Page:The Yellow Book - 02.djvu/87

Rh appreciated by a small number of musicians—being cognoscenti—he will be more proud of that fact than he would be of a popular success. 'Djamileh', whatever be its fortunes, heralds a new epoch in the career of this young master."

Then came "L'Arlésienne," as all the world knows, a dismal failure enough. It was to Bizet a true labour of love. From the day that Carvalho came to him proposing that he should add des mèlodrames to this tale of fair Provence, to the day of its production some four months later, he was absorbed in it. The score as it now stands represents about half the music that he wrote. The prelude to the third act of "Carmen," and the chorus, "Quant aux douaniers," both belonged originally to "L'Arlésienne." The rest was blue pencilled at rehearsal. And of all the care he lavished on it, perhaps the finest, certainly the fondest, was given to his orchestra. Every instrument is ministered to with loving care. Luckily for him, fortunately too for us, he knew not then what sort of lot awaited this scrupulous score of his. He knew he wrote for Carvalho—for the Vaudeville; but that was all. And they gave him twenty-five musicians—a couple of flutes and an oboe (this latter to do duty too for the cor-anglais); one clarinet, a couple of bassoons, a saxophone, two horns, a kettle-drum, seven violins, one solitary alto, five celli, two bass, and his choice of one other. The poor fellow chose a piano; but they never saw the irony of it. All credit to his little band, they did their best. But the most that they could do was to cull the tunes from out his score. The consolation that we have is, that, so far as the piece as a piece is concerned, no orchestra in the world could have saved it. It was doomed to failure for all sorts of reasons. Daudet himself goes very near the mark when he says that "it was unreasonable to suppose that in the middle of the boulevard, in that coquettish corner of the Chausée d'Antin, Rh