Max Derrickson

Georges Bizet  (1838 – 1875)

Jeux d’Enfants: Petite Suite d’Orchestre

The child of musicians, Georges Bizet’s early musical talents won him entry into the Paris Conservatoire just before his tenth birthday. There he mastered the piano and wrote several excellent compositions, most notably his Symphony in C.

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Bizet first wrote Jeux d’Enfants as a set of 12 vignettes for piano, four hands. Soon afterward, he orchestrated vignettes number 2, 3, 6, 11, and 12 and called them a Petite Suite d’Orchestre (Little Suite for Orchestra). This lovely work is a small but genuine masterpiece, filled with lyrical melody and magical orchestration. Witty and urbane in the best French tradition, [. . .]