Bizet’s second Carmen Suite includes several well-known tunes from the eponymous opera, including the Habanera, with its characteristic snaking chromatic lines representing Carmen’s seductive wiles, and the rousing Toreador song. Valses Nobles et Sentimentales harkens back to Schubert, who published two sets of waltzes entitles “noble” and “sentimental.” Ravel combines both in his set of waltzes, though his modernist musical language, rife with dissonance and extra chord tones that create unique sound colours, could not be further from Schubert’s classical style. Debussy’s impressionistic La Mer is a symphonic sketch divided into three parts: “From Dawn to Noon on the Sea,” “Play of the Waves,” and “Dialogue of the Wind and Waves.” Édouard-Victoire-Antoine Lalo’s final orchestral composition, the Symphony in G minor is a typical romantic-era symphony, featuring an opening theme that recurs over the course of all four movements, creating a cyclical symphonic form on the largest scale.

Daniel Vnukowski | host