Gabriel Faure

Sicilienne from Pellas and Melisande Suite (1898)

This piece was chosen by Don Grishaw, violin
"I first heard it when I was in fourth or fifth grade, on the radio... It's a magical piece with a beautiful melody."

The slow, symbolism-laden words of Belgian playwright Maurice Maeterlinck’s 1893 Pelléas and Mélisande never saw much success until the play was set to music—multiple times, by musical luminaries like Claude Debussy, Arnold Schoenberg, and Gabriel Fauré. Fauré used a light touch: the play was staged in an English translation and Fauré only added incidental music (music usually played only during scene changes or in the background). Matching the moody story of forbidden love, the most well-known segment of music is the “Sicilienne,” which accompanies Mélisande playing the flute for her lover Pelléas by a well, the gentle lilt to its rhythm in a dreamy 6/8 time adding an air of antiquity.

Program Notes written by Nicholas Hersh, music director