Benjamin Britten’s Soirées musicales begins with a boisterous fanfare that quickly unfurls to a circus-like romp. The charming March theme bounces along, underscored by playful pizzicato strings. Britten’s take on Gioachino Rossini’s themes includes slightly offkilter orchestrations—piccolo accompanied by bass drum and cymbals makes for a cheeky refrain—which add to the first movement’s playful air. 

Bel canto lyricism saturates the second movement, Canzonetta. The harp provides a constantly bubbling harmonic foundation for the sweeping and lush melody, first introduced by the clarinet. This canzonetta, La promessa, first appears in Rossini’s original Soirées musicales—a set of eight songs for voice and piano published in 1835. A century later, Benjamin Britten was composing incidental music for documentary films and arranged a three movement suite based on Rossini’s themes, simply calling this his Rossini Suite. Britten later borrowed two more movements (and Rossini’s title), and published his own Soirées musicales in 1937. 

The third and fourth movements, Tirolese and Bolero, are again straight from Rossini’s set of songs. Britten reverses their original order but retains all of their characteristic charm. Tirolese is a buoyant peasant waltz, complete with Britten’s exaggerated pickup notes and pesante downbeats to seal the deal. Next, we are transported to a hazy Spanish courtyard in the Bolero. Accompanied by snappy castanets, a throaty oboe solo foreshadows a sultry melody that is later presented by a solo trumpet. 

The Tarantella brings Britten’s suite to an exciting close. Here, Britten riffs on another Rossini work. Britten’s lively final movement is built on a much slower original; Rossini’s original melody, “La Charite,” hails from a larger choral work, Trois choeurs religieux. Britten doubles the original tempo and weaves jovial dotted rhythms into the melodic line, completely transforming the atmosphere while keeping the heart of Rossini’s original melody intact.