Faure, Pelléas et Mélisande op. 80 N 142b [Bar:BA7895]

Incidental music with the famous "Sicilienne"

Fauré wrote “Pelléas et Mélisande” in 1898 originally as incidental music to Maurice Maeterlinck’s like-named play. After the premiere and subsequent performances, he set about reworking the musical material into an orchestral suite. The premiere of the originally three-movement suite took place in February 1901 under the baton of Camille Chevillard.

In December 1912, the four-movement version of “Pelléas et Mélisande” was finally premiered. The additional movement, the Sicilienne, was taken from the third interlude of the incidental music. This delightful piece would later become one of Fauré’s most popular compositions and now exists in countless arrangements.

Bärenreiter’s new scholarly-critical edition of the four-movement orchestral suite “Pelléas et Mélisande” op. 80 is based on “Gabriel Fauré The Complete Works”, Volume IV/2 which appeared in 2016.