Sicilienne, Op. 78

About this piece

Fauré first wrote the Sicilienne in 1893 for small theatre orchestra as part of incidental music for a production of Molière's Le Bourgeois gentilhomme, which was abandoned when the theatre went bankrupt. In 1898 he arranged it for cello and piano; Fauré scholar Jean-Michel Nectoux writes that the transcription was made for the Dutch cellist Joseph Hollman, and it was published in London and Paris that April with a dedication to the English cellist W. H. Squire. The same year it was folded into Fauré's music for Maeterlinck's Pelléas et Mélisande, and its fame grew through the later orchestral suite. The cello version is a gently rocking G-minor siciliana in 6/8 (Andantino, dotted crotchet = 50) with a quieter E-flat middle section. Henle's edition (ed. Cornelia Nöckel, cello fingerings and bowings by David Geringas) gives both marked and unmarked cello parts, and the 1898 Hamelle first edition is free on IMSLP. Recordings include Gautier Capuçon with Michel Dalberto (Warner Classics).

Technical overview

A single movement of 86 bars, about four minutes long. The cellist needs a smooth legato over dotted siciliana rhythms, shifts into tenor clef up to about G4, pizzicato passages including a pizzicato chord at the end, a con sordino return of the theme, and controlled pp-to-f dynamics with hairpins.

Technical focus

• Legato
• Dotted Rhythms
• Shifting
• Pizzicato
• Dynamics
• Hairpin Dynamics
• 2 Note Slurs
• 3 Note Slurs
• String Crossings