Symphony in C Major

The music of Bizet’s Symphony in C is so polished and confident in its bright, tuneful directness that it’s hard to believe it's the work of a mere 17-year-old student at the Paris Conservatory—which is what he was at the time of composition in 1855. And given the struggle he subsequently had for recognition with scores that cost him dearly in sweated blood, it’s ironic that this youthful piece would eventually become one of his best-loved—because he seems to have regarded it as a student exercise, doing nothing to promote or publish it. Which explains why the score stayed unperformed until half a century after his death. That said, there may be other reasons why he undervalued his achievement. The French musical establishment put no great store by symphonies: they were regarded as Germanic cultural imports, something that you did to learn your craft rather than earn your keep. Success in opera was the goal, and so it was for Bizet. But whatever his intentions, he produced a work of fresh, uncomplicated pleasure in this symphony, which unfolds on classical lines in four clean-limbed and agile movements— two of them ticking the boxes of sonata form, as a good student would take care to do.