Gabriel Fauré

Sicilienne G minor Op. 78

The Sicilienne goes back to a commission concerning an unfinished incidental music of Molière's 'Le Bourgeois gentilhomme'. Only after its incorporation into another incidental music (Pelléas et Mélisande) and resurfacing in a new instrumentation (for violoncello and orchestra) was the setting performed for the first time in 1898. The same year, the Sicilienne was published by the Paris publishing house Hamelle in a version for violoncello and piano, with an additional violin part. There are no records testifying to the composer's writing the violin version himself. The work was then reprinted by the publisher Metzler in London as 'Sicilienne pour Violoncelle ou Violon et Piano'.