The Allegretto op.19 is subtitled "Hommage à Lefébure-Wély" and sounds very much "elegant salon music". The first part is a supple smiling cantilène on the hautbois, quite in Lefébure's melodic easy-flowing style ; the central part, on the voix céleste, is not without somewhat mellifluous harmonies often encountered in Guilmant's slow pieces ; the third part reproduces almost exactly the first one.
Guilmant indicates that the first four notes of the theme, so characteristic, have been borrowed to Mendelssohn's Lied ohne Worte op.67 n°5 (extract of the score attached below).
The "true version" is at
00:00 on Aristide V2.
As they were "in the box", I added two other trials :
- at
05:25 on Salibury ; as the piece sounds a bit like some Hollins or Wolstenhome, why not try ? Unfortunately, there are strange sounds at some moments ; it seems to happen precisely when the flûte harmonique from the Solo plays a long held middle F#
- at
10:47 again on Aristide, but a good 30 seconds slower than the first version. I had problems , not yet solved, to find a tempo trying to make the piece sound lively enough, but also singing and relaxed . Guilmant indicated tempo (quarter = 80) seems IMHO quite fast for the atmosphere of the piece .
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