The piece
The Barcarolle opens the Venice act of The Tales of Hoffmann, the opera Offenbach left unfinished at his death and which was first staged in Paris in 1881: Giulietta and Nicklausse sing it as a duet, “Belle nuit, ô nuit d'amour”, to the rocking of a gondola. Offenbach had taken the melody from an earlier opera, Die Rheinnixen (1864). The version played here is by Renaud de Vilbac, who transcribed the whole opera for solo piano for the publisher Choudens, checked note by note against that edition.
The left hand plays eighth notes throughout, a low bass then a chord, like a rocking boat: keep it supple and even, with no accents. The tune begins in one voice, then moves into thirds and sixths in the right hand; the rolled chords at the start and the end are spread quickly, from bottom to top. The last bars, morendo, fade away on ppp tremolos.
