During a visit to America Offenbach conceived the idea of the large-scale opera that was to be his masterpiece. By 1878 he had completed all three acts of Les Contes d'Hoffmannn in piano score and orchestrated the Prologue butsadly he never lived to see it performed and it was completed and produced by his friend Ernest Guiraud. The opera opens in a Nuremburg tavern to which the scene returns at various points as Hoffmann with his companionNicklausse and his poetic muse tells of a series of amorous adventures with in turn a mechanical doll a Venetian courtesan and a young opera singer. The scheme works sufficiently well to avoid discontinuity though it couldeasily be regarded as a linked set of one-act operas with related themes -- deception betrayal and death. A thread of philosophical melancholy runs through Hoffmann's tales strongly suggesting that Offenbach was a dispiritedand disappointed man who no longer wished to be known only as a purveyor of musical soufflés.This edition of the libretto is in both the original French and in an English translation by Ruth and Thomas Martin.

Saint-Saëns' Danse Macabre has long been available in the composer's own sizzling transcription for two pianos. By contrast, the standard piano duet arrangement of the piece (by Ernest Guiraud) appears to have been derived from the orchestral score, and i /

'Carmen' is one of the most popular and most frequently performed operas across the globe. Its world premiere was a flop. Nevertheless the opera very quickly gained acceptance at all major theatres bringing in its wake countless arrangements of some particularly beautiful music numbers among them the Carmen Fantasia for violin and orchestra by the Spanish violin virtuoso Pablo de Sarasate.It was in all probability Bizet's close friend and fellow student Ernest Guiraud who brought 12 numbers of the opera together to form two orchestral suites. The missing singing voices were replaced by instruments as was common practice in such cases. In addition to the two pocketscores full score and orchestral parts are available as hire material.

Oper in drei Akten Kritische Neuausgabe nach den Quellen mit den nachkomponierten Rezitativen von Ernest Guiraud

Composer arranger and Pianist Bizet might have become the most renowned opera composer in France had he not died aged 36 just one month after the premiere of Carmen. He was admitted to the Paris Conservatoire in 1848 and excelled under the tutelage of Zimmerman Halévy and Gounod as well as winning major prizes including the Prix de Rome in 1857. After travels in Italy he settled back in Paris and while struggling to secure commissions for his operas worked as a rehearsal pianist and an arranger of works for piano. His first staged work Les pêcheurs de perles was premiered at the Théâtre Lyrique in 1863 and met with a hostile press but itimpressed Berlioz and the director of the theatre Léon Carvalho would become a firm supporter. More successful were La jolie fille de Perth (1866) his suite from the incidental music to L’Arlésienne (1872) and his Jeux d’enfants for piano duet. In Carmen the scandalous story and Bizet’s depiction of the tragic heroine both outraged and intrigued and the opera ran for 47 performances in its first year and soon spread internationally. The music was a fulfilment of his genius for characterisation that had been seen in glimpses in his earliest works and the abundance of memorable tunes and fine orchestration continues to inspire generations of singers and musicians. Based upon the 1875 published version of the opera—with revisions and restorations by Jean-Claude Hartemann and further editorial overview by David Lloyd-Jones— the edition includes both the original spoken text as well as recitatives by Ernest Guiraud and the following sections: •Scène et pantomime N° 2 (Attention! Chut! Taisons-nous!) •Original Mélodrame after Marche et Choeur des gamins N° 3 (Il y a une jolie fille) •Original version of Carmen’s entrance aria N° 5 (L’Amour est enfant de Bohême) •Original version of N° 6 Scène (Carmen! sur tes pas nous nous pressons tous!) •Chanson et mélodrame N° 9 (Tra la la la … Ce ne sont pas des chansons que je te demande) •Original version of N° 17 Duo

The première of Daudet's play L'Arlésienne with incidental music by Bizet given at the Théâtre du Vaudeville on 30 September 1872 was a devastating event for both playwright and composer and the production was removed from the repertory after 19 performances. The critic Johannès Weber however was alert to the quality of Bizet's score and suggested that the composer should excerpt and rescore several pieces for the Concerts populaires where 'the lovely music would be better appreciated than at the Vaudeville'. Bizet must have moved rather quickly to follow Weber's suggestion for the première of the first Arlésienne suitetook place only six weeks later at the Concerts populaires on 10 November 1872 and the work in its new abridged form was soon taken up by many other orchestras. Bizet however did not turn to preparing a second suite from L'Arlésienne. Some four years after Bizet's death the success of the first suite may have prompted his original publisher to commission the arrangement of more excerpts from the Arlésienne MS from Bizet's good friend Ernest Guiraud who had earlier written recitatives and put together a ballet for Carmen.

Georges BizetCarmenOpera in three actsCritical new edition with the recitatives later composed by Ernest GuiraudFull score (AE129) and vocal score (AE129-90) available for salePerformance material availale for hire AE129-72