Title page of the autograph of Sarasate’s Carmen Fantasy.
To this day, the success of a new stage work crucially depends upon whether the individual scenes, ensembles or songs stick so strongly in the mind as catchy tunes that they become earworms. The persistent popularity of Georges Bizet’s Carmen undoubtedly owes a great deal to such of its easily-remembered numbers. Its première in the Paris Opéra-Comique on 3 March 1875 and the run immediately afterwards did not bring the great hoped-for success, but from the autumn of 1875 an unprecedented triumphal procession over European stages began – which, though, Bizet, who died three months after the première, was no longer alive to experience. Continue reading
A few days ago a customer enquiry momentarily gave me pause: Whether our new edition of the Johannes Brahms Horn Trio in E-flat major op. 40 (
