In the wake of Georges Bizet's untimely death in 1875, his longtime friend Ernest Guiraud (1837-1892) arranged two orchestral suites taken from the French master's final work, the opera Carmen. The two suites were compiled between 1880 and 1882. Guiraud selected five items for the first suite: Prélude, Aragonaise, Intermezzo, Les Dragons d'Acala and Final (Les Toreadors) which was published by the Paris firm Choudens. The first suite's orchestration little changed from that found in the corresponding numbers of the opera in Guiraud's score. Around 1906, the German conductor Fritz Hoffmann orchestrated the Séguidille for the publication of his edition of the first suite issued by the Leipzig publisher Breitkopf und Härtel. Hoffmann's orchestral setting departs substantially from the composer's own orchestration in the opera. For this new edition, Clark McAlister has provided a new orchestration of the famous Séguidille in which the vocal line is given to English horn while Bizet's own orchestration is largely unchanged. For those who prefer Hoffmann's setting, it is to be found as an appendix in the present score. The large conductor's score and orchestral parts for this outstanding new edition are exclusively available from Serenissima Music.
