Dear Opera /Classical buffs: did lizst ever do a variation on Bizet's Carmen?

December 22, 2012 1:19 PM

Dear Opera /Classical buffs: did lizst ever do a variation on Bizet's Carmen?

My friend heard he did, and they were certainly admirers of each other, but I can't find documentation of this event anywhere, much less a recording?

posted by DesmondDoomsday to Media & Arts (5 answers total)

Apparently not. (3rd Google result for: liszt bizet carmen.)
posted by John Cohen at 1:23 PM on December 22, 2012

Off the top of my head, no.

I was obsessed with Carmen as a teen, and I played a lot of piano, and if Liszt had done an arrangement I'd have known.

Sure you're not thinking of Shchedrin?
posted by tel3path at 2:25 PM on December 22, 2012

Maybe he's thinking of Vladimir Horowitz's Carmen variations. It's a very famous performance. It would make sense, because any Liszt Carmen version would have been a piano piece. I also think Liszt preceded Bizet by a few decades so it doesn't quite seem right. Anyway, you should watch Horowitz doing Carmen variations - Because it is fantastic! The man himself. Somewhere on Youtube there's actual video footage of him playing it and his facial expression of "I just killed that" at the end is so priceless.
posted by mermily at 4:07 PM on December 22, 2012 [3 favorites]

Okay, just have to add this. Hope it's what you're looking for because it's fabulous :-) Horowitz Carmen video footage
posted by mermily at 4:09 PM on December 22, 2012

Liszt and Bizet knew each other, and Liszt lived to old age while Bizet died young--Carmen premiered in 1875, and Liszt was still composing for years after that. So it could have happened; it just didn't.

I wonder if your friend was confusing Bizet and Berlioz (on whose Symphonie Fantastique Liszt did write)?
posted by Sidhedevil at 5:14 PM on December 22, 2012