Carmen Fantasy (1946)

One of the most effective works of its kind, Franz Waxman’s Carmen Fantasy derives from one of the well over 100 scores he wrote, with conspicuous success, for a variety of studios in Hollywood. The soundtrack of the 1947 Warner Bros film Humoresque, about a struggling violinist, required two solo violin pieces, one of which Waxman arranged from the love scene of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde and the other from Bizet’s Carmen. The recordings were to have been made by Jascha Heifetz but, apparently reluctant to pay his fee, they hired the young Isaac Stern instead. This did not stop Heifetz asking Waxman for a concert version of the Carmen compilation, his recording of which achieved enormous popularity. Of much the same length as Sarasate’s Concert Fantasy on Carmen, Waxman’s Carmen Fantasy has become a serious rival to that venerable work. Beginning with a short burst of the toreadors’ march on the piano it includes Carmen’s habanera, her unhappy “En vain pour éviter les réponses,” the Aragonaise entracte, Carmen’s séguidille, and the gypsy dance “Les tringles des sistres” – all of them introduced and then extravagantly elaborated by the violin.

One of the most effective works of its kind, Franz Waxman’s Carmen Fantasy derives from one of the well over 100 scores he wrote, with conspicuous success, for a variety of studios in Hollywood. The soundtrack of the 1947 Warner Bros film Humoresque, about a struggling violinist, required two solo violin pieces, one of which Waxman arranged from the love scene of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde and the other from Bizet’s Carmen. The recordings were to have been made by Jascha Heifetz but, apparently relucatant to pay his fee, they hired the young Isaac Stern instead. This did not stop Heifetz asking Waxman for a concert version of the Carmen compilation, his recording of which achieved enormous popularity.

Of much the same length as Sarasate’s Concert Fantasy on Carmen and drawing on much the same material in much the same order, Waxman’s Carmen Fantasy has become a serious rival to that venerable work. Beginning with a short burst of the toreadors’ march on the piano it includes Carmen’s habanera, her unhappy “En vain pour éviter les réponses,” the aragonaise entracte, Carmen’s séguidille, and the gypsy dance “Les tringles des sistres” – all of them introduced and then extravagantly elaborated by the violin.