Carmen Suite

One might think that it would be impossible to arrange the music of Georges Bizet’s opera, Carmen, for solo classic guitar, but Néstor Ausqui has done it! While the guitar is an intimate and sweet-sounding instrument, it does not have a broad dynamic range; yet, as Dionisio Aguado proclaimed in his Nuevo Método para Guitarra of 1843, the classic guitar’s expansive palette of tone color gives it the ability to emulate “a miniature orchestra”.


These characteristics make the guitar the ideal instrument to reflect both the character and sensuality of the dances that occur throughout Bizet’s Carmen—Aragonaise, Habanera, Seguidillas, and Danse Bohéme—as well as Carmen’s sober “Chant de la Mort”.  Recommended for the advanced guitarist, Carmen Suite is written in standard notation with extensive digitation and occasional drop-D tuning.


In Néstor Ausqui’s Carmen Suite, “…the guitar both sings like a human voice and accompanies itself, giving the work an irrefutable guitar identity. The characteristic feeling manifested in Spanish dance is now expressed through the guitar with a full and defined instrumental singularity.”      


— Guillermo René Alvarez

Musicologist, Professor at the Instituto Superior de Música, Universidad Nacional del Litoral-Argentina