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Piano sheet music for kids · Classical · Level 3: Notes below middle C
Toreador Song (Carmen)
Free beginner piano sheet music: C major, 2/4, 12 bars. Press Play to hear it on a real piano, slow it down, or hear one hand at a time; click any note to start from there; print it for the music stand.
About this arrangement
The refrain of the bullfighter Escamillo’s song from Bizet’s opera Carmen (1875), “Toréador, en garde!”. This is the first half of the refrain as Bizet set it in the Prelude to the opera. Bizet wrote it in F major; here it is in C major, with no black keys. It is in 2/4, and its rhythm is the dotted quaver and semiquaver (dotted eighth and sixteenth), “lo-ong short”, which gives the tune its swagger. The right hand starts with the fourth finger on G and moves down for bars 7 and 8, where the tune drops to the G below middle C. The left hand plays a bass note and a chord, and Bizet’s grace notes are left out.
Practice tip: Bizet marks it soft but well marked, so keep it quiet and make every “lo-ong short” crisp. Hold the long notes in bars 4, 6, 8 and 12 for their full length before the rest.
A short history
Georges Bizet’s Carmen opened at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 3 March 1875. Its first audiences were not sure what to make of its story of a soldier and the fiery Carmen, and Bizet died three months later, aged 36, before it became one of the most performed operas in the world. The libretto, by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, was based on a novella by Prosper Mérimée.
In the second act the bullfighter Escamillo arrives at an inn and the crowd cheers him. He replies with this song: the verses describe the excitement of the bullring, and everyone joins in the refrain, “Toréador, en garde!”, warning him that a dark eye is watching him and that love is waiting.
Bizet liked the refrain enough to use it in the Prelude that opens the opera, which is where the version on this page comes from.
Quick facts
- Tune
- Georges Bizet, 1875
- Key
- C major
- Time signature
- 2/4
- Length
- 12 bars
- Tempo
- Allegro giocoso, crotchet = 100
- Difficulty
- Level 3: Notes below middle C (piece 86 of 201)
- Type
- Classical
- Hands
- Both: melody in the right hand, chords in the left
- Copyright
- Public domain tune; arrangement by Digital Greenhouse, free for personal and classroom use
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