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Ernest Guiraud (23 June 1837 – 6 May 1892) was a French composer and music teacher born in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is best known for writing the traditional orchestral recitatives used for Bizet's opera Carmen and for Offenbach's opera Les contes d'Hoffmann (The Tales of Hoffmann). Please support my channel: Chasse fantastique (1887) Librettist: Victor Hugo (1802-1885) Louisville Orchestra conducted by Jorge Mester The amount of Guiraud's own musical output is small, probably due to his desire to help his friends as well as demands from his teaching career. Of his compositions in other forms, his ballet Le Forgeron de Gretna Green, given at the Salle Le Peletier of the Paris Opéra (5 May 1873), Caprice for violin and orchestra (1885), and Chasse fantastique, a symphonic poem (1887), are best known. (He also made a popular piano arrangement, for four hands, of Saint-Saëns's Danse macabre.) Beginning in 1876, Guiraud taught at the Paris Conservatoire. He was a founding member of the Société Nationale de Musique and the author of a treatise on instrumentation.[2] In 1891, Guiraud was elected member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts and was appointed professor of composition at the Conservatoire to replace Victor Massé. Guiraud's teaching methods for harmony and orchestration were highly respected and recognized in musical circles. His musical theories had a strong and beneficial influence on Claude Debussy, whose notes were published by Maurice Emmanuel in his book devoted to Pelléas et Mélisande. André Bloch, Mélanie Bonis, Paul Dukas, Achille Fortier, André Gedalge and Erik Satie are also counted among his students.
