Georges Bizet

Georges Bizet (October 25, 1838 – June 3, 1875) was a French composer and pianist of the romantic era. He is best known for the opera Carmen. Bizet was born in Paris at 28 Rue de la Tour d'Auvergne. He was registered with the legal name Alexandre-César-Léopold Bizet, but was baptized Georges Bizet and was always known by the latter name. He entered the Paris Conservatory of Music in 1848, a fortnight before his tenth birthday. His first symphony, the Symphony in C Major, was written in 1855, when he was still only sixteen, evidently as a student assignment. It seems that Bizet completely forgot about it himself, and it was not discovered again until 1935, in the archives of the Conservatory library. Upon its first performance (26 February 1935), it was immediately hailed as a junior masterwork and a welcome addition to the early Romantic period repertoire. A delightful work (and a prodigious one, from a seventeen-year-old boy), the symphony is noteworthy for bearing an amazing...