Carmen Variations are a set of variations composed and performed by the Russian-American pianist Vladimir Horowitz. They are based on the Gypsy Dance from Georges Bizet’s opera Carmen. Of Horowitz’s many transcriptions, the Carmen Variations were the only one to remain in his repertoire throughout his career. He played them from his earliest concerts in the 1920s, where he often wowed his audience with the “show stopping” encore, through to his golden jubilee season in 1978, over fifty years later. – Vladimir Horowitz