Choudens

The historic publishing house specialising in opera and other musical works for the stage was founded by Antoine Choudens in Paris in 1844. It quickly established itself as a major force in French music with the publication of Benvenuto Cellini and Les Troyens by Berlioz, many of Gounod’s most important operas, including Faust, Roméo et Juliette and Mireille and practically all of Bizet’s mature works, including Carmen, Les Pêcheurs de perles and the incidental music to L’Arlésienne.

From the 1870s, Choudens took on the late operettas and opéas-bouffes of Offenbach, culminating in his unfinished masterpiece, Les Contes d’Hoffmann, and most of the many popular stage works of Messager (including Véronique). Later in the century, extending its catalogue to cover concert music as well as opera, it published early piano compositions by Debussy, became associated with Saint-Saëns, and, in the twentieth century, with two of Les Six, Honegger and Auric.

Choudens has maintained its concert and operatic interests up to the present day with a catalogue including the names of many distinguished figures in contemporary French music: Daniel-Lesur, Marcel Landowski and Patrice Sciortino among others.