Album Review: Sarasate, music for violin and orchestra 2

Sarasate Music for Violin and Orchestra 2. Photo / Supplied

Rating: 5/5
Verdict: "Brilliant young Chinese violinist delivers Sarasate with wizardry."

Pablo Sarasate (1844-1908) was a legendary violinist-composer best remembered for his Zigeunerweisen. But there is much more. This potpourri of gypsy melodies is Opus 20 in a listing of 54 works.

Sarasate the violinist may have played solid Brahms and Beethoven in concert, but his own compositions tend to the lighter side, with an emphasis on the dance rhythms of his native Spain and various fantasias on popular operas.

Chinese violinist Tianwa Yang was 17 when she recorded her first volume of Sarasate's violin music for Naxos in 2004. Now her second set of the composer's music for violin and orchestra is the fourth release in what one trusts is a continuing series. It would certainly be a minor tragedy to be denied Sarasate's final Fantasia on Mozart's The Magic Flute.

In the meantime, Yang teams up once again with the vibrant Orquestra Sinfonica de Navarra under Ernest Martinez Izquierdo, opening the disc with Sarasate's 1883 Fantasy on Carmen.

Bizet's opera is brilliantly evoked here and Yang comes up with a downright sexy Habanera, a taunting Seguidilla and a final Gypsy Dance of almost frenzied virtuosity.

A second Sarasate Fantasia, on Gounod's Romeo and Juliet, has the Gallic elegance one would expect from a man who worked closely with composers like Lalo and Saint-Saens. Once again, Yang catches every subtle touch with such discretion and style, and it would be difficult to imagine sweeter double-stopping than she delivers in the opera's famous waltz.

If you fancy a thrilling evocation of the balalaika, it is there to be savoured in Yang's inspired take on Canciones rusas, a score which possibly influenced some of Tchaikovsky's violin writing.

A closing Jota de Pablo, one of Sarasate's last pieces, has moments of rare poetry, exquisitely captured, when the music reflects on the lost stars of a vanquished night.

Best of all, Aucklanders have the opportunity to experience the talented Tianwa Yang on Tuesday with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra in Lalo's Symphonie Espagnole, a work Sarasate premiered in 1875.