Sarasate: Music For Violin And Orchestra, Vol 1 / Ernest Martinez Izquierdo

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SARASATE Zigeunerweisen. Airs espagnols. Miramar-Zortzico. Peternas-Capriccio espagnol. Nocturne-sérénade. Viva Sevilla! Fantasie sur La Dame Blanche • Tianwa Yang (vn); Ernest Martínez-Izquierdo, cond; Orquesta Sinfónica de...


SARASATE Zigeunerweisen. Airs espagnols. Miramar-Zortzico. Peternas-Capriccio espagnol. Nocturne-sérénade. Viva Sevilla! Fantasie sur La Dame Blanche • Tianwa Yang (vn); Ernest Martínez-Izquierdo, cond; Orquesta Sinfónica de Navarra • NAXOS 8.572191 (53:46)


Naxos has now issued two of seven projected volumes of works by Pablo Sarasate, featuring the Chinese violinist Tianwa Yang. I described the first of these (8.557767, 30:4) as being “like first love” and the second (8.570094, 31:5), with some urgency, “to anyone who can recognize the sound of a violin.” Now she’s back with a third volume, this time with orchestra. I’ve always taken Jascha Heifetz’s version of Zigeunerweisen from 1937 with Barbirolli as the paragon, though Sarasate also recorded it (twice—in 1898 and 1904). Yang’s perhaps more subtle and richer in gestural nuance than either in the first section, though not so brilliant as either Heifetz or the composer in the last one. In Sarasate’s Airs espagnols , which Joseph Gold’s notes place on almost as high a level, she doesn’t face such transcendental competition; her authority, tonal and technical, makes her a stunning exponent, especially if you can get out of your head the sound Sarasate produced, even realized imperfectly in early acoustic recordings. The piece includes melodies familiar to listeners (one, for example, strongly reminiscent of his Navarra for two violins). David Oistrakh recorded the Zortzico, Adios montanas mias , op. 37, with Vladimir Yampolsky in 1951 (Sarasate wrote another Zortzico, Zortzico de Iparraguirre , op. 39, in 1898). The Miramar sounds similar, with its 5/8 meter, but Yang doesn’t bring the same haunting sensibility to the piece, though she plays it with aggressive dash. (Sarasate also recorded it, with piano, but his performance doesn’t minimize the metric irregularity’s effect.) Peternas brings a similar mix. Yang’s harmonics (one of Sarasate’s favorite devices) remain pure and her left hand pizzicato’s crisp. But her playing sounds more brash than brilliant, more strenuous than effortless or silvery, even though it’s obvious that the difficulties don’t give her second thought. Joseph Gold mentions Chopin in discussing the Nocturne-sérénade , and the comparison may be apt. Sarasate made an arrangement of Chopin’s Nocturne, op. 9/2, and recorded it in 1904.


Viva Sevilla !, from 1896, sets up a tangy interaction between violin and orchestra that the performers realize with infectious enthusiasm. Sarasate’s operatic Fantasy on Boieldieu’s Dame Blanche came quite early (op. 3) in his output, preceded by a fantasy on Verdi’s Forza del destino, op. 1, and Hommage à Rossini , op. 2. While Gold describes op. 3 as the composer’s “grandest endeavor,” it’s never achieved the renown of Sarasate’s fantasies on Carmen or Faust, though the earlier work represents a portent of things to come and may not have achieved the popularity of the later works because of the relatively less-widespread recognition, at least nowadays, of the opera on which it’s based. Yang and Izquierdo play it with authority and zesty piquancy. Her bow snaps in the technical passages and she revels in the finale’s carnival-like virtuosity (Bottesini tapped a similarly jovial vein in his fantasies for double bass). If the third volume isn’t so overwhelming as Yang’s first two, this cleanly played, enthusiastically accompanied, and clearly recorded third volume (the first with violin and orchestra) nevertheless deserves a strong recommendation.


FANFARE: Robert Maxham


Product Description:

  • Release Date: October 27, 2009


  • UPC: 747313219179


  • Catalog Number: 8572191


  • Label: Naxos


  • Number of Discs: 1


  • Composer: Pablo de Sarasate


  • Conductor: Ernest Martíne Izquierdo


  • Orchestra/Ensemble: Orquesta Sinfónica De Navarra


  • Performer: Tianwa Yang