Pablo de Sarasate - Music for Violin & Orchestra Vol. 1 (Tianwa Yang; Ernest Martinez Izquierdo)

Information

Composer: Pablo de Sarasate

1. Zigeunerweisen, Op. 20
2. Airs espagnols, Op. 18
3. Zortzico Miramar, Op. 42
4. Peteneras, Caprice espagnol, Op. 35
5. Nocturne-Serenade, Op. 45
6. Viva Sevilla!, Op. 38
7. Fantasie sur "La Dame Blanche" de François-Adrien Boieldieu, Op. 3

Tianwa Yang, violin

Orquesta Sinfónica de Navarra

Ernest Martínez Izquierdo, conductor

Date: 2009

Label: Naxos

-----------------------------------------------------------

Review

The Spaniard violinist Sarasate studied at the Paris Conservatoire in the late 1850s and walked off with all the prizes. His career got off to a rather insignificant start, as a warm-up act to flamboyant singers in recital, but he used this experience to good effect and to his own advantage, so much so that during the course of his own career he became one of the highest paid virtuosi of all time. He wrote and played many fantasies on popular tunes, familiar operas and his own original melodies; he was a phenomenal technician and a brilliant showman. This disc begins with his greatest and most popular work, Zigeunerweisen, and from it - as well as the surviving recordings he made at the end of his life - we can deduce that he played with a warmth of tone (considerable vibrato), subtle delicacy and above all with an outrageously technical skill. At times one is sure there are two players at work. Albert Spalding commented that Sarasate’s violin ‘sang like a thrush, and his incomparable ease tossed aside difficulties with a grace and insouciance that affected even his gestures’. Speaking of his gestures, he was a notorious attention-seeker on the concert platform. When awaiting his next entry while the orchestra played alone, he would ensure that the audience continued to look at him, not the conductor and his players, by holding his instrument aloft in his left hand halfway along its neck, then let it drop until the pegs encountered his hand, producing an involuntary gasp from the public who were convinced it was on a descending journey of destruction.

 

Like his even more famous forebear Paganini, it’s easy to dismiss Sarasate’s music as shallow, and discs like this can be tedious because the music has a formulaic structure, which worked well in its day, but even then a procession of seven works would not have been played in a concert. Today one of them might serve as a substantial encore. The other truism is that no player attempts such music unless they are blessed with a phenomenal technique. There are no half measures when it comes to this music - either you can play it or you can’t. The Chinese Tianwa Yang - who has also recorded some of Sarasate’s music for violin and piano (review) - certainly can, and makes it all sound both easy and natural. She has bold tone, a bright sound and immaculate clarity in her left hand pizzicato; her conductor and orchestral accompanists accurately follow her weaving rubato. The delicate understatement of Viva Sevilla (track 7) is a highlight. It may all be a surfeit of paella maybe, but it makes a tasty dish all the same, and there’s also a second volume now which starts with the famous Carmen Fantasy. Tianwa Yang is a name to look out for. 

— Christopher Fifield 

-----------------------------------------------------------

Pablo de Sarasate (10 March 1844 – 20 September 1908) was a Spanish violin virtuoso and composer whose exceptional technique and pure, sweet tone earned him international acclaim. Beginning violin at five, he debuted publicly at eight and later trained at the Paris Conservatory. From 1859 onward, extensive concert tours established his global reputation. His artistry inspired leading composers such as Saint-Saëns, Bruch, Lalo and Dvořák to write works for him. Sarasate also composed virtuoso pieces for violin, the most celebrated being Zigeunerweisen (1878), a gypsy-style fantasy that remains a staple of the repertoire.

***

Tianwa Yang (杨天娲, born 8 April 1987) is a Chinese classical violinist. She studied with Lin Yaoji at the Central Conservatory of Music. Yang debuted in Europe in 2001, performing with the Czech Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra in Prague. Her North American debut was in the 2007-2008 season when she performed at the Virginia Arts Festival with the Virginia Symphony. Yang recorded her first CD in 2000, at the age of 13, with a recording of Paganini's 24 Caprices, on the Hugo Classical label. In 2004, she began recording for Naxos, starting with a series of the complete works of Pablo de Sarasate.

-----------------------------------------------------------