Sarasate: Sérénade andalouse, Op. 28

Tianwa Yang’s admired and revelatory Sarasate series continues with a volume of captivatingly melodic compositions. Given Sarasate’s prodigious status in the violin pantheon, technical demands on the performer are often – but not universally – constant. But so too is his unfailing gift for lyricism, whether in the elegant Boléro, the balletic Sérénade andalouse or the aria-like Rêverie. The dazzling bowing difficulties in the Fantaisie-Caprice are thrilling, and so are the bird call harmonics of Los pájaros de Chile, written during a South American tour and only very recently published.

This series of Sarasate violin and piano works is unprecedented in its scope and has received hugely admiring press. There is a cross section of moods and textures and also rarities – Los pájaros de Chile is a relatively newly published work and will be unfamiliar to almost everyone.

This fourth and final CD devoted to Pablo Sarasate’s music for violin and piano brings many little musical gems to the listeners attention. Pablo Sarasate (1844-1908) was a Spanish violinist and composer of the Romantic Period and this final volume of his complete works for violin and piano ably portrays this, from the poetic Confidence, through to one of his final works L’Esprit follet.