Lalo: Symphonie Espagnole / Ravel / Saint-saens / Sarasate

Description

Edouard Lalo (1823 -1892) Symphonie espagnole, Op. 21PabloSarasate (1844 - 1908) Zigeunerweisen, Op. 20CamilleSaint-Sa?½ns (1835 - 1921) Havanaise, Op. 83 MauriceRavel (1875 - 1937) Tzigane, rapsodie de concertEdouardLalo's Symphonie espagnole is among the mostpopular works in the violinist's repertoire. Lalo's name may be Spanish but his family hadestablished themselves in northern France in the 16th century .The composer was born inLille in 1823, son of a father who had served in Napoleon's armies. Early training atLille Conservatoire in violin and cello was followed, at the age of sixteen, by a briefperiod of study in Paris with the violinist and conductor Habeneck and private lessons incomposition. In Paris, in independence of his father, who disapproved of his son's choiceof career, he earned a living as a violinist and as a teacher, while writing music thatdid not achieve the success he needed. From the 1850s he was particularly involved inperformance as viola-player in the Armingaud Quartet, and later in his own quartet,ensembles that re-introduced to the French public the classical quartet repertoire ofHaydn, Mozart and Beethoven.Itwas not until the 1870s that Lalo began to make an impression as a composer, with theperformance of his Violin Concerto in 1874by Pablo Sarasate, to whom the Symphonie espagnoleof the same year was dedicated. This was followed by other orchestral compositions,including the successful Cello Concerto anda series of works for solo violin and orchestra. Still greater success came at last in1888 with the production of his opera Le roi d'Ysat the Opera-Comique, after a series ofearlier operatic disappointments. He died in 1892.Symphonie espagnole is a symphony only inname. The mood of the work is established at the start with the brief orchestralintroduction, followed by the entry of the soloist and the characteristic Spanish rhythmsof the principal theme. The second scherzandomovement, with its contrasting central section, is followed by a characteristicallySpanish Intermezzo and a lyrically movingslower movement that grows in intensity with its idiomatically Spanish turns of phrase.The work ends with a final Rondo of brightelegance and charm in which there is ample opportunity for virtuoso display.TheSpanish violinist Pablo Sarasate studied in Paris and at the age of fifteen started on aconcert career that was to bring him fame throughout Europe and the Americas. Composerswho wrote for him include Bruch, and his fellow-violinists Joachim and Wienawski. For hisown use he wrote a number of works for violin of which his Gypsy piece, Zigeunerweisen, Opus 20, was published in Leipzig in1878.CamilleSaint-Sa?½ns, a composer whose life spans a vast period, from the age of Schumann andMendelssohn to that of Ravel and Debussy, and whose works embrace every conceivable genre,wrote two of his violin concertos for Sarasate, as well as the very Spanish Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso. The same Spanishelement informs the well