Release Date: 07 January 2003
Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 747313509324
Genres: Classical
Composer/Series: LALO
Description
Edouard Lalo (1823-1892): Symphonie espagnole, Op. 21 (1874)Maurice Ravel (1875-1937): Tzigane (1924)Camille Saint-Sa?½ns (1835-1921): Havanaise, Op. 83 (1887)Pablo de Sarasate (1844-1908): Carmen Fantasy, Op. 25 (1883) Edouard Lalo's Symphonie espagnole is among the most popular works in the violinist's repertoire. Lalo may have a Spanish name, but his family had established themselves in northern France in the 16th century. The composer was born in Lille in 1823, the son of a father who had served in Napoleon's armies. Early training at Lille Conservatoire in violin and cello was followed, at the age of sixteen, by a brief period of study in Paris with the violinist and conductor Habeneck and private lessons in composition. In Paris, in independence of his father, who disapproved of his son's choice of career, he earned a living as a violinist and teacher, while writing music that did not achieve the success he needed. From the 1850s he worked as a viola player in the Armingaud Quartet and later in a quartet of his own, ensembles that did much to re-introduce to the French public the classical quartet repertoire of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. It was not until the 1870s that Lalo began to make an impression as a composer, with performances of his Violin Concerto in 1874 by the Spanish virtuoso Pablo Sarasate, to whom the Symphonie espagnole of the same year was dedicated. This was followed by other orchestral compositions, including the successful Cello Concerto and a series of works for solo violin and orchestra. Still greater success came at last in 1888 with the production of his opera Le roi d'Ys at the Opera-Comique, after a series of earlier operatic disappointments. He died in 1892. The Symphonie espagnole is a symphony only in name. The mood of the work is established at the start with the brief orchestral introduction, followed by the entry of the soloist and the characteristic rhythms of the principal theme. The second scherzando movement, with its contrasting central section, is followed by a typically Spanish Intermezzo and a lyrically moving slower movement that grows in intensity with its idiomatically Spanish turns of phrase. The work ends with a final Rondo of bright elegance and charm in which there is ample opportunity for virtuoso display. The son of a father of Swiss origin and a mother whose family came from the Basque country, Maurice Ravel enjoyed a controversial career at the Paris Conservatoire, to which he returned in 1897 to study with Gabriel Faure, who had at last been appointed to the teaching staff. His failure to win any composition prize and, above all, to secure the Prix de Rome, although he had already made something of a name for himself as a composer, caused a scandal and changes at the Conservatoire that resulted in the appointment of Faure as director. Ravel's famous Tzigane was written in 1924 for the Hungarian violinist Jelly d'Aranyi, whose own improvised additions the compos
Tracklisting
Dariia Lytvishko
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; Marin Alsop
Alice Di Piazza; Basel Sinfonietta; NDR Bigband; Titus Engel
Anna Alas i Jove; Miquel Villalba
David Childs; Black Dyke Band; Nicholas Childs
Various
Various
Lully
