Pablo de Sarasate

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Pablo Sarasate
Pablo de Sarasate
Background information
Birth name	Pablo Martín Melitón de Sarasate y Navascués
Born	March 10, 1844(1844-03-10) Pamplona, Spain
Died	September 20, 1908 (aged 64) Biarritz, France
Genre(s)	Classical
Occupation(s)	Composer, conductor, violinist
Years active	1852–1904
Notable instrument(s)
Violin Boissier Stradivarius 1713 Sarasate Stradivarius 1724

Pablo Martín Melitón de Sarasate y Navascués (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈpablo saɾaˈsate], March 10, 1844 – September 20, 1908, was a Spanish violinist and composer of the Romantic period.

Contents 1 Career 2 Appearance in other art forms 3 List of Compositions[2] 4 Notes 5 External links

[edit] Career

Pablo Sarasate was born in Pamplona, Spain, the son of an artillery bandmaster. He began studying the violin with his father at the age of five and later took lessons from a local teacher but his musical talent became evident early on and he appeared in his first public concert in La Coruña at the age of eight. His performance was well-received, and caught the attention of a wealthy patron who provided the funding for Sarasate to study under Manuel Rodríguez Saez in Madrid where he gained the favor of Queen Isabel II. Later, as his abilities developed, he was sent to study under Jean-Delphin Alard at the Paris Conservatoire at the age of twelve. There, at seventeen, Sarasate entered a competition for the Premier Prix and won his first prize, the Conservatoire's highest honour.

Sarasate, who had been playing in public since childhood, made his Paris debut as a concert violinist in 1860, and played in London the following year. Over the course of his career, he toured many parts of the world, performing in Europe, North America, and South America. His artistic pre-eminence was due principally to the purity of his tone, which was free from any tendency towards the sentimental or rhapsodic, and to that impressive facility of execution that made him a virtuoso. In his early career, Sarasate performed mainly opera fantasies, most notably the Carmen Fantasy, and various other pieces that he had composed. The popularity of Sarasate's Spanish flavor in his compositions is reflected in the work of his contemporaries. For example, the influences of Spanish music can be heard in such notable works as Édouard Lalo's Symphonie Espagnole which was dedicated to Sarasate, Georges Bizet's Carmen, and Camille Saint-Saëns' Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, written expressly for Sarasate and dedicated to him.

Of Sarasate's idiomatic writing for his instrument, the playwright and music critic George Bernard Shaw once declared that though there were many composers of music for the violin, there were but few composers of violin music. Of Sarasate's talents as performer and composer, Shaw said that he "left criticism gasping miles behind him." Sarasate's own compositions are mainly flashy show-pieces designed to demonstrate his exemplary technique. Perhaps the best known of his works is Zigeunerweisen (1878), a work for violin and orchestra. Another piece, the Carmen Fantasy (1883), also for violin and orchestra, makes use of themes from Georges Bizet's opera Carmen. Probably his most performed encores are his two books of Spanish dances, brief pieces designed to please the listener's ear and show off the performer's talent. He also made arrangements of a number of other composers' work for violin, and composed sets of variations on "potpourris" drawn from operas familiar to his audiences, such as his Fantasia on La forza del destino (his Opus 1), his "Souvenirs of Faust", or his variations on themes from Die Zauberflöte. In 1904 he made a small number of recordings. In all his travels Sarasate returned to Pamplona each year for the San Fermín festival.^[1]

Sarasate died in Biarritz, France on September 20, 1908 from chronic bronchitis. He bequeathed his violin, made by Antonio Stradivari in 1724, to the Musée de la Musique. The violin now bears his name as the Sarasate Stradivarius in his memory. His second Stradivari violin, the Boissier of 1713, is now owned by Real Conservatorio Superior de Música, Madrid. The Pablo Sarasate International Violin Competition is held in Madrid.

A number of works for violin were dedicated to Sarasate, including Henryk Wieniawski's Violin Concerto No. 2, Édouard Lalo's Symphonie Espagnole, Camille Saint-Saëns' Violin Concerto No. 3 and his Introduction and Rondo capriccioso, Max Bruch's Scottish Fantasy, and Alexander Mackenzie's Pibroch Suite. Also inspired by Sarasate is William Potstock's Souvenir de Sarasate.

[edit] Appearance in other art forms

• Noted painter James Whistler's Arrangement in Black: Pablo de Sarasate (1884) is a portrait of Pablo Sarasate.
• In Arthur Conan Doyle's short story The Red-Headed League (1891), Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John H. Watson attend a concert by Sarasate.
• In Edith Wharton's 1920 novel The Age of Innocence set in 1870s New York, the main protagonist is invited to a private recital to be given by Sarasate.

[edit] List of Compositions^[2]

	Romanza Andaluza Performed by Carrie Rehkopf Navarra Op. 33 Performed by Roxana Pavel Goldstein and Elias Goldstein (violins) with the Depaul Symphony (Chicago) conducted by Cliff Colnot
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Opus	Composition	Instrumentation
—	Fantasia Capriccio	Violin and piano
—	Souvenir de Faust	Violin and piano
No. 1	Fantasy on La forza del destino	Violin and piano
No. 2	Homenaje a Rossini	Violin and piano
No. 3	La dame blanche de Boieldieu	Violin and orchestra
No. 4	Réverie	Violin and piano
No. 5	Fantasy on Roméo et Juliette	Violin and piano
No. 6	Caprice on Mireille	Violin and piano
No. 7	Confidences	Violin and piano
No. 8	Souvenir de Domont	Violin and piano
No. 9	Les Adieux	Violin and piano
No. 10	Sérénade Andalouse	Violin and piano
No. 11	Le sommeil	Violin and piano
No. 12	Moscoviènne	Violin and piano
No. 13	New Fantasy on Faust	Violin and orchestra
No. 14	Fantasy on Der Freischütz	Violin and orchestra
No. 15	Mosaíque de Zampa	Violin and piano
No. 16	Gavota on Mignon	Violin and piano
No. 17	Priére at Berceuse	Violin and piano
No. 18	Airs espagnols	Violin and piano
No. 19	Fantasy on Martha	Violin and piano
No. 20	Zigeunerweisen	Violin and orchestra
No. 21	Malagueña y Habanera	Violin and piano
No. 22	Romanza andaluza y jota navarra	Violin and piano
No. 23	Playera y zapateado	Violin and piano
No. 24	Capricho vasco	Violin and piano
No. 25	Fantasy on Carmen	Violin and orchestra
No. 26	Vito y habanera	Violin and piano
No. 27	Jota aragonesa	Violin and piano
No. 28	Serenata andaluza	Violin and piano
No. 29	El canto del ruiseñor	Violin and orchestra
No. 30	Bolero	Violin and piano
No. 31	Balada	Violin and piano
No. 32	Muñeira	Violin and orchestra
No. 33	Navarra	Violin and orchestra
No. 34	Airs Écossais	Violin and orchestra
No. 35	Fantasía en sapo Reina	Violin and piano
No. 36	Jota de San Fermín	Violin and piano
No. 37	Zortzico Adiós montañas mías	Violin and piano
No. 38	Viva Sevilla!	Violin and orchestra
No. 39	Zortzico de Iparraguirre	Violin and piano
No. 40	Introduction et fandango varié	Violin and piano
No. 41	Introduction et caprice-jota	Violin and orchestra
No. 42	Zortzico Miramar	Violin and orchestra
No. 43	Introduction et tarantelle	Violin and orchestra
No. 44	La chase	Violin and orchestra
No. 45	Nocturno — Serenata	Violin and orchestra
No. 46	Gondoliéra Veneziana	Violin and piano
No. 47	Melodía rumana	Violin and piano
No. 48	L'Esprit Follet	Violin and orchestra
No. 49	Canciones rusas	Violin and orchestra
No. 50	Jota de Pamplona	Violin and orchestra
No. 51	Fantasy on Don Giovanni	Violin and piano
No. 52	Jota de Pablo	Violin and orchestra
No. 53	La Rève	Violin and piano
No. 54	Fantasy on Die Zauberflöte	Violin and orchestra

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

• Free scores by Pablo de Sarasate in the International Music Score Library Project
• Ziegeunerweisen, with the solo violin played by de Sarasate himself, and others (i.a. Jascha Heifetz and Itzhak Perlman)
• Pablo de Sarasate at Allmusic
• Eduardo H. Asiain plays music by Pablo Sarasate
• pablosarasate.com

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.