Sarasate: Music for Violin and Orchestra, Volume 4 (CD review)

Fantasies on Don Giovanni and Der Freischutz. Tianwa Yang, violin; Ernest Martinez Izquierdo, Orquesta Sinfonica de Navarra. Naxos 8.572276.

Spanish composer and violinist Pablo Martín Melitón de Sarasate y Navascués (1844-1908) had a talent as big as his name. He was one of those composer-virtuosos who dominated the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, people like Mozart, Chopin, Paganini, and Liszt, who not only wrote great music but dazzled audiences with their virtuosic playing of it. I suppose the only one close to them in the twentieth century might be Sergei Rachmaninov; you get the idea. Anyway, to celebrate the music of Sarasate, Naxos embarked a few years ago on a series of discs with violinist Tianwa Yang, of which this one is number four. It contains two longer works--Fantasies on Don Giovanni and Der Freischutz--and six shorter pieces.

First up are two of the short pieces to set the stage: the Introduction et Tarantelle, Op. 43, and the Jota de San Fermin, Op. 36. These are sprightly works, with Ms. Yang showing off her dexterity and intense performing skill and the Symphony Orchestra of Navarre under Ernest Martinez Izquierdo most congenial in their support. Sarasate was solidly in the Romantic vein right up until the day he died, so expect a flow of lush melodies throughout. A jota, incidentally, according to my Random House Dictionary is "a Spanish dance in triple meter, performed by a couple and marked by complex rhythms executed with the heels and castanets."

Certainly, one must include the Introduction et Tarantelle among Sarasate's most-popular pieces, and when you hear Yang play it, you understand why. It's lilting and soaring and tuneful, with parts for both lovely slow playing and flashy fast showmanship. The jota also has enough variety and virtuosity to keep one engaged, and again Yang's playing is sensitive and alert. If there is any minor issue, it's that one almost forgets there's an orchestra playing behind her. Yet if you make yourself conscious of it, it plays along with enthusiasm.

Next, we find the centerpieces of the program: the Fantaisie sur le Don Juan de Mozart, Op. 51, and Fantaisie sur Der Freischutz de Weber, Op. 14, each about ten or twelve minutes long. Sarasate did a number of fantasies (around eight, I believe), and here we get an earlier and a later such work. The Mozart and Weber fantasies are, of course, medley pastiches, and as such some listeners may look down on them for their lack of originality. But Yang plays them with great dignity and refinement, and one cannot help admire their sheer elegance. And who can deny that Sarasate wasn't passing along great music?

To conclude the album, we get three more short pieces--the Jota de Pamplona, Op. 50, the Airs ecossais, Op. 34, the L'Esprit follet, Op. 48--and the longer (relatively speaking at eleven minutes) Le Reve, Op. 53. Of these final works, the Jota de Pamplona has a jaunty bounce, and Yang captures what seems to me a genuine Spanish flavor with her expressive playing. In Airs ecossais ("Scottish Airs") as the name implies Sarasate gives us a break from Spain and a whiff of Scottish atmosphere, with much in the way of Scottish folk tunes. Yang seems equally at home in the music as she did in the Spanish-flavored numbers. Then Yang delivers the penultimate item, Le Reve, exquisitely and even does a little showing off of her own in the closing track, L'Esprit follet ("The Will-o-the-Wisp"), which sounds as though she must have four hands and twenty digits to execute it.

Understand, as this is volume four in a series, Yang had already done a lot of Sarasate's most-popular material in earlier editions, things like the Carmen Fantasy and Zigeunerweisen. Nevertheless, a big part of the composer's music is entertaining enough to warrant a listen, and Yang's playing is so felicitous it's hard not to want to hear more. This is a delightful album in every way: good music, a good soloist, good accompaniment, and audio reproduction that is up to the task.

Producer and engineer Sean Lewis recorded this fourth volume of Sarasate's music at Baranain Concert Hall, Pamplona, Spain in November 2009, and Naxos released the disc in late 2013. I gather from these dates that Ms. Yang and the orchestra recorded all of the Sarasate music at about the same time, and Naxos released the various editions a year apart.

The violin is clearly out in front, perhaps a tad more so than one would hear a soloist in a live concert. Nevertheless, the violin has a pleasantly smooth, rounded sound that is pleasant to hear--not bright or edgy as some close-up violins can be. The orchestra appears spread out behind the soloist in a fairly resonant acoustic that provides a pleasing ambient glow for the music making. Clarity, dynamics, and frequency response are all more than adequate for the occasion and offer further satisfaction by way of easy listening.

JJP

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click here: