Quite
early in his career, Sarasate produced a series of fantasies on themes
from popular operas for solo violin with orchestral, or piano,
accompaniment. The appeal of the Carmen fantasy, with which this
collection opens, has remained the most enduring but, perhaps reflecting
the varying fortunes with audiences of the operas themselves, settings
of Gounod's Faust and Roméo et Juliette, or Weber's Der Freischütz are
ready for reappraisal today as similarly exhilarating exercises in
Romantic violin technique. As an example of Sarasate's equally
successful and more purely lyrical "salon" style of composition, his
Rêverie, Op. 4 is also included here.
Verlag: Choudens ACF100012.