La Gitana (c 1916)

Many of the most popular Kreisler pieces – Caprice viennois, Schön Rosmarin, Liebesfreud, Liebesleid – are associated in one way or another with Vienna, where the composer was born and where he spent most of the first half of his life. Kreisler’s interests extended much further, however, and not just to baroque pastiche of the kind that for so long fooled public and scholars into accepting his fictions as genuine period pieces. We know from another popular work, Tambourin chinois, that he had a taste for the exotic, while other compositions – leaving aside the dozens of arrangements – derive from a wide range of stylistic sources including (in Syncopations) ragtime. And, of course, there was the gypsy influence, of the Hungarian variety in Gypsy Caprice and the Spanish variety in La Gitana.

Kreisler’s La Gitana is an attractive example of the gypsy-violin rhapsody form popularised by Sarasate and later to be exploited to the ultimate of its potential in Ravel’s Tzigane. It begins, like most works of its kind, with a slow introduction, where in this case the violinist sets the scene with a brief but elaborate display of flamenco accompanied by dramatic chords on the piano. Contrary to the implication of the sutbitle, “Arabic-Spanish Gypsy Song from the 18th Century,” the quicker main section of the piece is based on not one but two themes: the first is introduced by the violin in D minor over a strummed rhythmic figure on the piano and coloured in (approximate) Spanish style by both instruments; the second and more seductive melody is also introduced by violin but in D major. The brighter mood survives until it is unceremoniously displaced by a brief reminder of the introduction in the closing bars.