Caprice basque Op.24

Moderato - allegro moderato

Although he had his limitations as a violinist - he refused to play the Brahms Concerto and, according to Carl Flesch, was “impossible” in the Beethoven - Sarasate set new standards in accuracy while cultivating a caressingly flawless sound and a uniquely elegant style. This “ideal embodiment of the salon virtuoso” not only inspired works like Saint-Saëns’s Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, Lalo’s Symphonie espagnole and Bruch’s Scottish Fantasy but also supplemented his repertoire with dozens of devastatingly brilliant works of his own. He drew on ready-made material from any source - opera for the Carmen Fantasy, gypsy fiddle tunes for the Zigeunerweisen - but his favourite area for development was the music of Spain.

As a native of Pamplona and, in later life, the owner of a villa in Biarritz, Sarasate was particularly interested in the songs and dances of the Basque country. While he treats them with affection, however, he displays little respect for their own innate character: a good tune can only be improved, it seems, by having virtuoso violin techniques lavished on it, and the more the better. The Caprice basque, which was written in the middle of his career in about 1880, is an extreme and at the same time irresistible example. The D minor material of the opening Moderato is sturdy enough to thrive on the heavy chordal treatment applied to it by both instruments. The peculiar rhythmic interest of the Allegro moderato dance in A minor, which shifts the emphasis to the end of the bar, does not long survive in the variations that follow. Attention here is focused on fleeting semiquavers, a legato line with pizzicato accompaniment, an aggressive intervention of multi-stopped harmonies, a rapid alternation of bowed and left-hand pizzicato notes, a sustained succession of false harmonics, and a coda of spiccato arpeggios.