Carmen Fantasy, Op. 25 by Pablo de Sarasate performed by David Roberts with the Jeunes Virtuoses de New York ensemble on April 10, 2011 at Saint Malachy's Church (the Actors' Chapel). A more recent version is at www.youtube.com Written in 1883, Carmen Fantasy is a virtuoso showpiece for violin and orchestra highlighting themes from the popular opera Carmen by Georges Bizet. Sarasate composed this piece with flashy, virtuosic expositions of Carmen's Spanish motifs including the Aragonaise, Habanera (3:05), Seguidilla (6:03) and the Gypsy Dance (8:03). This music is considered one of the most challenging and virtuosic for the violin. Pablo Martín Melitón de Sarasate y Navascués (1844-1908) was a violin virtuoso and composer from Pamplona, Spain. He was famous for his purity of tone and impressive facility of execution: music dedicated to Sarasate include Henryk Wieniawski's Violin Concerto No. 2, Camille Saint-Saëns' Violin Concerto No. 3, Max Bruch's Scottish Fantasy, Alexander Mackenzie's Pibroch Suite and Édouard Lalo's Symphonie Espagnole, and Camille Saint-Saëns' Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso was written expressly for Sarasate and dedicated to him. Sarasate composed this Carmen Fantasy to demonstrate his own exemplary and dazzling skills, and ever since has been similarly used to show the consummate mastery of violin technique by such preeminent artists as Itzhak Perlman, Sarah Chang, Midori, Gil Shaham, Jascha Heifetz, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Rachel Barton Pine, Li
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