Navarra for 2 Violins and Orchestra, Op. 33

Composer: SARASATE, Pablo de
  • Sarasate’s Navarra for 2 violins and orchestra, op.33, was first published in 1889.1
  • Sarasate was born in Pamplona, the capital of the region of Spain called Navarra.2
    • Such was Sarasate’s love for his hometown that he returned to it every year for the festival of San Fermín on July 7. The whole town used to come out to meet his at the railway station.3
    • There is a charming story from one of Sarasate’s visits back to Navarra. He once encountered a poor elderly blind man playing a worn out violin for tips. Sarasate borrowed the man’s violin and played it for him, earning the man a large amount of money.4
    • Navarra is now home to a Sarasate museum, an international violin contest in Sarasate’s honor, and a number of other honors for Sarasate.5

Sources

  1.  “Navarra, Op.33 (Sarasate, Pablo de),” IMSLP, accessed January 21, 2020, https://imslp.org/wiki/Navarra%2C_Op.33_(Sarasate%2C_Pablo_de). 
  2.  Boris Schwarz and Robin Stowell, “Sarasate (y Navascuéz), Pablo (Martín Melitón) de,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed January 21, 2020,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000024582.
  3.  Zdenko Silvela, A New History of Violin Playing: The Vibrato and Lambert Massart’s Revoolutionary Discovery(USA: Universal Publishers, 2001), 199.
  4. Ibid., 200.
  5. Ibid.

Cut IDs

13054, 16242