Pablo de Sarasate

The third and fourth of Spanish violinist-composer Pablo de Sarasate's eight Spanish Dances for violin and piano -- a group of pieces commissioned by the publishing firm of N. Simrock for inclusion in the ethnic dance series launched by Brahms' Hungarian Dances and continued with Dvorák's Slavonic Dances -- are entitled Romanza andaluza and Jota navarra, and were published together as Op. 22 in 1879; Sarasate dedicated them to the famous Bohemian violinist Wilma Neruda, who, after marrying the Swedish composer Frederick Norman, took the stage name Norman-Neruda. The two dances are true complements to one another. The Romanza andaluza is a generally relaxed, warm-souled rhapsody in several sections and with many stylishly folk-like (but not in fact Andalusian) melodies and a few brief outbursts of virtuoso display, while the Jota navarra is a fleet-footed, Navarrese take on the energetic jota dance originally native to Aragón.

-- Blair Johnston