George Bernard Shaw once remarked that although there are many composers of music for the Violin there are only a few composers of Violin music. But where Pablo de Sarasate (1844-1908) is concerned Shaw declared that the Spanish musician's talents as both a performer and composer 'left criticism gasping miles behind him.' Famous for his fiery forceful and passionate playing Sarasate was equally renowned for the sweetness and purity of his tone and his impeccable technique. As a composer steeped in the colorful music of his native land he was well known for his many Violin works inspired by Spanish airs and dances written to display the instrument'scapabilitie. Carmen Fantasy Op. 25 is Sarasate's much-loved Violin fantasy based on Bizet's Carmen. It includes excerpts of different movements from the Carmen suite including the familiar Habanera and opening movement. Sarasate's popular arrangement and variations on the opera's themes are staples of the Violin repertoire. This full-score version stands as the most affordable available and it offers both performers and listeners extra insights into a celebrated work.Reprint of an early authoritative edition.

Four Pieces For Orchestra was composed by Hans Abrahamsen in 2000-2003. Programme note: In 1983 Hans Abrahamsen wrote the first seven of his Ten Studies for Piano. In the early eighties most composers who wrote for the piano were still making strenuous efforts to distance themselves from the instrument?s romantic past for example treating it as a percussion instrument rather than exploiting its expressive ?singing? potential. The piano?s modern identity as a mechanical rational emotionally cool instrument is reflected in Abrahamsen?s studies 5 7; but in the first four studies Abrahamsen allows the piano to?recollect? its past: especially what the composer calls ?the golden German romantic time full of expression night timelessness dream and the irrational?. Accordingly these first four studies were given German one might specifically say Schumanesque - titles: Traumlied (?Dreamsong?) Sturm (?Storm?) Arabeske (?Arabesque?) and Ende (?End?). While Abrahamsen was in no way dissatisfied with the first four Studies as piano music he soon felt the urge to expand them in both time and space. In their new identity as Four Pieces for Orchestra created between 2000-2003 the original studies nearly doubled in length while the forces required expanded from one soloist to an orchestra of Mahlerian/Straussian dimensions including instruments beloved by the late-romantics: Wagner tubas bass trumpet guitar mandolin and the hammer used so memorably in Mahler?s Sixth Symphony and Alban Berg?s Three Pieces for Orchestra. The results are not so much ?arrangements? of the four piano studies more recompositions. A helpful comparison might be made with certain painters: Cézanne portraying the same mountain from different angles; or Monet obsessively returning to Rouen Cathedral in different lights and weather conditions. Abrahamsen himself remembers an important visit to the Munch Museum in Oslo where he saw how Munch painted the same subject