Zigeunerweisen Op. 20, is a musical composition for violin

Violin

The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....

 and orchestra

Orchestra

An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...

 written in 1878 by the Spanish composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

 and virtuoso

Virtuoso

A virtuoso is an individual who possesses outstanding technical ability in the fine arts, at singing or playing a musical instrument. The plural form is either virtuosi or the Anglicisation, virtuosos, and the feminine form sometimes used is virtuosa...

 Pablo de Sarasate

Pablo de Sarasate

Pablo Martín Melitón de Sarasate y Navascués was a Navarrese Spanish violinist and composer of the Romantic period.-Career:Pablo Sarasate was born in Pamplona, Navarre, the son of an artillery bandmaster...

 and premiered during the same year in Leipzig. It is based on themes of the Roma people, specifically the rhythms of the csárdás

Csárdás

Csárdás is a traditional Hungarian folk dance, the name derived from csárda . It originated in Hungary and was popularized by Roma music bands in Hungary and neighboring lands of Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Burgenland, Croatia, Ukraine, Transylvania and Moravia, as well as among the Banat...

.

Sarasate's most popular composition and a favorite among violin virtuosi, the work has remained a staple on records at least since Sarasate himself recorded it in 1904. It has also been recorded by Mischa Elman, Nigel Kennedy

Nigel Kennedy

Nigel Kennedy is a British born violinist and violist. He made his early career in the classical field, and he has performed and recorded most of the major violin concerti...

, Zino Francescatti

Zino Francescatti

René-Charles "Zino" Francescatti was a French virtuoso violinist.Zino Francescatti was born in Marseilles, to a musical family. Both parents were violinists. His father, who also played the cello, had studied with Camillo Sivori. Zino studied violin from age three and was quickly recognized as a...

, Jascha Heifetz

Jascha Heifetz

Jascha Heifetz was a violinist, born in Vilnius, then Russian Empire, now Lithuania. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest violinists of all time.- Early life :...

, Ivry Gitlis

Ivry Gitlis

Ivry Gitlis is an Israeli violinist and UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador. He has performed with the world's top orchestras , and many of his recordings are considered classics.-Life:Born in Haifa, Mandate Palestine to Jewish immigrants from Russia,...

, Isaac Stern

Isaac Stern

Isaac Stern was a Ukrainian-born violinist. He was renowned for his recordings and for discovering new musical talent.-Biography:Isaac Stern was born into a Jewish family in Kremenets, Ukraine. He was fourteen months old when his family moved to San Francisco...

, Itzhak Perlman

Itzhak Perlman

Itzhak Perlman is an Israeli-born violinist, conductor, and instructor of master classes. He is regarded as one of the pre-eminent violinists of the 20th and early-21st centuries.-Early life:...

, Kyung-wha Chung

Kyung-wha Chung

Kyung-wha Chung is a Korean violinist.- Biography :Kyung-wha Chung's musical career began at the age of three. Her fame in the seventies and eighties was at the top level, and ranked alongside the great violinists Pinchas Zukerman and Itzhak Perlman...

, Gil Shaham

Gil Shaham

-Biography:Gil Shaham was born in Urbana, Illinois, while his parents, Israeli scientists, were on an academic fellowship at the University of Illinois. His father Jacob was an astrophysicist, and his mother, Meira Diskin, was a cytogeneticist. His sister is the pianist Orli Shaham. He is a...

, Midori Gotō

Midori Goto

is a Japanese American violinist. She made her debut at the age of 11 in a last-minute change of programming during a concert highlighting young performers by the New York Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta. When she was 21, she formed the philanthropic group Midori and Friends to help bring music to...

, Sarah Chang

Sarah Chang

Sarah Chang is a Korean American violinist. Her debut came in 1989 with the New York Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Shortly thereafter, Chang was recognized as a child prodigy. She enrolled at Juilliard School to study music, graduating in 1999 and continuing university studies...

, Anne-Sophie Mutter

Anne-Sophie Mutter

Anne-Sophie Mutter is a German violinist.- Early life :Mutter was born in Rheinfelden, Germany. She began playing the piano at age five, and shortly afterwards took up the violin, studying with Erna Honigberger, a pupil of Carl Flesch...

, and David Garrett

David Garrett (violinist)

David Garrett is a record breaking German/American classical violinist and recording artist.-Personal life:...

. String bassist Edgar Meyer

Edgar Meyer

Edgar Meyer is a prominent contemporary bassist and composer. His styles include classical, bluegrass, newgrass, and jazz. Meyer has worked as a session musician in Nashville, part of various chamber groups, a composer, and an arranger...

 recorded a version with Béla Fleck

Béla Fleck

Béla Anton Leoš Fleck is an American banjo player. Widely acknowledged as one of the world's most innovative and technically proficient banjo players, he is best known for his work with the bands New Grass Revival and Béla Fleck and the Flecktones.-Early life and career details:Fleck was born in...

 and Mike Marshall on the album Uncommon Ritual

Uncommon Ritual

Uncommon Ritual is the second album released by Sony Classical of string trios, following Appalachia Waltz, with unusual instrumentation and influences from bluegrass and folk music to create an Americana-style of traditional classical music. Uncommon Ritual adds jazz, blues, and elements from...

. It was featured in the 2002 film Together, and it provided both the title and much of the soundtrack for Seijun Suzuki

Seijun Suzuki

, born Seitaro Suzuki on May 24, 1923, is a Japanese filmmaker, actor, and screenwriter. His films are renowned by film enthusiasts worldwide for their jarring visual style, irreverent humour, nihilistic cool and entertainment-over-logic sensibility...

's 1980 film Zigeunerweisen

Zigeunerweisen (film)

is a 1980 independent Japanese film directed by Seijun Suzuki and based on Hyakken Uchida's novel, Disk of Sarasate. It takes its title from a gramophone recording of Pablo de Sarasate's violin composition, Zigeunerweisen, which features prominently in the story...

.

Composition

Zigeunerweisen is in one movement

Movement (music)

A movement is a self-contained part of a musical composition or musical form. While individual or selected movements from a composition are sometimes performed separately, a performance of the complete work requires all the movements to be performed in succession...

 but can be divided into four sections, the first three in the key

Key (music)

In music theory, the term key is used in many different and sometimes contradictory ways. A common use is to speak of music as being "in" a specific key, such as in the key of C major or in the key of F-sharp. Sometimes the terms "major" or "minor" are appended, as in the key of A minor or in the...

 of C minor

C minor

C minor is a minor scale based on C, consisting of the pitches C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. The harmonic minor raises the B to B. Changes needed for the melodic and harmonic versions of the scale are written in with naturals and accidentals as necessary.Its key signature consists of three flats...

 and the last in A minor

A minor

A minor is a minor scale based on A, consisting of the pitches A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. The harmonic minor scale raises the G to G...

, based on the tempi

Tempo

In musical terminology, tempo is the speed or pace of a given piece. Tempo is a crucial element of any musical composition, as it can affect the mood and difficulty of a piece.-Measuring tempo:...

:

1. Moderato: an imposing, virtuosic introduction with slow majestic energy by the orchestra, then a little softer by the violin itself.
2. Lento: the violin plays in lugubrious lento 4/4
   Time signature
   The time signature is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats are in each measure and which note value constitutes one beat....
   
   . This section has an improvisational quality; the melody, which essentially consists of pairs of 4-bar
   Bar (music)
   In musical notation, a bar is a segment of time defined by a given number of beats of a given duration. Typically, a piece consists of several bars of the same length, and in modern musical notation the number of beats in each bar is specified at the beginning of the score by the top number of a...
   
    phrases
   Phrase (music)
   In music and music theory, phrase and phrasing are concepts and practices related to grouping consecutive melodic notes, both in their composition and performance...
   
   , is punctuated with difficult runs and other technically demanding figures, including flying spiccato and ricochet bowings.
3. Un poco più lento 2/4 – The muted soloist plays a melancholic melody with the so-called reverse-applied dotted note: 1/16
   Sixteenth note
   thumb|right|Figure 1. A sixteenth note with stem facing up, a sixteenth note with stem facing down, and a sixteenth rest.thumb|right|Figure 2. Four sixteenth notes beamed together....
   
    + dotted 1/8
   Dotted note
   In Western musical notation, a dotted note is a note with a small dot written after it. The dot increases the duration of the basic note by half of its original value. If the basic note lasts 2 beats, the corresponding dotted note lasts 3 beats...
   
    rhythm.
4. Allegro molto vivace 2/4 – At this point, the piece becomes extremely rapid. The challenging solo part consists mainly of long spiccato runs, along with double stop
   Double stop
   A double stop, in music terminology, is the act of playing two notes simultaneously on a melodic percussion instrument or stringed instrument...
   
   s, artificial harmonics and left-hand pizzicato
   Pizzicato
   Pizzicato is a playing technique that involves plucking the strings of a string instrument. The exact technique varies somewhat depending on the type of stringed instrument....
   
   .

External links

(piano accompaniment, first and fourth movements)