Spanish Dances
Collection of pieces for piano and violin by Sarasate
The Spanish Dances (Spanish: Danzas españolas, first published title: German: Spanische Tänze) are a collection of eight pieces for violin and piano composed by Pablo de Sarasate between 1877 and 1882 and published in four books, each book combining two dances contrasting in rhythm and character. They are among Sarasate's best known works.
History
The Spanish Dances were commissioned by German publisher Fritz Simrock in 1877, who had recognized the potential of European folk dances, starting a few years earlier with the Hungarian Dances by Johannes Brahms. Sarasate composed eight pieces, published by Simrock between 1878 and 1882 in four books of two pieces each. The Spanish Dances proved to be a great commercial success, and another ten pieces were listed in Simrock's catalogue as books V to XIV, though none of them (including El canto del ruiseñor, Op. 29, and Airs Écossais, Op. 34) ended up being published as Spanish Dances.
Book I (Malagueña and Habanera), Op. 21, was composed in Germany between December 1877 and February 1878, and dedicated to Joseph Joachim, whom he had met in Berlin.
Book II (Romanza andaluza and Jota navarra), Op.
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This entry incorporates text from “Spanish Dances” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.