Symphonie espagnole in D minor, op. 21

Lalo composed the Symphonie espagnole in 1874 for Pablo de Sarasate, who played the first performance at the Concerts Populaires in Paris on 7 February 1875, a month before Bizet's Carmen opened. The title is misleading twice over: the piece is a violin concerto in all but name, and its Spanish material comes from a Frenchman of Spanish descent working in Paris rather than from Spain. There are five movements, the third of which was routinely cut for decades. Tchaikovsky heard it in 1878 and said the fresh rhythms sent him straight to work on his own violin concerto. He had come to the piece while resting in Switzerland, where the violinist Iosif Kotek brought him a parcel of new violin music and the two played through the arrangement for violin and piano. Lalo's declared violin concerto, in F major, op. 20, is rarely heard beside it.