ALL HAIL: A WUNDERKIND! Tianwa Yang was all of seventeen (according to the notes) when she made this recording. Everyone loves a child prodigy, and from the opening phrase on this CD, it was obvious that we are here in the presence of a major, major talent, having already recorded - at age thirteen! - that Mount Everest of the virtusoso violinist's repertoire: the 24 Caprices by Paganini. So hats off again to the young lady, and to her excellent accompanist Markus Hadulla, for his wonderful support. The audio quality is up to Naxos' excellent standard.

All charm and no harm. Sarasate never wanted to write extended serious works and produced many gems working within the Romantic Spanish idiom. The dances on this disk are perhaps his most loved and feted. Perhaps the extended Balada steps more into the slightly serious realm and this is a welcome work as many other compilations omit it. The real star, however, is Tianwa Yang who plays with an almost superhuman command of every pyrotechnical flourish. There certainly is not the slightest hint of struggle from this violinist who recorded all the Paganini Caprices when just thirteen years of age. Each track simply abounds with taste, flair and a refined humanity that makes this most generous anthology compelling listening.

Pablo Sarasate’s works demand virtuosity of a very different sort. His pieces for violin and piano stretch every violinist’s technique (except, perhaps, Sarasate’s own), standing nearly at the same difficulty level as Paganini’s music. Sarasate wrote primarily for himself, so his works provide considerable insight into his own style, which clearly included some very unusual handling of pizzicati: they sound, at various times, like everything from guitar plucking to harpsichord notes. The first volume in Naxos’ new Sarasate series was recorded by Chinese violinist Tianwa Yang when she was 17, in 2004 – the same year she received the Best Young Violinist in China prize from Seiji Ozawa. Yang is all dash and fire here, and that fits the music exceptionally well. These are works of great rhythmic vitality and considerable surface-level beauty, with no depths to plumb – ideal for a super-talented young violinist. The main pieces on this CD are the eight Danzas Españolas, which for some unexplained reason are arranged very oddly: Nos. 2, 5, 1; then Capricho Vasco; Nos. 3 and 4; then Serenata Andaluza, Jota Aragonesa and Balada; then Nos. 6, 7 and 8. This is a strange sequence that adds nothing to the CD’s effectiveness. Effective it certainly is, though, especially in such fireworks-filled works as the two Habaneras (dances Nos. 2 and 8) and the Serenata Andaluza. Yang’s youthfulness shows through in the quieter, more pensive works, such as Balada and Vito (dance No. 7): these tend to drag as one waits for speed and intensity that the works do not contain. The pieces are also frustrating ones for the pianist: Markus Hadulla plays very well indeed, but what he is given to play has only minimal interest. That, of course, is Sarasate’s fault and was surely his intention: there is nothing here to distract from the violin. If there is also nothing profound offered, it scarcely matters: light-fingered skill is the name of the game here, and Yang has plenty of that.

Miss Tianwa Yang, born in Peking in 1987, had succeeded in giving us a deep emotion listening to her Sarasate violin pieces, elegantly accompanied by the pianist Markus Hadulla. She has a strong personality; not one of these somehow famous pieces is played the same as others do or have done. Her technique is wonderful,her musical taste is very rare. The Habanera, the Playera, the Malaguena, the Capricho vasco with her wonderful left hand pizzicatos blending with the fine piano accompanyment, are a real joy to listen to.

Taiwan Yang, a Chinese violinist who was a mere 17 years old when this disc was recorded, shows prodigal talent in a recital of music by Pablo de Sarasate, one of the Victorian era's great violinists. (Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson take the afternoon off to go and hear him in The Red-Headed League.)

Lacking recordings, we know the violinists of the nineteenth century partly by the music they wrote for themselves. In the music explored here, Sarasate stressed his Spanish heritage, evoking the flamenco and rural dance forms of Spain with considerable subtlety.

Eight of the 12 selections were called Spanish Dances by the composer, but really everything he wrote was a Spanish dance. So we have here two habaneras, a playera, a malaguena, a zapateado, etc.

I never expected a Chinese female to be able to play these idiomatically, but I honestly can find nothing wrong with her performances. Each piece is beautifully characterized and played with great polish and confidence.

If you want to hear some very well-played Sarasate violin music, performed on a disc devoted solely to that composer's Spanish Dances, then this new release from Chinese violinist Tianwa Yang and Naxos will do the job splendidly. Yang was in her 17th year in 2004 when she recorded these stylish, dazzling showpieces--chamber works that also contain an inherent sensual, sultry physicality that requires a soloist with a keen sense of the rhythms and a true feeling for the passion--sometimes playful, sometimes athletic, sometimes erotic--embodied in these dances. Virtuoso they certainly are--and Yang delivers in this aspect of her performances; that is, her technique, which helped her win the prize of "Best Young Violinist in China" in 2004, is sharply developed, confident, and articulate.

Highlights include the energetic, triple-time Jota Aragonesa Op. 27, with its insistent down-beat, varied melodic twists and turns (including a section in harmonics), and sudden fiery outburst at the end. "Zapateado" (Spanish Dance Op. 23 No. 2) also is very exciting in terms of Yang's command of various bowing and fingering techniques--but this also is one place where she shows her occasional tendency to play under pitch, especially (and most unfortunately) on many of the harmonics (here and elsewhere). Because the pitch of unstopped harmonics (which many of these are) is determined by the tuning of the open string and cannot be altered simply by a fine finger adjustment, it suggests that Yang's violin was not always precisely in tune with the piano. At other times (in several places in the Op. 23 No. 1 ("Playera") an occasional note lies a bit flat at the end of a phrase, seemingly due to momentary inattentiveness, not to any fundamental failure of technique.

Aside from these spotty lapses, when you compare Yang's interpretations, which are basically solid and technically very impressive, with other versions, you realize the limitations of her emotional, experiential input to the pieces' expressive aspects. There's plenty of fire but not much heat; and there's undeniable vitality but the seductive, romantic spirit is missing.

For the most accomplished modern performances of many of the works on Yang's program, turn to James Ehnes' CBC recording, released the same year Yang's was made, which also includes works by Wieniawski. Ehnes seems to have thought more carefully about (or at least sensed) proper tempos relative to the particular nature of a given dance--his slower Playera, for instance, and considerably faster Jota Navarra and Zapateado, in each case ideally capturing the innate spirit of the dance in question. Ehnes also supplies the romantic depth and understanding these pieces need--a knowing turn of phrase, a clever shift of dynamics, a particular rhythmic emphasis here, a pulling away there. It's great stuff, and the Wieniawski selections are just as good.

The sound on the two discs also offers different choices--more edgy and gritty for Yang, making no compromise in presenting the instrument's natural character, and warmer, brighter, a bit more distant for Ehnes, yet no less realistic. Another consideration: Yang's program offers several works difficult or impossible to find elsewhere on disc.

I've lived with this recording for about a fortnight now. It will stay often-played. It is, in the best sense, salon music - light, diverting and constantly entertaining, with no apologies for being so. Pablo Sarasate was one of the great virtuoso violinists of the mid to late 19th century. And he composed to suit his high-edged fast fiddling - he was a latterday minor Paganini. Probably the best known today of his compositions is his Carmen suite, where he turns Bizet's opera into an exhilarating non-stop duel between violin and orchestra. The 1960s recording by Itzhak Perlman on EMI should be in every collection. And so too, should this. The young Chinese violinist (still not quite 20) Tianwa Yang plays all of Sarasate's virtuosic runs as if it's as simple as breathing, and her quicksilver playing is well matched by pianist Markus Hadulla. He's there though as accompanist - this is her show, just as once it was Sarasate's. The very bright Naxos recording suits the repertoire - it's as brilliant as a multi-faceted diamond. Almost all of these derive strongly from Spanish folk melodies - the exception, his Salada Op. 31, brings in some Spanish elements, but has a broader thematic canvas. These are sprightly pieces, too light-footed to be elegant; so beguiling in their sunny charm that they defy analysis. Sarasate would have performed them to delight, amaze and simply to please; his magic is still here in abundance.