Emile Sauret

24 Etudes Caprices op. 64

Émile Sauret, violin virtuoso, teacher and composer, was admired by some of the greatest composers of his time, including Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Bruch, Wagner, Grieg and Mahler. He gave numerous concerts with Liszt, Rubinstein, and Moszkowski, and often played duets with Sarasate. He is predominantly remembered for the fiendishly difficult cadenza he composed to Paganini's first violin concerto.

Sauret's 24 Etudes Caprices for solo violin are a substantial virtuoso journey through every major and minor key. Written while he was a professor of violin at the Royal Academy of Music in London, they are notable for the exceptional variety of filigree detail and variation in nuance, dynamic, fingering, bowing and phrasing, creating etudes far more substantial than is typical in this genre.

Unavailable since their first publication early in the 20th century, the Etudes Caprices are edited by leading violinist and Sauret specialist, Nazrin Rashidova, who has made the first complete recording of the Etudes Caprices, performing them on Sauret's own Stradivarius. Using the original Simrock edition as a basis, this edition supplements Sauret's original bowings and fingerings with Rashidova's own suggestions. An extensive preface gives further insights into performance and contextualizes the life of the composer.