Enesco - Rumanian Rhapsody
Enesco (or Enescu) was born in the village of Liveni, Romania and showed musical talent from early in his childhood. A child prodigy, Enescu created his first musical composition at the age of five. Shortly thereafter, his father presented him to the professor and composer Eduard Caudella. At the age of seven, entered the Vienna Conservatory, where he studied with Joseph Hellmesberger, Jr., Robert Fuchs, and Sigismund Bachrich, and graduated before his 13th birthday, earning the silver medal. In his Viennese concerts young Enescu played works by Brahms, Sarasate and Mendelssohn. In 1895 he went to Paris to continue his studies. He studied violin with Martin Pierre Marsick, harmony with André Gédalge, and composition with Jules Massenet and Gabriel Fauré.
Many of Enescu's works were influenced by Romanian folk music, his most popular compositions being the two Romanian Rhapsodies (1901–2), the opera Oedipe (1936), and the suites for orchestra. He also wrote five symphonies (two of them unfinished), a symphonic poem Vox maris, and much chamber.

Sarasate - Zigeunerweisen
Zigeunerweisen (Gypsy Airs) (Op. 20) is a piece in C minor for violin and orchestra written in 1878 by the Spanish composer and virtuoso Pablo de Sarasate and premiered during the same year in Leipzig. It is based on themes of the Roma people, specifically the rhythms of the csárdás. Zigeunerweisen is of approximately ten minutes' duration.
Sarasate's most popular composition and a favorite among violin virtuosi, the work has remained a staple on records at least since Sarasate himself committed it to wax in 1904; a few of the masters who have recorded it in more recent years would include Zino Francescatti, Jascha Heifetz, Itzhak Perlman, Kyung-Wha Chung, Gil Shaham, Midori Goto, Anne-Sophie Mutter, and Joshua Bell. String bassist Edgar Meyer recorded a version with Béla Fleck and Mike Marshall on the album Uncommon Ritual. It was featured in the 2002 film Together, and it provided both the title and much of the soundtrack for Seijun Suzuki's 1980 film Zigeunerweisen.

Ravel - Tzigane
Maurice Ravel is one of the most important French Impressionist composers, along with Debussy. In addition to composing he was an accomplished pianist and conductor. As a composer, he was often fascinated with the interpretation of a theme, both musically and content-wise, as demonstrated in his well-known works such as Rapsodie Espagnole, on a Spanish theme, and Tzigane, on a Hungarian theme.
Born into a household filled with cultural activities, Ravel’s parents, who were French and Basque, were very supportive of their child’s musical gifts and interests. Though he was born in Basses Pyrénées, he spent his childhood almost entirely in Paris—capital of the intelligentsia and new artistic trends, where the previously considered “exotic” was increasingly becoming the “fashionable.”
Tzigane, which Ravel wrote in his forties, was first conceived for violin and piano, but later arranged for violin and orchestra. Today, it is still more often played in the original version of violin and piano. The word tzigane is French for “gypsy.”
Dedicated to the Hungarian violinist Jelly D'Aranyi, a great-niece of the legendary violinist Josef Joachim, Tzigane is a work derived from Ravel’s interest in the gypsies and in Hungarian culture. It can be broadly divided in 2 sections: the Cadenza and the post-Cadenza. The Cadenza could be considered a gypsy’s declamatory monologue about his life - his misery, passions, memories, surroundings, and dreams. As the Cadenza ends we are transported into the countryside where the gypsies live. We experience the gaiety of their lives in a section that peaks in a festive, frenzied dance in the form of a loose set of variations, Ravel basically uses two themes: one previously used in the Cadenza, and another introduced only towards the middle of the main section (post-Cadenza).
The violinist has plenty of "tricks" with which to demonstrate virtuosity and technical agility in this piece. The greatest challenge is in the interpretation of the Cadenza, however. Poor playing can easily make it interminable. The piece demands a particular blend of spontaneity, uniqueness, and coordination, all of which is more difficult than one might initially assume. Playing the Cadenza with "beautiful" tone does not solve the problem, either; it is as if the performer must completely redefine violin playing!

Brahms - Symphony #3
Brahms' Third Symphony was written in the summer of 1883. The fifty-year-old composer was spending that summer in Wiesbaden, where his friend, the contralto Hermine Spies, lived. As usual, it turned into a working vacation. Brahms set to revising some pieces he had originally written as music for Goethe's Faust. Gradually, they evolved into the central movements of a four-movement Symphony in F major, his Third Symphony, which had its premiere December 2, 1883 as Hans Richter conducted the Vienna Philharmonic. Beginning with that first appearance, the piece was highly acclaimed. The famed critic, Eduard Hanslick, viewed it as the most perfect of Brahms' symphonies, "the most compact in form, the clearest in the details," and orchestral directors apparently agreed. The symphony quickly reached the stages of Berlin, Leipzig, Meiningen, and Wiesbaden. Its popularity was such that, before long, the composer took to calling his Third Symphony "the unfortunately over-famous symphony." Performances may have been too frequent for Brahms' own tastes, but it was, indeed, a masterpiece, worthy of such adulation. Even the great English master, Sir Edward Elgar once remarked, "I look at the Third Symphony of Brahms and I feel like a tinker."