Pablo de Sarasate was a Spanish virtuoso violinist and composer of the Romantic era, born in Pamplona and trained at the Paris Conservatoire. He built his career touring extensively across Europe and the Americas while based largely in Paris, returning each year to Pamplona for the San Fermín festival. His compositional output consists almost entirely of virtuoso showpieces for violin, including Zigeunerweisen (1878), the Carmen Fantasy (1883), and four books of Spanish Dances. He died in Biarritz, France, in 1908 of chronic bronchitis.

Renowned for the purity and precision of his tone, Sarasate was one of the defining violin virtuosos of the nineteenth century, and composers including Saint-Saëns, Lalo, and Bruch dedicated major violin works to him. His own showpieces remain staples of the violin recital repertoire, and his name is preserved today in the Pablo Sarasate International Violin Competition.

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_de_Sarasate