Ponce-Heifetz: Estrellita (arr. for violin & piano)

Description

Estrellita, originally for voice and piano is the second song of Ponce's Dos Canciones Mexicanas, first published in 1914 and composed in the few years immediately preceding.

The female singer tells Estrellita, the little star, of the anguish of her burning love. The last three lines of both stanzas form a tender refrain in which the singer asks the little star to come down to earth to tell her whether or not her love might be requited. The lush, rising opening tune spans a full octave and a half in a matter of just seven notes, with the largest leap occurring when the text speaks of the "distant sky."

The opening gesture of the second stanza differs somewhat in tone from the first as the singer mulls her impending death from heartache in some broad triplets. However, the music is full of tenderness and, in sublime contradiction of the text, a kind of warm contentedness.

This arrangement by Jascha Heifetz, like most of Heifetz's, goes far beyond just adapting the voice part for violin, and might justly be called an improvement over the original on several counts.