Around the same time Ravel got to know d'Arányi when she played his Sonata for Violin and Cello with Hans Kindler in London, and afterwards regaled the composer with a selection of folk-tunes from her country.
[3] In the ensuing two years Ravel put aside the sonata he had intended for Jourdan-Morhange, who by then had retired from playing due to a chronic illness, and wrote the Tzigane.
Ravel soon orchestrated the piano part, and the version for violin and orchestra was first performed in Amsterdam on 19 October 1924, with Pierre Monteux conducting the Concertgebouw and Samuel Dushkin as soloist.
The composition is in one movement, with an approximate duration of ten minutes, scored for strings and harp, double woodwind, two horns in F, one trumpet in C, celeste, triangle, timbre, and cymbal.
[7] The opening is marked 'Lento, quasi cadenza' and is for solo violin, playing on the G string for the first 28 bars; Jankélévitch describes the preamble (Lassan) as "superior exercises – runs, staccato notes, trills and mordents".