Sarasate's own compositions are mainly show-pieces designed to demonstrate his exemplary technique. Of Sarasate's talents as performer and composer, Shaw said that he 'left criticism gasping miles behind him'. Of Sarasate's idiomatic writing for his instrument, the playwright and music critic George Bernard Shaw once declared that though there were many composers of music for the violin, there were but few composers of violin music. For example, the influences of Spanish music can be heard in such notable works as Édouard Lalo's Symphonie Espagnole which was dedicated to Sarasate Georges Bizet's Carmen and Camille Saint-Saëns' Introduction et Rondo Capriccioso, written expressly for Sarasate and dedicated to him. The popularity of Sarasate's Spanish flavour in his compositions is reflected in the work of his contemporaries.

In his early career, Sarasate performed mainly opera fantasies, most notably the Fantasía Carmen, and various other pieces that he had composed. His artistic pre-eminence was due principally to the purity of his tone, which was free from any tendency towards the sentimental or rhapsodic, and to that impressive facility of execution that made him a virtuoso. Over the course of his career, he toured many parts of the world, performing in Europe, North America, and South America. Sarasate, who had been publicly performing since childhood, made his Paris debut as a concert violinist in 1860, and played in London the following year.

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