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The Violin Concerto
LUCIANO SIMONI
Composer and Professor of Electrical Engineering
DIE, Department of Electrical Engineering
University of Bologna
Viale Risorgimento 2, 40136 Bologna
ITALY
http:// www.lucianosimoni.it
Abstract. After a brief survey of the most significant violin concertos from Vivaldi to the 20th Century,
a new violin concerto composed by the author of this paper is presented. To this presentation a listening to
the Concerto by a recently produced CD can follow.
Key words: Symphonic music, Violin Concerto.
1 Introduction
The violin has been the great
protagonist of music since 17th Century. Its
sound – going from the sweetness of the
trebles to the strength and depth of the fourth
chord, with a range reaching the five octaves
– its great technical scope enabling
exceptional virtuoso displays, and its lyricism
all significantly contributed to swiftly placing
the violin at the apex of musical instruments,
and not only as a solo instrument but also
within the orchestra. In this latter context, its
voice – somewhat fragile when compared to
those of wind instruments and especially
brasses – caused the number of violins to
grow from the six or seven of the initial all
strings orchestras to the thirty or more
(divided into two sections) of the great
symphonic orchestras. There is nothing more
moving than the surge of violins flowing in
unison on the notes of a great melody! Yet, I
shall, on this paper, restrict myself to
speaking of a musical form where the violin
undoubtedly takes on the leading role. By this
I of course mean the Violin Concerto.
Concerto derives from Italian and the
term has a double meaning in this language.
First and foremost it has the English meaning
of ‘concert’, as in a public performance given
by one or more musicians. It may be by a
pianist, a singer accompanied by a pianist (or,
as is common today, one person doing both),
or a larger number of performers – such as a
big symphonic orchestra perhaps with solo
musicians or singers and/or choir. Italian also
uses Concerto to indicate a composition for
one or more solo instruments and orchestra.
As we know, the English language turns to
Italian for this sense, using Concerto: thus we
find the terms Piano Concerto and Violin
Concerto. Amidst the thunder of a rock
concert – so well representing today’s
screaming violent world – just imagine a
violin note: a heavenly voice that may be
listened to only by journeying into oneself, a
voice that touches the depths of our souls and
transports us to a peacefulness coveted by all
human beings, even the most superficial and
hot-tempered.
Thus, speaking about violin concertos
will be like opening the window of a smoky
noisy hall to savour the pure air and silence of
uncontaminated peaks shimmering in the
sunlight.
2 From the 17th to the 18th Century
The violin descends from plucked
chord instruments – from the lute most
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directly – resulting in an instrument whose
chords may be stroked with a speciallyfashioned bow. The violin has a variety of
ancestors, comprising a series of violas and
particularly the viola da braccio, and their
gradual transformation throughout the 16th
century gave rise to the modern violin. The
constant refinement brought by the great
Italian violin makers in the 17th century took
the violin to become the prince of
instruments. This process led instrumental
music to gain supremacy over vocal music,
which had reigned until then. Hence the birth
of the Sonata and the Concerto Grosso
pivoting around the violin, and the emergence
of first-class composers such as Arcangelo
Corelli. It was the great season of baroque
music, and it lasted until the mid 1700s. The
linage then led into the 1800s through
Corelli’s pupils – Locatelli and Geminiani
the most prominent – and the great figures of
Tartini and Viotti, culminating in the talent
and bravura of Nicolò Paganini.
The name Antonio Vivaldi particularly
stands out among the composers of this
splendid musical era: Vivaldi – an exceptional
violinistic composer and author of hundreds
of violin concertos, besides numerous
concertos for other instruments ranging from
the flute to the bassoon and to the cello.
2.1 Vivaldi’s Concertos
Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) is one of
the greatest composers of all time, yet his
fame met with a strange – practically unique –
destiny if a comparison is drawn with other
great composers. Vivaldi was, during his
lifetime, a true celebrity in his native Venice,
where he conducted the girls’ orchestra of the
Ospedale della Pietà – an evening gathering
place for the ‘well-to-do’ public and
enthusiasts of musical entertainment. His
style is most original and the violin takes on
marked individuality in his compositions, so
much so as to present it as a true character: a
‘voice’ with an exceptional range of
expressive variety, capable of intensely
conveying the most diverse moods. Vivaldi’s
fame whilst alive was enormous not only in
Venice and Italy but even all over Europe,
partly due to his numerous operas being
performed in many European cities. Yet, after
his death (in 1740 in Vienna, where he moved
after leaving Venice) utmost silence then
shrouded his name. It was only through some
pieces by Bach (transcriptions for the
harpsichord of some Vivaldi violin concertos)
that almost a century following Vivaldi’s
death was there a slight interest in the
Venetian composer, who was nonetheless still
held to be of minor importance. This
remained unchanged until 1911, when it was
discovered that the famous organ concerto by
Johann Sebastian Bach (previously attributed
to his son Wilhelm Friedmann) was nothing
other than the note-by-note transcription of a
Vivaldi concerto in D minor! Research
regarding the composer then increased and his
greatness finally came to light. Not only his
concertos but also his operas and sacred
music were finally unearthed. To think that
Gloria, Vivaldi’s most famous piece of sacred
music, was not performed until 1938, almost
two centuries after the death of its composer!
Vivaldi wrote hundreds of concertos in
which the violin – an instrument he himself
played with exceptional brilliance and
originality – contrasts with an orchestra
comprising a group of stringed instruments
and a basso continuo. The structure is ternary
– two quick tempos and a slow central one.
The Allegros are generally sprightly, vibrant
and captivating, and the Adagios extremely
sweet and lyrical. The titles of the Vivaldi
collections in themselves show their
originality: La stravaganza (‘the
Eccentricity’), L’estro armonico (‘Harmonic
Fancy’), Il cimento dell’armonia e
dell’invenzione (‘the Trial of harmony and
invention’)…. And these words well describe
Vivaldi’s concertos, where his inventiveness
perpetually challenged the scholarly rules of
harmony, going beyond them and endowing
harmony with entirely modern traits. A
particularly prominent position among the
Vivaldi concertos is occupied by the ‘Four
Seasons’, the four concertos musically
commenting on and translating four sonnets
on the seasons. Comment and translation that
does not bring banal adaptation of the verses
with perhaps onomatopoeic sounds (as was
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seen with previous composers). Instead,
complete immersion in the poetic atmosphere
distinguishing the seasons of the year and
Man’s deriving behaviour. Thanks to this
approach, these concertos are able to lead an
independent life given by the strength of the
music alone; a similar effect would later be
achieved in Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral’
Symphony.
Listening to the Adagio of the last concerto,
Winter, illustrates this: a sublime melody
where the violin enhances the ability of its
voice to penetrate right to the centre of the
human heart.
2.2 Bach and Mozart
We cannot of course overlook two
very great composers marking the musical
splendour of the 18th century, even if the
Violin Concerto does for them constitute but a
very small part of their repertoires.
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
revealed his greatness primarily through
sacred music (Masses, Passions, Cantatas) as
well as through the organ and the harpsichord
in instrumental music. His masterpieces are
such and so large in number as to make this
great composer from Eisenach one of the alltime peaks in music.
We owe, so to speak, the birth of
modern music, with the chromatism and
parity between the twelve notes, to the two
books of twenty-four Preludes and Fugues of
the ‘Well-tempered Clavier’, where however
a distinct personality – I could even say an
individual character – accompanies each of
the twenty-four major and minor tones.
Bach’s endless creativity was united with an
exceptional technical background that, guided
by a superior intelligence, enabled him to
construct works in which the enormous
contrapuntal complexity is matched with the
naturalness and beauty of the musical
outcome. All his music was written to “the
glory of God”, including the basso continuo,
as he himself declared. And one cannot bury
one’s own abilities as with the talent of the
evangelic episode. Instead, everything that
God has freely and willingly given us is to be
returned to Him, through the fruits of work
and effort.
Bach was held to be a ‘conservative’
by his children and younger composers alike,
due to his preference for the severity of
polyphonic style over the simplicity of the
melody accompanied by the ‘gallant style’.
Although he was also never underestimated
by his successors (we should remember that
Beethoven had a portrait of Bach in his
studio, alongside those of Haendel, Haydn
and Mozart, and often likened Bach to the pun
of his surname, meaning ‘brook’ in German –
“but he’s not a brook, rather a river!”), it was
not until 11 march 1829, when his St.
Matthew Passion was performed under the
direction of Mendelssohn, that he began to be
the object of a fame equal to his greatness.
The Concertos account for, as we have
already said, a rather modest portion of
Bach’s works, mainly because he composed
in response to the commissions entrusted to
him. In any case, the six Brandenburg
Concertos written when he was in Kothen as
orchestra conductor to Prince Leopold are
musically captivating and varied works. We
find two Violin Concertos (in E major and in
A minor) and a Concerto in D minor for two
violins – all scores of great beauty that still
today musicians prefer to choose for
performance. Let us linger in particular on the
Adagio of the Concerto in E major. Here the
orchestra repeats a sombre, almost mournful,
theme acting as a ground to the crystal
tranquil voice of the violin. It seems to
convey the dramatic contrast between Man’s
inner spirit and the oppressive world
surrounding him, a contrast pre-empting that
of Beethoven in the Adagio of the Concerto
No. 4 for Piano and Orchestra.
The fame of Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart (1756-1791) has, in recent years,
seen a great surge. In fact, cinema and
television have taken him to the utmost
heights, spurring the general public to
consider him as the greatest musician of all
time. This because people feel the need to
classify, to find a ‘clear first’ to award their
gold medal to. However, this type of grading
entirely lacks objective reference points.
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Mozart is great but Bach and Beethoven are
equally so. Thus, wishing to establish ranking
between these three is nonsense, not unlike
wanting to compare Raffaello to Leonardo da
Vinci and Michelangelo. Mozart did of course
have an astounding ease in composing –
swiftly composing perfect works not requiring
revisions or corrections – which meant that
although he only lived to be 35 he had already
accrued a body of work counting some 695
compositions! And right across the board of
musical genres – from operas to instrumental
works and from chamber music to
symphonies, concertos and sacred music – he
composed beautiful works and authentic
masterpieces, ranging from his last
Symphonies to the great operas such as Don
Juan and the Magic Flute, and to his
unfinished powerful and tragic Requiem.
Mozart is certainly a unique example
in the history of music in this sense. And even
if he was surpassed by Beethoven in the
Quartet and the Symphony (Beethoven in fact
focused most of his composing on his
Symphonies and Quartets, besides his Piano
Sonatas), the same may not be said for the
Piano Concerto – a musical form that Mozart
practically invented and one where he reached
the dizzy summit in more than one
composition.
Yet in the Violin Concerto, Mozart
lacks great works: the selection stops at
merely five pieces written in his youth.
Nevertheless, listening to the Mozart Violin
Concertos is recommended, to appreciate
their perfectly tranquil, pleasing, gallant style
capable of instilling calm in a soul troubled
by the terrible events of modern everyday life.
3 From the 19th Century to the
present day
The Violin Concerto became a
widespread and favourite genre for composers
at the start of the 19th century. And thus we
immediately find what is perhaps the loveliest
Violin Concerto of all time – that composed
by Beethoven. This was then followed
throughout both that century and the next,
albeit to a lesser extent, by an abundance
beautiful Concertos written by great
musicians – many of whom were in fact also
violinists. And, as we have already said,
wishing to establish rankings would certainly
be a meaningless task.
In any case, with his Violin Concerto – as
with all his instrumental music – Beethoven
did in fact reach the pinnacle.
3.1 Beethoven’s Violin Concerto
Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770 –
1827) is the supreme instrumental composer
of the modern era. His fame is primarily
linked to his nine Symphonies, to the 3rd, 5th
and 9th in particular. He is presented as the
hero capable of dominating the pitiless fate of
deafness, triumphing with unbowed energy
thanks to the strength of the spirit. Beethoven
is, in the public imagination, a giant and a
Titan of music. However, all of this conveys
merely one facet of Beethoven’s identity. He
knew how to strike all the notes in the human
heart, arousing sweetness, tranquillity and
joy.
Let us divide his compositional career
into the three commonly accepted periods, the
first typified by the grace but also the strength
of neoclassicism, and the second by the
overwhelming originality of his most famous
works. Beethoven was already great during
this second phase, and was considered as such
by his contemporaries, who even ensured him
– and this was a precedent in the history of
music – financial security without any
condition except that of composing what he
felt and wished. The third period is that of the
last Quartets and Sonatas, of the 9th
Symphony and the Missa Solemnis, and it is
here that Beethoven cast his towering shadow
onto the centuries to come. However, it would
take further decades to begin full appreciation
of the beauty and depth of the Quartets Op.
132 and 133, or to grasp the complexity of
the Sonata Op. 106 or the Grosse Fugue Op.
133.
The second period roughly goes from the
Eroica Symphony to the Emperor Concerto
and therefore includes all his most famous
works, ranging from the Appassionata Piano
Sonata to the Kreutzer for Violin and Piano
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and from the 5th Symphony (with its wellknown theme of ‘fate knocking at the door’)
to the Pastoral and the Piano Concerto No. 4.
In fact Beethoven wrote his Violin Concerto –
an island of tranquillity amidst a sea of
dramatic developments – during this period.
The first part, lasting over twenty minutes,
offers us some of the most cantabile motifs in
the whole body of work by this great master
from Bonn. The second brings a captivating
melody that would meet no equal in the
following works, which certainly do not lack
in extremely beautiful and sweet melodies
(suffice to think of the theme in the Andante
of the 9th Symphony). These lyrical motifs
contrast with the rhythmic severity of the first
theme, introduced at the beginning solely by
the timpani and never taken to the levels of
dramaticism that we find, for example, in the
first part of the 5th Symphony or in the
Scherzo of the 9th. The following slow
movement is an oasis of peace, and sweetness
floods the listener’s heart before the joyful
and bold Finale that brings the piece to an
optimistic close. ‘Fate knocking at the door’
is but a faint echo in this Concerto, and life
reveals itself as calm and joyous right at the
very heart of feelings.
Beethoven’s Concerto is, incidentally, at
approximately 45 minutes in length, the
longest of the great Violin Concertos.
3.2 The great 19th century Concertos
Talking of, or merely listing, all the
19 century Violin Concertos worthy of our
attention is a very difficult task, given their
large number and since all or almost all the
symphonic composers ventured into this
musical genre.
Let us begin with the great violinistcomposers, starting off with Nicolò Paganini
(1782-1840), author of at least three
concertos, the first two of which (in D major
and in B minor) are still performed today by
virtuosos. And when remembering the many
other Concertos by composers who were also
great violinists, one cannot overlook the
beautiful works by Henry Wieniawski
(1835-1880), Concerto No. 1 Op.14 in F
sharp minor and No. 2 Op. 22 in D minor, or
th
those by Max Bruch (1838-1920), author of
three Concertos, the first of which, in D
minor, is still today among the most
performed pieces, due to it being one of the
loveliest violin concertos in existence. And
how can we forget the beautiful Concerto no.
2 – known as the Spanish Symphony – by the
Frenchman Eduard Lalo (1823-1892)?
So we come to the great symphonic
composers: they all have a Violin Concerto in
their body of work, one usually dedicated to a
great violinist who then took the piece to
fame through its public performance. This
however is not the case of Robert Schumann
(1810-1856), whose Concerto was published
in 1938 and thus only performed from that
date onwards! In selecting the great 19th
century Concertos that, together with those by
Beethoven and by Bruch, still today constitute
the basis of the violin repertoire, a mention
should also go to the Concerto in E minor Op.
64 by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (18091847), the Concerto in D major Op. 77 by
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897), and another
in D major by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
(1840-1893). The Concerto in A minor by
Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904) is from the
same period as the Brahms Concerto and is
likewise dedicated to a virtuoso violinist,
Joachim. Whilst considering the composers
who lived the longest, let us remember
Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1921), author of
three Violin Concertos, and the Finnish Jean
Sibelius (1865-1957), whose Violin Concerto
Op. 47 dates from 1903-1905 and therefore
belongs to the next century.
3.3 From the 20th century to the 3rd
millennium
The great challenge between composer
and violin also continued throughout the first
half of the 20th century.
Sergei Prokofiev’s beautiful Concerto No. 1
in D major Op. 19 dates from 1917, and he
followed this with a second, Op. 63 in G
minor, in 1935. The calm and melodic
Gregorian Concerto by Ottorino Respighi
(1879-1936) dates from 1921. The period
around 1935 saw the birth of two of the most
important Concertos of the 20th century, those
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by the leading exponents of the ‘Viennese
School’, Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951)
and his pupil Alban Berg (1885-1935); the
latter’s Concerto to the memory of an angel
succeeds in being somewhat pleasing and
expressive despite the dodecaphonic writing.
The Concerto by Bela Bartòk (1881-1945) is
entirely different in style. It was written in
1938 when the composer had by then
overcome the extremism of violent and even
brutal sounds and was leaning towards a
sincerity of expression, which would then
reach its peak in his last works.
The Second World War marked the
watershed between communicative music and
experimental music, leading traditional forms
such as the Concerto to be deserted. However,
this trend was not seen in the Soviet Union,
where composers were bound to a music
keeping its ties with tradition and one that
could be appreciated by enthusiasts. It was in
this context that Dmitry Schostakovic (19061975) wrote some 15 Symphonies and various
Concertos, including two for violin. The first
of these is Op. 77 in A minor dating from
1948, the second Op. 129 in C sharp minor
from 1967, and these were both dedicated to
the virtuoso violinist David Oistrack who in
fact made them known to the whole world.
The two, and the first in particular, are
certainly no lesser than the great 19th century
concertos.
During the 1970s, contemporary music
began to show the first symptoms of the
breakdown that would then become relentless
after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The era was
marked by a hunger for the ideology of the
new at any cost and of the defiling of past
musical values. A few composers accentuated
their communicative propensity, as in the case
of the Polish Kristof Penderecki (b. 1933)
who showed, with his 1976 Violin Concerto
(a single long movement lasting about forty
minutes), that he was capable of conveying a
sincere sense of emotion to the listener.
The booklet accompanying the CD of
my Violin Concerto to be presented here
bears a comment by Piero Mioli: “After years
of impatience and aversion for classical forms
and systems, positive and clear messages, and
the inspirational motifs of the great Western
tradition, in the last decades of the century
that has just ended these earlier tendencies,
phenomena and premieres came back to the
forefront and soon gave birth to a sort of antiavant-garde movement of regeneration and
continuity with the past”. I, who consider
music to be a divine language and inspiration
the basis for its creation, have never severed
my roots with the great tradition of European
music. Writing a violin concerto was for me
simply accepting a challenge, given that I am
not a violinist and know no great violinist
whom I could rely on to check the technical
aspects of the work. Yet, I feel that the result
is more than satisfactory: the score for the
solo instrument is undoubtedly violinistic in
nature, but not virtuosic, and reactions to the
work have so far been extremely positive.
Hence, I summit my Violin Concerto
to this learned audience for consideration, just
as I did with my Piano Concerto at the
Conference in Tenerife last December.
The Violin Concerto is separated into
the customary three movements. The first is
however further divided, in two: a calm and
melodic Introduction, whose motif in fact
then becomes the second theme of the
movement, and an Allegro with a springing,
mischievous theme. The whole movement
plays on the contrast between these two ideas.
There are also two main themes in the central
Adagio-Andante, the first being more
noticeably violinistic – and as such is almost
exclusively performed by the soloist – and a
second very melodic one, which is introduced
by the oboe and immediately picked up by the
violin, returning in a variety of tones and
sonorities for the entire piece. The third
movement is a bold Allegro that is however
interrupted, before the end, by a funerary
elegy in memory of the victims of 11
September – that terrible event that occurred
whilst I was composing this movement. But
life continues, and so the movement rapidly
and confidently recovers, reaching its
powerful and positive close.
The Concerto is recorded on the
INEDITA label and all the relative
information may be found on the company
site: www.ineditacd.com
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