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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 1 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 2 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. 3 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 4 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 5 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 6