Download Edvard Grieg: Concert Overture

Edvard Grieg: Concert Overture »In Autumn«, op. 11
Max Bruch: Violin Concerto No. 1 in G Minor, op. 26
Hermann Goetz: Violin Concerto in G Major, op. 22
Robert Volkmann: Overture to Shakespeare’s »Richard III« op. 68
It was during his stay in Rome in the winter of 1865-66 that Edvard Grieg sketched
his Concert Overture »I Høst« (»In Autumn«). However, when he showed the work
to composer Niels Wilhelm Gade, the latter was so dissatisfied that Grieg arranged
this music first for piano duet. Not until 1887 did he undertake a new
instrumentation. This is the form in which the work premiered in Birmingham on
August 29, 1888. » In Autumn« is composed in the usual form of a concert overture
(sonata form with a slow introduction) and depicts the typical moods of autumn
(melancholy, earnestness, but also the joy of hunting and the feasts at harvest
time). The elegiac theme of the introduction (it will return at the beginning of the
reprise, as well as before and during the coda) is followed by the vigorous, fervent
main theme taken from Grieg’s song » Efteraarsstormen« (»Autumnal Storm«, op.
18/4, lyrics by Christian Richardt) written in 1865. The secondary theme presents a
combination of a hunting theme together with a variation of the introductory motif.
After the elaboration and reprise, we hear in the coda the motif of a Norwegian
jumping dance which Grieg had found in a recently published collection of folk
songs.
Of all the many works by Max Bruch, only his Violin Concerto in G Minor (1864-66)
has been able to attain lasting fame – although this popularity is not mere
coincidence, since the concerto is indeed the masterpiece of the not yet thirty-yearold composer. Joseph Joachim, to whom Bruch dedicated the work, called it » the
richest, most enchanting« concerto next to those by Beethoven, Mendelssohn and
Brahms. Indeed, this concerto in G minor has its roots in models by Beethoven and
Mendelssohn, while also anticipating the violin concerto by Brahms written twelve
years later. In turn, Bruch’s own composer personality emerges not only in the
dramatic inventiveness, but also in the structural form of the individual movements.
In the first movement, for instance, he forgoes the traditional model for the opening
movement of a concerto (sonata form with an orchestral followed by a solo
exposition), and allows the solo instrument to dominate from the very outset,
although not with pointless phrases of mere virtuosity, but with purposeful contrasts
in musical effects. This movement leads with a pianissimo motif into the »heart« of
the work, the famous slow movement, whose themes are arresting thanks to their
intense, emotional expressiveness. The main theme of the finale is a rousing
melody of a »gypsylike « temperament; unusually, the wide arch of the second
theme appears first in the orchestra. The motifs and rhythm of the movement
radiate a tension which prefigures the final movement of Brahms’ violin concerto.
After studying music in Berlin, Hermann Goetz, born in Königsberg in 1840, spent
the last thirteen years of his short life in Winterthur or Zurich. His Violin Concerto
(1868) is a product of this period, although it did not appear in print until 1880, four
years after the composer’s death. This one-movement work is divided up into three
sections which unite the elements of the three-part concerto model (fast – slow –
fast) with those of a sonata movement. The first section (allegro vivace, G major)
serves as the exposition, with a main theme that actually determines the whole
section, since the second theme is merely a variation on it. The middle section
(andante, B major) appears to be new, but can easily be associated with the main
theme and thus combines the function of an »elaboration « with that of a slow
movement. A brief, recitativo-like violin solo leads into the reprise (tempo of the
first movement, G major); here the soloist, whose part up to now was marked more
by sensitive, lyrical features than by virtuoso passages, can finally demonstrate his
skill in a long cadence, as well as later in a compelling coda (vivace scherzando).
Although Robert Volkmann lived for more than forty years in Pest (Hungary) and
was an esteemed composer and music teacher in that town, he always considered
himself to be a German composer. His personal acquaintanceships with
Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms and Liszt left their mark on his own musical
idiom. In his Overture to Shakespeare’s Drama »Richard III« written in 1870, the
genre of the overture is enriched by the program of a symphonic poem. Following a
brief, somber »largo«, the two major themes are presented in the »andante« (=
slow introduction). They are Richard’s »terror theme« and the sighing motif of the
sufferers. In the »allegro« section, these themes collide until liberation comes in the
form of the ancient Scottish war song, »The Campbells are comin’«. The descriptive
battle scene which then follows leads into deep silence (Richard’s death). Then
fanfares rejoice at the newly won peace until the mournful motif of the sufferers is
transfigured into a major key in the coda.
Éva Pintér