Beethoven violin concerto program notes

From this pattern springs the entire first movement: its leisurely, unhurried pace, its emphasis on internal examination rather than external show, and the motivic cells from which Beethoven develops his ideas. These five beats are a stable foil to the woodwind theme, marked dolce , that answers them and eventually emerges as the principal melody of the movement.

The same five strokes, understated yet inexorable, firmly anchor the first movement in the tonic key of D. They are a welcome homing point in light of the disorienting and unexpected D-sharps significantly, repeating the same rhythm of the opening timpani strokes that the first violins interject as early as the tenth measure.

Beethoven takes subtle liberties with form in this expansive first movement. For example, he reserves the cantabile second theme for the orchestra until the coda, when his soloist finally has its turn at that lovely melody. Built on variation principles, the Larghetto is sheer embroidery.

It is lovingly scored: only muted strings and pairs of clarinets, bassoons, and horns accompany the soloist. The mood is comfortable, intimate, friendly. Beethoven's geniality carries through to the Rondo finale, a foray into near-irresistible foot-tapping that wields its power even on those who have heard the music dozens of times.

The double-stopped episodes are the only such occurrence in the concerto. Taking unusual and beguiling advantage of the violin's upper register, the finale provides wonderful opportunities for a soloist to display discerning taste and polished execution.

For these performances, Mr. Jackiw plays the cadenza by Fritz Kreisler. The score calls for flute, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani, solo violin and strings. The couple married in September , launching Robert on the happiest period he would ever know.

In a characteristic fever of activity, he sketched his B-flat major symphony during an intense four days in January , orchestrating it by 20 February. The composer wrote to Louis Spohr:. The music is not intended to describe or paint anything definite, but I believe the season did much to shape the particular form it took. Although these programmatic headings were abandoned prior to publication, they still givepause for thought while listening to this symphony, whose themes seem to burst with the vitality of the new season.

To his friend Ernst Adolph Becker, Schumann wrote:. It has made me tingle to be at work on a symphony, too, and I believe something will come of it, once I am happily married to Clara. In terms of his personal musical growth, he was intently preoccupied with developing a command of large forms.

During the s he had devoted himself to writing solo piano music, mostly series of miniatures. In , he concentrated in Lieder [art songs]. His achievements in both those areas were masterful. Having conquered both piano and the solo song as a composer, he set out to master the orchestra. That focus is easy to detect, for there are strong thematic connections within the symphony. The opening fanfare motto dominates both slow introduction and allegro in the first movement, and a brief trombone chorale toward the end of the slow movement provides the material from which Schumann constructs his scherzo.

While a work of great difficulty, it is not at all a showy vehicle for technical prowess and virtuosity—a characteristic of not a few of our favorite violin concertos of the nineteenth century. Beethoven obviously did not treat its composition lightly; the first movement was the longest that he had composed up to that time.

Moreover, the whole work is one of lyricism, dignity, and seriousness of purpose. The work begins unusually with five little taps in the timpani they go on to appear again at important places and played by others, as well , followed immediately by the woodwind section playing the main theme in rich, full harmony.

The solo violin finally enters with a brief flourish, and then begins to explore the two ideas. The soft drum taps of the beginning herald the recapitulation, a noble and grand affair. Now time for the cadenza—usually a substantial one—and since Beethoven did not originally provide them, many have been written by numerous famous violinists.

During this concert, the soloist will be playing those by the great Fritz Kreisler. After the display, accompanied by soft, low string pizzicatos, the solo violin leads us quietly home with the second theme. The second movement technically is a series of variations, but not one in the normal sense of clear figurations that gradually accumulate in activity.

Beethoven has given us some wonderful examples of this in many compositions—even in his piano sonatas. Died: May 31, , Vienna, Austria. Two hundred years before Facebook, the premature reporting of celebrity deaths was already a thing — the news just took a little longer to circulate.

Had I only known of it in time, I would have travelled to Paris to conduct the Requiem myself. Haydn had supposedly asked that the slow movement of his Symphony No. When its publication was announced in , however, it was simply a symphony in E minor.

But what a symphony! A fiery first movement, the intellectual sophistication of the minuet, that luminous slow movement, the nervous concentration of the finale — together they conspire to shape a symphony of astonishing intensity and drama. The first movement Allegro con brio sets out with the oboes and strings in unison — an emphatic gesture immediately followed a sighing idea.

The first four notes, it turns out, are not there simply for rhetorical effect but will provide the thematic drive for the whole of this fiercely urgent movement. The second movement is nothing like the graceful court minuets of its heritage.

In the more lyrical central Trio section, the key shifts from E minor to the brighter E major and the first horn has a solo. For the Adagio , Haydn returns to E major. If he wanted this gravely beautiful slow movement played at his funeral, it would suggest a desire to comfort his mourners with music conveying radiance and hope.

How do you end a symphony as compelling as this? Haydn keeps the emotional temperature high with a wild and at times alarming Presto as fast as possible. Franz Schubert was born in Liechtenthal, Austria in and died in Vienna in His Ninth Symphony was probably composed between and , though it was long thought to have been composed in the last months of his life. It was first performed in at the Leipzig Gewandhaus under the direction of Felix Mendelssohn, though the score was extensively cut.

The symphony calls for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, and strings. In a way, the early symphonies of Schubert were experimental. He was already an outstanding composer of piano music and a master of the art song.

But he saw part of his duty as a composer to write music in all forms even if there was no particular demand for it. Those early symphonies were worthy, yet they show a young composer in the thrall of others, especially Beethoven.

He would find his own voice only later, in the Unfinished and most especially in the Great C-major. The ordering of the symphonies and the dates of composition have long been a jumble, partly because he began and left unfinished as many as six symphonies, but also because Schubert wrote them without commission or even the expectation that they might ever be performed: they went straight to the desk drawer.

We know that he composed the Ninth near the end of his very short life—though not as close to the end as once supposed—and the music tells us clearly that he had become a master of the symphonic form in his own right. How do we know this? Expectations and connections.