May 31, 2005 at 9:23 PM

Beethoven Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61

“Beethoven left us no music in which he is more sure of himself, and none in which his humanity is more warmly evident.” ~Richard Freed, National Symphony Orchestra annotator

The history of the Beethoven Violin Concerto is the stuff of legend. Written quickly in 1806, and premiered at the end of the same year, the popular story insists that the young soloist Franz Clement sight-read the part at the first performance, throwing in a virtuosic piece of his own between the first and second movements with the violin held upside down. (In fact, Clement’s showpiece came, decently, at the end of the program.) It is true that the first performance did not have sufficient preparation, as the concerto was not a resounding success until a historic performance in 1844, by thirteen-year-old violinist Joseph Joachim and conductor Felix Mendelssohn. Its particular beauty, then, was not easily revealed.

The concerto, inscribed with the pun “Concerto par Clemenza pour Clement” (“Concerto with Clemency for Clement”), was tailored to its first soloist’s unique talents: “an indescribable delicacy, neatness, and elegance, an extremely delightful tenderness and purity” (Michael Steinberg, The Concerto: A Listener’s Guide). The violin’s role is often exquisitely ornamental, and the piece was deemed unplayable by many a violinist for its sheer proportion of notes in the upper stratosphere.

The music begins with five hushed D’s on the timpani—certainly like nothing Beethoven’s audience had ever heard before. The most shocking surprise is yet to come, with the appearance of D# in the tenth bar, which seems to strangely jolt the winds’ tranquil melody out of its place for a moment. Beethoven had initially written the enharmonic E-flat, showing his own uncertainty about the function of this foreign pitch. The pattern of four even, tapping beats, with or without a resolving fifth note, pervades the movement and reminds us of the constant rhythmic drive behind the tirelessly breathtaking lyricism. The development in G minor is perhaps the darkest and most introspective point in the movement. Kreisler’s brilliant cadenza, played by most modern-day violinists, features a glorious section in double-stops, with the juxtaposition of the beloved second theme and its own counter-melody. The cadenza leads seamlessly into an ethereal coda, which nevertheless allows for the simplicity of the second theme heard for the first time in its entirety on the violin’s lower strings.

“The Larghetto is, almost uniquely in Beethoven’s output, music without action, conceived as a set of variations on a theme that goes nowhere, has no inherent contrast of material, and doesn’t imply any change of key. The result is a romance, as Beethoven called it, of breathtaking stillness” (Denise Wagner, Chicago Symphony Orchestra Program Notes). The theme, a hushed chorale, is introduced by the orchestra before the violin begins to add delicate embellishments. After the third variation “comes something to stop the heart” (Steinberg): an improvisatory, dreaming theme, low and gentle. In this movement alone Beethoven attains “a level of sublimity paralleled among his works only in his most intimate chamber music” (Freed). After the movement’s unwavering center in G Major, the move to the dominant with a C# in preparation for the finale—especially after the violin has trailed tenderly away into the heavens—sounds astonishing.

The third movement’s rondo theme is at once pastoral and “Olympian…in keeping with the nobility of the two preceding movements” (Freed). Not one note of the distinctive tune is altered each time it returns. In between, the movement proceeds with a sparkling, mischievous air; the recapitulation even throws in the soloist’s only two pizzicato notes in the entire concerto.

May 31, 2005 at 9:23 PM

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