Violin Concerto, Op. 14
Samuel Barber  (1910-1981)

[1939]

Samuel Barber enrolled in the founding class at Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music at the age of 14. A radio broadcast in 1938 of his devastatingly sad Adagio for Strings, conducted by Arturo Toscanini, catapulted the 28-year-old into stardom. Commissions came pouring in, including one from a soap tycoon, Samuel Fels, who had taken under his wing one of Barber’s old Curtis classmates, Russian-born violinist Iso Briselli. Fels advanced Barber $500 to write a violin concerto, which he began in Switzerland in the summer of 1939.

The outbreak of war forced Barber to head home to the United States, but he was able to deliver the first two movements on time. Unfortunately, the violinist (or really his teacher) was not impressed, complaining that it was not virtuosic enough. Barber made a point of incorporating “brilliant technique” in the perpetual-motion finale, delivered two months before the planned premiere.

According to a biography of Barber published in 1954, Briselli rejected the concerto on the grounds that the finale was unplayable. To prove him wrong, Barber gave the part to a violin student at Curtis, and a few hours later they gave a triumphant private reading with Barber on the piano. That student got the honor of giving the first performance in 1940, with the Curtis Symphony Orchestra—and within a year, the concerto was bringing down the house in Carnegie Hall.

The opening movement is lyrical and understated, with the soloist entering right on the first downbeat with a heartfelt theme. The other distinctive melody (characterized by its rhythmic snap) appears only in the orchestra until the soloist finally takes it up in a throbbing coda. In the central Andante movement, the oboe solo before the violinist’s entrance is perhaps the greatest concerto melody not written for a soloist since a similar oboe solo in the slow movement of Brahms’ Violin Concerto. The finale is a dazzling tour de force, not just for its rapid figurations but also for its seamless construction and ceaseless variety. An accelerated coda has the white-knuckled intensity of a gymnast’s final dismount.

Solo violin; piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani, percussion, piano, strings