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Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Violin Concerto in D Major
Composed: 1806
Premiered: 1806, Vienna
Duration: 42 minutes

In 1806, Beethoven thought he had at last finished with revisions to Fidelio. As it turned out, he was to return to it again in 1814, but for the time being, he was relieved, and produced a flood of great works in rapid succession, as though his creative urge had been dammed up by his seemingly endless struggles with his opera. They included the Fourth Symphony, the Fourth Piano Concerto, the Razumovsky Quartets, and the Violin Concerto, all composed in 1806.

The symphony and the two concertos have in common a calm serenity, rather at variance with Beethoven’s heroic, turbulent, middle-period manner. The Violin Concerto was not well received, probably because of a badly under-rehearsed premiere performance, and was generally neglected until Josef Joachim, aged 12, performed it in London in 1844, with Mendelssohn conducting. Since then, almost everyone has regarded it as the Everest of the violin repertoire. (Perhaps to try to increase its appeal, Beethoven accepted a commission to arrange it as a piano concerto. The arrangement is rather perfunctory, and it seems like a wrong-headed idea. The piano version, however, includes a remarkable cadenza by Beethoven himself; regrettably, the violin version does not.)

The Violin Concerto is on a very large scale. Right from the mysterious opening drumbeats and the increasingly tense wait for the soloist’s entry, there is a sense of vast space. When the soloist does begin to play, it is with an improvisatory gesture, rather like the opening of the Fifth Piano Concerto; there’s no hurry. In Donald Tovey’s memorable phrase, the slow movement (a set of variations embroidering a theme) presents a feeling of “sublime, ethereal inaction.” The final naively humorous rondo which follows without a break “awakes to the light of common day.” Beethoven has, for the moment at least, stepped aside from the titanic, confrontational drama of the Eroica, not to mention Fidelio. He shows us a serene, perhaps bucolic view of the world.

Program note by the late Dr. C.W. Helleiner.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Violin Concerto in D Major
Composed: 1806
Premiered: 1806, Vienna
Duration: 42 minutes

In 1806, Beethoven thought he had at last finished with revisions to Fidelio. As it turned out, he was to return to it again in 1814, but for the time being, he was relieved, and produced a flood of great works in rapid succession, as though his creative urge had been dammed up by his seemingly endless struggles with his opera. They included the Fourth Symphony, the Fourth Piano Concerto, the Razumovsky Quartets, and the Violin Concerto, all composed in 1806.

The symphony and the two concertos have in common a calm serenity, rather at variance with Beethoven’s heroic, turbulent, middle-period manner. The Violin Concerto was not well received, probably because of a badly under-rehearsed premiere performance, and was generally neglected until Josef Joachim, aged 12, performed it in London in 1844, with Mendelssohn conducting. Since then, almost everyone has regarded it as the Everest of the violin repertoire. (Perhaps to try to increase its appeal, Beethoven accepted a commission to arrange it as a piano concerto. The arrangement is rather perfunctory, and it seems like a wrong-headed idea. The piano version, however, includes a remarkable cadenza by Beethoven himself; regrettably, the violin version does not.)

The Violin Concerto is on a very large scale. Right from the mysterious opening drumbeats and the increasingly tense wait for the soloist’s entry, there is a sense of vast space. When the soloist does begin to play, it is with an improvisatory gesture, rather like the opening of the Fifth Piano Concerto; there’s no hurry. In Donald Tovey’s memorable phrase, the slow movement (a set of variations embroidering a theme) presents a feeling of “sublime, ethereal inaction.” The final naively humorous rondo which follows without a break “awakes to the light of common day.” Beethoven has, for the moment at least, stepped aside from the titanic, confrontational drama of the Eroica, not to mention Fidelio. He shows us a serene, perhaps bucolic view of the world.

Program note by the late Dr. C.W. Helleiner.