Pinchas Zukerman x Sinfonia Varsovia

organiser: Sinfonia Varsovia

'I cannot listen to this concerto anymore – did I perhaps write just this one? Go away and once and for all play the other concertos, which are just as good, if not better.' These words by Max Bruch reflect the composer’s deep frustration; for twenty years, he had been unable to write anything that would surpass the fame of his youthful masterpiece. His irritation was compounded by the fact that his Violin Concerto No. 1 did not provide him with a steady income: as a fledgling composer, he had sold it for a pittance – a one-time payment of 250 thalers.

Work on the piece progressed slowly. He began writing it in the summer of 1864. The version performed in 1866 under the composer’s baton was not the final one; he continued to refine his work throughout the following year, seeking input from musician friends. Among those who offered their comments were Ferdinand David and Joseph Joachim. He shared numerous doubts with the latter: he was wary of the weighty term 'concerto' (considering instead to call the piece a 'fantasy'), found the violin passages trite, and spotted formal weaknesses. Years later, when a collection of Bruch’s letters was being prepared for publication, the composer asked that those which might cast him in a negative light be omitted. He feared that readers, rather than appreciating his meticulousness as a self-aware artist, would view him as a composer lacking independence, reliant on the comments and expertise of others.

In the First, he draws heavily on ideas familiar from earlier works in this genre: all three movements are played attacca (without pauses), as in Mendelssohn, and the opening snare drum roll in the timpani pays a clear homage to Beethoven. Today, there is no doubt that the First is a masterpiece – and a masterpiece by Bruch. Unusually, in the first two movements he omits or significantly shortens the customary closing sections of the form, the essence of which is the repetition of the initial material. He likely does this to avoid the accusation of predictability. He uses the term 'Vorspiel' for the first movement, treating it merely as an introduction to the Adagio. The finale, with its impetuous double notes, is full of Hungarian character, familiar to us from Brahms’s concerto, composed a decade later.

*** 

Mozart and Dvořák composed the other two works of the evening without such dilemmas. In fact, they reflect the lightness and nonchalance of these composers. Mozart usually reserved the overtures for the end of his work on an opera – and this was also the case with his last one, Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute). This allowed him to incorporate musical material from the opera that had already been composed into the overture that opens the work. The opening brass chords refer directly to events in the second act: these sounds accompany the initiation ceremony (of a distinctly Masonic nature) to which Tamino is subjected. Here, Mozart brilliantly blends humor with seriousness. Unusually for a comic opera, the overture’s main theme is developed in the form of a fugue – a form with distinctly dignified connotations of antiquity and erudition. He drew the witty melody from the first movement of Muzio Clementi’s Piano Sonata in B flat major, Op. 24, No. 2 – it is possible that the idea of composing a fugue based on this theme came to Mozart while he was performing an improvised ad libitum cadenza at the end of the Allegro of that sonata.

*** 

It took less than 10 weeks to compose his Symphony No. 8 during a creative retreat at his summer residence in Vysoká. The respected critic Eduard Hanslick reviewed one of its first performances very favorably. He claimed that Dvořák demonstrated true maturity in this work because – to paraphrase – he 'did not taint its spontaneity and freshness with pedantry'. The atmosphere of the Czech countryside is strongly felt in the symphony: the work shimmers with shifting moods and lively melodies with a distinctly folk character.

In the style of Schubert’s late period, the themes unfold as elaborate transformations of motifs rather than as self-contained, symmetrical ideas that are easily distinguishable. The dignified chorale in the first movement leads, via a flute signal, toward a veritable explosion of energy. In the pastoral Adagio, Dvořák imitates the sounds of nature (birdsong). In the Allegretto grazioso, a sentimental waltz in a minor key resounds, with the strings lightly jumping across the strings in staccato, evoking Mendelssohn’s Elfenmusik ('elf music'). The composer juxtaposes this waltz with a distinctive major-key trio, featuring limping trumpets and timpani. The finale, heralded by trumpets, is an elegant blend of rondo and variation forms with impetuous, dance-like themes.

Jakub Strużyński

Programme

• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart — Overture to the opera Die Zauberflöte, K. 620
• Max Bruch — Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 26
• ... przerwa
• Antonín Dvořák — Symphony No. 8 in G major, Op. 88