Concerto

Remembering Gary Graffman

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Gary Graffman, a renowned American pianist, teacher, and administrator, passed away last Saturday, December 27, at his Manhattan home. He was 97. A child prodigy, Graffman entered the Curtis Institute of Music at the age of 7, and studied with Isabelle Vengerova. In 1946, he made his professional debut, appearing with conductor Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra. After winning the prestigious Leventritt Competition in 1949, he studied extensively with Vladimir Horowitz …

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Shostakovich’s Second Violin Concerto: Mournful, Introverted, and Singing

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“Very slowly, with difficulty, squeezing it out note by note, I am writing a Violin Concerto,” Dmitri Shostakovich confided to a friend in the spring of 1967, adding, “Otherwise everything is going splendidly.” The Violin Concerto No. 2 in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 129 is a shadowy, introverted work. It is mournful and endlessly singing. “Gone are the instantly memorable images, the brightly etched colors and coruscating ferocity,” writes commentator Gerard McBurney. “Instead we …

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Beethoven’s Violin Concerto: Hilary Hahn, Alain Altinoglu, and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony

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In 1995, the 15-year-old Hilary Hahn performed Beethoven’s Violin Concerto with Lorin Maazel and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. The youthful vigor of that exhilarating early performance has given way to depth and maturity, as exhibited in Hahn’s recent performance with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony and conductor Alain Altinoglu, recorded on May 9, 2025. Four unassuming timpani beats open the Concerto’s first movement (Allegro ma non troppo), and provide the seed out of …

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Michael Torke’s “Last Fall”: New Music for Solo Violin and String Orchestra

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American composer Michael Torke (b. 1961) has just completed a new concerto for solo violin and string orchestra simply titled Last. Last is a collection of twelve meditative pieces that can be performed separately, or as a whole. The titles evoke memories and the passage of time. (Last Fall, Last Year, Last Month, Last Sunday, etc.) Torke comments that they “are almost like second movements of violin concertos.” His program notes for Last are as follows: The Stoics recommend …

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Beethoven’s Violin Concerto: Nathan Milstein, Sir Adrian Boult and the London Philharmonic

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Nathan Milstein (1903-1992) was one of the most elegant and innately gifted violinists of the twentieth century. The biographer Boris Schwarz called his playing, “a rare combination of classical taste and technical perfection,” adding that “the effortless nonchalance with which he achieves sophisticated technical feats is amazing.” Born in Odessa, Milstein studied with the renowned Pyotr Stolyarsky, who was also teaching the six-year-old David Oistrakh at the time. At the age of …

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Shunske Sato Plays Vivaldi: “Spring” from “The Four Seasons”

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Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons (Le quattro stagioni) is one of the earliest and most iconic examples of programmatic music. Vivaldi composed the collection of four violin concerti, each depicting a season of the year, during his tenure as music director at the court chapel of Mantua. Together with eight additional concerti, the works were published in Amsterdam in 1725 under the enticing title, Il cimento dell’armonia e dell’inventione (“The Contest Between Harmony and …

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Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major: Comic, Majestic, and Adventurous

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Mozart was at the height of his popularity in Vienna when, in March of 1785, he composed the Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major, K. 467. In a letter dated March 12, two days after the Concerto’s premiere, Mozart’s father, Leopold, wrote to his daughter back home in Salzburg, We never get to bed before one o’clock and I never get up before nine. We lunch at two or half past. …

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