Concerto

Bartók’s First Violin Concerto: A Portrait of Idealized Love

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For fifty years, Béla Bartók’s Violin Concerto No. 1, Sz. 36 was treated much like a forgotten love letter relegated to the bottom of a dusty drawer. Completed in 1908, thirty years before Bartók wrote the monumental work we now know as Violin Concerto No. 2, Sz. 112, the First Concerto remained unpublished until 1956, after the composer’s death. Its posthumous premiere, performed by Hansheinz Schneeberger, occurred two years later in Basel, Switzerland. …

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Shunske Sato Plays Vivaldi: “Autumn” 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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Brahms’ Violin Concerto: Christian Tetzlaff, Robin Ticciati, and Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin

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Johannes Brahms’ Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 77 was born out of a deep collaborative friendship. Brahms composed the monumental work during the summer of 1878, a year after completing his Second Symphony, in the southern Austrian lakeside town of Pörtschach am Wörthersee. The Concerto was dedicated to the Hungarian-born violinist, Joseph Joachim (1831-1907), who actively advised the composer on technical aspects of the violin in relation to the score. Joachim, …

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Remembering Stoyka Milanova

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Stoika Milanova, the renowned Bulgarian violinist and teacher, passed away on September 29 in Madrid following a long illness. She was 79. Milanova began playing the violin at age three, under the guidance of her father. She went on to study with David Oistrakh at the Moscow Conservatory. After placing second in the 1967 Queen Elisabeth Competition, Milanova won first prize at the 1970 Carl Flesch International Violin Competition. Between 2005 and …

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Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 14 in E-flat Major, K. 449: Magically Peculiar

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In May of 1784, while reflecting on his three most recently completed piano concerti (Nos. 14, 15, and 16), Mozart insisted that he “could not choose between them,” but that “the one in E-flat [No. 14] does not belong at all to the same category. It is one of a quite peculiar kind…” Piano Concerto No. 14 in E-flat Major, K. 499 is intimate chamber music. Unlike Mozart’s later concerti, the wind …

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Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto in E-flat Major: A Thrilling Technical Experiment

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When Franz Joseph Haydn composed his Trumpet Concerto in E-flat Major in 1796, he was at the forefront of a thrilling new technical experiment. Traditionally, the valveless natural trumpet was limited to the pitches of the overtone series. In the lower register, these pitches amounted to bugle call notes. In classical symphonies, trumpets were used sparingly to punctuate climaxes with celebratory fanfares. Only in its highest register could the natural trumpet access …

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Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in G Minor: Rich and Seductive

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In the pantheon of composers, German Romanticist Max Bruch may not be a household name. But Bruch contributed several enduring works, including the spirited Scottish Fantasy for violin and orchestra, the Kol Nidrei for cello and orchestra, and the Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 26. The Violin Concerto is firmly rooted as a standard work in the violin repertoire, and has been ranked by audiences among the most beloved …

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