Chain of associations: Retracing how 'Excerpt I' came into my head + the odd path to 'Excerpt II' + a stab at explaining how it mattered

I KNOW I'LL REGRET IT, BUT I WANT TO TRY TALKING
ABOUT WHAT I THINK OF AS MUSICAL "AUTHENTICITY"
(Which has nothing to do with the kind usually talked about)

What is this distinguished-looking fellow up to? (FWIW,
note that whatever it is, he's doing it without a baton.)

EXCERPT  I

[2:47] New Philharmonia Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski, cond. Decca 'Phase 4', recorded in Kingsway Hall, London, September 1965

EXCERPT  II

[Don't overboost the volume! Note that Excerpt II starts 'p' (soft); even the crescendo is only to 'poco più f ' (a little louder).]

[4:49] Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Leopold Stokowski, cond. Decca 'Phase 4', recorded in the Grand Théâtre, Geneva, Sept. 15-16, 1968

NOTE: Excerpt II is so startling in both conception and scoring, I've copied more of the score for when we hear it again. -- Ed.

A NOTE ON THE WORK THAT 'EXCERPT II' COMES FROM

Many (most?) people, when they think of it, think of the great love theme --


[2:48] Berlin Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan, cond. DG, recorded in the Jesus-Christus-Kirche, Oct. 12-13, 1966

But that's not where we're heading. This theme is kind of foolproof, can't-miss. It's hard to imagine any conductor misfiring with it. -- Ed.

by Ken

Sometimes it's intriguing to try to retrace a train of thought, back to its point of origin, to maybe see how it was hatched, and then how it morphed through its wanderings. As it happens, in this case -- the case of the specific part of the "odd path" I referenced above, from Excerpt I to Excerpt II -- the pathway, if not the actual thought collision, is easy to identify: On a Stoky "compilation" CD that Decca put out, they're the first and last of the 17 tracks.


HOW EXACTLY DID THOSE TRACKS AT OPPOSITE
ENDS OF A 17-TRACK CD CRASH INTO EACH OTHER?

45 seconds' worth of musicI can't get out of my head

We've heard it before (and we're going to hear it again)

Technically, it's not really even part of a movement of the Mendelssohn E minor Violin Concerto, these 14 bars of Allegretto non tanto which provide a transitional bridge from the sublime central Andante to the romping rondo (as announced in the Allegro molto vivace above). I'm used to having the Andante seize control of me -- but this little Allegretto non troppo?

by Ken

Okay, I admit I was having a little fun with the part about our having "a soloist and conductor so closely in sync," but I wasn't kidding about "the conductor [having] the orchestra not just phrasing but practically breathing with the soloist."


LAST WEEK WE HEARD IT TACKED ONTO THE ANDANTE

ii. Andante -- Allegretto non tanto

Utah Symphony Orchestra, Joseph Silverstein, violin and cond. Pro Arte, recorded in Symphony Hall, Salt Lake City, Nov. 19 & 21, 1983

And I wrote this about it:

"No, don't crank up the volume at the start! Our soloist is really choosing to play this music -- which I sometimes think just may be the most beautiful ever written -- so, er, confidentially. There's plenty of presence in the sound; I'd describe it as quite intense; the soloist just isn't going to make a display of it. Meanwhile the conductor has the orchestra not just phrasing but practically breathing with the soloist. How often do you get a soloist and conductor so closely in sync?"

NOW LET'S BACK UP A BIT -- INTO THE ANDANTE --
AND LET IT RUN THROUGH TO THE END OF THE RONDO

end of ii. Andante -- Allegretto non troppo [at 1:05] --
iii. Allegro molto vivace [at 1:51]

Joseph Silverstein, violin, with the Utah Symphony (credits as above)


WE'VE ACTUALLY HEARD A BUNCH OF PERFORMANCES
OF THE ANDANTE OF THE MENDELSSOHN CONCERTO

And in a number of cases I stopped the clip at the end of what I would call "the Andante proper." No reason for this than I can recall -- I think it just hadn't occurred to me to be sure to tack on the Allegretto non tanto. Very possibly I was thinking that such a hanging-in-mid-air ending would be bad form for our listening experience, and only later came to realize that this very up-in-the-airness teaches us a lesson about the structure of the concerto.

We now hear our "elite" violin concertos in their entirety

As we edge forward with our Mendelssohn "sidebar" -- as I just explained -- it's time to hear these concertos in full.

[TUESDAY UPDATE: You might watch for updates to this post, like the one I just added for the Brahms Concerto.]

Last week ("Rondomania: A quick hit at violin-concerto rondo finales looking back from Mendelssohn to Mozart and Beethoven and ahead to Brahms and Sibelius"), pursuing the Mendelssohn "sidebar" that grew out of the Nov. 28 post "One Sunday afternoon in
August 1943 in Carnegie Hall . . .," we listened to the great chain of violin concertos with rondo finales stretching out before and after Mendelssohn. I said at the time that I'd really like to be able to present those concertos in full. Well, here they are!

This all still needs to be integrated with a mostly written first part that continues the Mendelssohnian thread. And probably it should be improved in all sorts of other ways. I wouldn't hold my breath about that part, though. -- Ken

AGAIN, WE REALLY HAVE TO START WITH MOZART

In our original consideration of the place of the rondo finale in the line of the great violin concertos, we started with Mozart --

• not because he invented either the violin concerto or the rondo or even the use of the rondo in violin (and other) concertos, which he didn't, but because he grasped the possibilities of this combination in a way, or ways, that made it stick.

• and not because Mozart's violin concertos, taken on their own, are equivalent in stature to the line of violin concertos they did so much to inspire. The form -- the Classical concerto, that is, not to be confused with the Baroque one -- was still too new to aspire to that stature. (Thank you once again, Herr Beethoven.)

Not that the three "mature" concertos (which followed with scarcely any separation from the not-yet-mature ones) can't still hold their own on a concert platform. But you kind of feel that the audience needs at minimum a somewhat bigger kick, and the performer has to put out a portion more to earn his/her fee. So, with no disrespect to any of these much-loved works, I'm thinking of them maybe more as a collective than as separate entires in our violin-concerto sweepstakes. (If it were piano concertos we were tracking, I'm not sure I would take the same position. But Mozart's piano concertos come from a more developed stage of his creative energies. There are at least half a dozen Mozart piano concertos I'd consider worthy of inclusion in such a survey.

BUT: We're skipping the Mozart Violin Concertos Nos. 1-2

(Maybe one more little pre-post?)No, these 14 bars aren't The Most Beautiful Music Ever Written; they're what comes right after it

Yes, we're still in "sidebar" mode from the Nov.28 post,
"One Sunday afternoon in August 1943 in Carnegie Hall"

We've already had a sidebar prompted by the opening work on that 1943 New York Philharmonic "Summer Broadcast Concert" program conducted by Fritz Reiner, the Overture to Dmitri Kabalevsky's opera Colas Breugnon ("Fun with Dmitri Kabalevsky," Dec. 5), in which we heard delicious compact concertos for violin, cello, and piano played by, respectively, David Oistrakh, Daniel Shafran, and Emil Gilels, with the composer conducting. And on Dec. 12 we edged forward with a "Pre-post to the upcoming post, 'Sidebars: (2) Mendelssohn and (4) More Mendelssohn'" -- mostly inspired by the second work on the August 1943 program, the Mendelssohn E minor Violin Concerto, which we heard in a recording made by Columbia in 1945 with the 1943 soloist, Nathan Milstein, rejoining the Philharmonic in Carnegie Hall, this time conducted by Bruno Walter. -- Ken

We have 8 performances by 4 violinists (from fastest to slowest):

[1] April 1944, violinist = age 43

[2] February 1959, violinist = age 58

[3] April 1935, violinist = age 60

[4] May 1945, violinist = age 41

[5] October 1949, violinist = age 41

[6] December 1955, violinist = age 47

[7] March 1973, violinist = age 69

[8] December 1926, violinist = age 51


by Ken

What we see and hear above is a mere 14 bars of music, music I'd heard, oh, probably a million times before it suddenly lodged in my head and wouldn't shake loose. As suggested in the post title, it follows immediately some music that's quite special to me -- music that in fact once did pretty much the same thing to me, back when I'd only heard it maybe a half-million times. But that at least was a whole movement, albeit not a terribly long one. Still, this is only a snippety 14 for-gosh-sakes bars.

So what I've done is gather these eight performances by four well-known violinists of the past, all long gone now -- the last survivor from the group left us in December 1992, and from this remove in time they probably all seem impossibly, even ridiculously ancient. Yet there are distinctions to be made. The oldest of them was a full 26 years older than the next-oldest. In fact, exactly 26 years older, as they shared a birthday, and I think it's fair to say that each was in turn the most famous violinist of his time. In fact, the older led the cheering for the wizardly upstart who had arrived to displace him.

The age gap matters. I think you'll instantly hear a stylistic difference between him and the younger men, who were born within an eight-year period of each other. And there's not just an age difference. One of our chaps hailed from Vienna, the other three from what we might call borderlands of the Soviet empire -- one from Lithuania, the other two from Ukraine (both from Odessa, actually).

The performances, you'll note, are arranged from fastest to slowest, though I can't claim scientific precision for my clip-making or -measuring. The three performances in the 46-47-second range can be considered a dead heat, for example. But note the gap between the two fastest peformances and the others, and for that matter between the slowest one and the others.

When we resume, we're going to have our eight perfomances again, this time all properly identified. And then we're going to call on our fiddlers four to answer the question these 14 hallowed bars so powerfully prompt.

'Sidebars' begin for last week's post, 'One Sunday afternoon in August 1943 in Carnegie Hall . . . ': (1) Fun with Dmitri Kabalevsky

NOTE: As you'll see when we get to the gap, this is a knowingly "to be filled in" post, which gives us a chance to do, as it were, some on-our-own listening together

Kabalevsky (1904-1987) at work

-- from the Carnegie Hall program for Sunday, August 15, 1943

KABALEVSKY: Colas Breugnon, Opp. 24/90:
Overture


Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Fritz Reiner, cond. Columbia, recorded in the Syria Mosque, Pittsburgh, Mar. 26, 1945

Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Fritz Reiner, cond. RCA, recorded in Orchestra Hall, Mar. 14, 1959

by Ken

If you were here last week for the post in question, "One Sunday afternoon in August 1943 in Carnegie Hall . . ." [Nov. 28], you know that the date was August 15, the event was a New York Philharmonic "Summer Broadcast Concert," and that Fritz Reiner conducted a program consisting of the Overture to Dmitri Kabalevsky's opera Colas Breugnon, the Mendelssohn E minor Violin Concerto with Nathan Milstein as soloist, and the Shostakovich Sixth Symphony. And you know that we re-created the event after a fashion, though with the actual performance of the Shostakovich symphony that went out over the airwaves that day.

For the Kabalevsky overture we heard the recording we've just reherard above, which Reiner made a year and a half later, once Columbia Records made its peace with the striking musicians' union, with "his" orchestra at that time, the Pittsburgh Symphony. And for the Mendelssohn concerto we heard a 1945 performance when Milstein returned to Carnegie Hall to play and record the piece with Bruno Walter conducting the Philharmonic.

One other thing you may know from last week's post and the "pre-post" that preceded it, "Can we do a better job assembling the three movements of this symphony than, you know, the guy who composed them?" [Nov. 22], my main interest was the Shostakovich Sixth, of which we've also heard, in addition to the 1943 New York performance, a recording of the symphony that made in that flurry of activity when Reiner and the Pittsburgh Symphony were finally able to resume recording. In fact, the Colas Breugnon Overture was recorded as a filler for Side 8 of the four-78 set containing the Shostakovich Sixth.


IF YOU'VE BEEN HERE BEFORE, IT WON'T SHOCK YOU THAT
LAST WEEK'S POST PULLED MY MIND IN OTHER DIRECTIONS

Revisiting our musical glimpse into the sublime, Part 2

As I explained last week, in the post "Found Music Dept.: When music that pops into your path grabs hold and won't let go," the "found music" that made such an impact on me came in an early episode of the FX-via-Netflix series Pose, when 17-year-old Damon (Ryan Jamaal Swain), whom we see here making his way to NYC, having been thrown out of his home for dreaming of being a dancer (and, oh yes, being gay), has his world turned upside-down when he gets his first glimpse of real, live ballet, in the form of a dance choreographed to music by the Dance King himself.


Claudio Arrau, piano; Staatskapelle Dresden, Sir Colin Davis, cond. Philips, recorded November 1984

Alfred Brendel, piano; Vienna Philharmonic, Sir Simon Rattle, cond. Philips, recorded February 1998

Leif Ove Andsnes, piano and cond.; Mahler Chamber Orchestra. Sony, recorded in Prague, May 20-21, 2014

by Ken

Of the music in question, I wrote in Part 1 of this week's post earlier today ("Revisiting our musical glimpse into the sublime, Part 1"), "It's a piece I know about as well as I know my own name," which though accurate may have been a trifle misleading, in that these days there are moments when I give some thought to dredge up my name, and the truth is that while I knew the composer right away, it took me a bit to home in on the identity of the piece, of which I went on to write: "I don't think I'd ever heard it in quite this way: as a prime example of Beethoven's singular ability to give us a musical glimpse into the sublime."

The fact that it did take me a bit to make the positive ID puzzled me, and the best guess I came up with is that it stands as the middle movement between two movements I might best describe as "colossal" -- Beethoven at his "E-flat major"-est. There are keys that are known to be hospitable to string instruments, and there are keys known to be hospitable to wind instruments, among which perhaps none is more so than E-flat major, which always lends itself to full-throated musical celebration.

IS THERE ANY MORE FULL-THROATEDLY E-FLAT-MAJOR-ISH
MUSIC THAN THE OUTER MOVEMENTS OF THIS CONCERTO?

Chausson's "Poème": a gem of French Romanticism

Ernest Chausson (1855-1899), around 1895

Ginette Neveu, violin

David Oistrakh, violin

Zino Francescatti, violin

by Ken

Now that, I dare say, is one gorgeous tune, and a tune gorgeously suited to the solo violin. (One feature worth noting in the tune's formal notation: The accented beats the ear hears hardly ever occur on the downbeats where one would expect them. What seems like such a simple, straightforward flowing melody actually isn't so simple or straightforward.)

As I mentioned last week, when we listened to Ravel's "funny music," the concert rhapsody for violin and orchestra Tzigane, it was actually its frequent disc-mate, Ernest Chausson's Poème for Violin and Orchestra, that actually got me thinking about the pieces, which were both included, with Zino Francescatti as soloist, on a CD in Sony's Leonard Bernstein Edition, filling out Lenny's 1961 New York Philharmonic recording of Berlioz's Harold in Italy (with William Lincer, the orchestra's principal violist from 1942 to 1972, as soloist).


SO THIS WEEK: CHAUSSON'S POÈME

Brooding and striving, grand and intimate, it's Bruch's "Scottish Fantasy"

by Ken

In Friday night's preview we revisited Beethoven's Choral Fantasy (for piano, soloists, chorus, and orchestra) and Liszt's Hungarian Fantasia (for piano and orchestra) in anticipation of turning our attention today to Max Bruch's Scottish Fantasy for Violin and Orchestra.

With this installment we have concluded our survey of the three works of Bruch known to most music lovers. We heard the soulful Kol Nidrei for cello and orchestra ("A haunting little piece that tells us less than we would think about its composer's roots") and the great First Violin Concerto in G minor ("From brooding depths to sparkling heights") in April.

THE SCOTTISH FANTASY WAS COMPOSED IN 1879-80 . . .