PROGRAM NOTES

By Laurie Shulman

 

Violin Concerto in E Major, BWV 1042

Johann Sebastian Bach

Born 21 March, 1685 in Eisenach, Germany

Died 28 July, 1750 in Leipzig

 

• Bach composed more than 1,500 compositions, but only three solo violin concertos have survived.

• To master Italian style, he spent many hours copying the music of Corelli and Vivaldi.

• The opening gesture, an E major triad, recurs several times in the first movement.

• Listen for a sad, sonorous repeating cello theme in the slow movement.

• The finale is joyous and dance-like.

 

Between 1717 and 1723, Bach was employed by Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen, a music-loving nobleman from an area northeast of Weimar in what used to be called East Germany. The position was rather similar to the one that Haydn was to hold with the Esterházy family later that century. When Bach was engaged as Kapellmeister, Leopold’s court boasted one of the largest and finest orchestras in Europe. Bach composed a considerable amount of instrumental music for the Cöthen musicians, including most of his solo concertos.

 

Bach was very interested in the Italian style of concerto writing, particularly the works of Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741). He studied Vivaldi's music avidly, sometimes copying the scores to develop greater familiarity with the style. It is no surprise that this E major concerto reflects certain Italian Baroque characteristics. This work is a companion piece to the well-known A minor Violin Concerto, BWV 1041, which we hear on this program after intermission. The technical challenges in both works attest to the skilled performers Bach had at his disposal in the Cöthen court orchestra.

 

E major is an extremely bright key for violin, a factor that Bach exploited fully in his jubilant outer movements. An assertive ascending triad anchors the opening Allegro, introducing eleven measures of material rich enough to provide the motivic basis for the entire movement. The structure parallels the da capo aria, with an identical repeat of the opening section after a contrasting middle episode of unrelated melodic material. 

 

The slow movement is the most melodically elaborate. Bach anchors it by use of a repeated, chaconne-like figure in the lower strings. Rhythmic steadiness finds a foil in the capricious, ornate, and expressive violin line. The simultaneous precision and grace of his writing takes one’s breath away.

           

The finale is a concerto grosso movement with a French accent, pointing to the later eighteenth-century rondeau. Solo violin dominates the episodes between the full orchestra ritornello passages. A lively 3/8 meter keeps our feet tapping, and the introduction of rapid triplets, thirty-second notes, and virtuosic passage work gives the soloist a final opportunity to shine. 

 

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Chamber Symphony,

Op.110a         

Dmitri Shostakovich

Born 25 September, 1906 in St. Petersburg, Russia

Died 9 August, 1975 in Moscow

Arranged by Rudolf Barshai (1924-2010)

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• Shostakovich used his musical signature in this work

• The mood is almost unrelievedly somber

• Quotations from a half dozen other Shostakovich compositions are sprinkled throughout

• You may also hear references to Wagner and Tchaikovsky

 

​The official story: The party line

The Chamber Symphony, Op.110a is a transcription for string orchestra of Shostakovich's Eighth String Quartet. According to his early biographers Dmitri and Ludmilla Sollertinsky, Shostakovich composed the quartet during the summer of 1960, while he was in Dresden working on music for a Soviet-East German film entitled Five Days, Five Nights. The movie, which takes place during World War II, obviously touched Shostakovich deeply. Living in that phoenix city, which had been so heavily bombed during World War II, must have made his own tragic memories of the siege of Leningrad all too poignant. 

 

The real story, or underlying subtext

Although the Dresden trip is documented, more recent Shostakovich biographers have challenged these origins. More relevant is that the composer had just been recruited as a new member of the Communist Party, presumably as part of Nikita Khruschchev’s campaign to gain support for his “liberalizing” agenda by means of endorsement from prominent intellectual and artistic figures. Khruschchev offered Shostakovich the top spot in the newly-formed Union of Composers of the Russian Federation, but the appointment was contingent on the composer’s party membership.

 

It is not clear what the circumstances were of his formal application. Shostakovich did not discuss the matter with his family or friends. He may have been coerced by party officials. One memoir published in the 1990s claims that Shostakovich intimated he was inebriated when he signed the paperwork. What is clear is that Shostakovich was not proud of his actions. He composed the Eighth Quartet in a three-day white heat in July 1960. His daughter Galina later suggested that he may have been suicidal at the time, and that he intended it to be his final work. Clearly his emotional condition was fragile that year.

 

Epistolary confession

Further illumination came from a volume of Shostakovich’s letters to Isaak Glikman, published in 1993 in Russian and, in 2001, in English translation. On July 19, 1960, five days after completing the Eighth Quartet, Shostakovich wrote to Glikman:

 

 

It occurred to me that should I die, it would be unlikely that anyone would write a piece dedicated to my memory. So I decided to write one myself…My initials [the D-Es-C-H motive] are the quartet’s main theme. I also use other themes from my works in the quartet, as well as the revolutionary song “Tormented by Grievous Bondage.” My own themes come from the First Symphony, the Eighth Symphony, the Piano Trio, the [First] Cello Concerto, and Lady Macbeth. I also hint at Wagner’s Funeral March from Götterdämmerung and the second theme from the first movement of Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony. I forgot – there is also a theme from my Tenth Symphony. Not too bad, this little potpourri. The pseudo-tragedy of the quartet is such that while composing it my tears flowed as abundantly as urine after downing half a dozen beers.

 

 

Glikman’s analysis of this letter and its scathing, dismissive final comment are that Shostakovich viewed the quartet as an expression of self-disgust. The quartet may also be construed as a bleak protest against the cultural and ideological repression of the era. No matter how one interprets it, there is no denying its gripping power.

 

Thus, on the surface, the quartet – and by extension the Chamber Symphony – is the embodiment of Shostakovich's emotional reaction to the horrors of war, and particularly to the suffering of its victims. Two months after he composed it, Shostakovich added the dedicatory subtitle: "In memory of victims of fascism and war." On a deeper level, it is an autobiographical cry of despair.

 

From string quartet to chamber orchestra

The Russian violist and conductor Rudolf Barshai was responsible for the Eighth Quartet’s metamorphosis into a Chamber Symphony. In a 1990 interview with David Fanning, he recalled:

 

 

Shortly after the 8th Quartet was premiered in 1960, the music publishers Peters commissioned me to orchestrate the work for string orchestra. Knowing Shostakovich’s opinion (frankly, quite skeptical) of arrangements of any kind, I first sought his approval. When I had finished the score, I showed it to him. He was very pleased with it and, with the humor and expansiveness typical of him, exclaimed, “Why, that sounds better than the original. We’ll give it a new name: Chamber Symphony.”

 

 

One of Shostakovich's distinguishing musical characteristics is his habit of quoting from his own and others' compositions. Because of this work's extensive quotations from Shostakovich's own earlier pieces, analysts have labeled the Chamber Symphony as autobiographical. Astute listeners  who are well acquainted with Shostakovich’s other music will be able to discern at least some of the borrowings enumerated in his letter to Glikman. The Chamber Symphony also bears the strong imprint of Jewish folk music and Slavic chants, both of which were a source of delight to Shostakovich.

 

Musical monogram

The most powerful evidence supporting the autobiographical perception of this composition are its opening notes, D, E-flat, C, and B, which constitute its unifying musical motive. In German musical orthography, E-flat is "Es" and B-natural is "H".  Spelled thus, the motive becomes D-S-C-H, for Dmitri S[c]hostakovich. This four-note cell, which constitutes the principal material of the opening fugato movement, is a basic component of all five sections of the work. Its permutations unite the piece and are a tribute to the composer's skill in creating so much from so little.

 

The Chamber Symphony is one of Shostakovich’s most profound musical expressions. Its five movements are played without pause, as if to intensify the emotional weight of the music. The first, fourth, and final movements are all labeled Largo. Such a preponderance of slow movements underscores the somber cast of the music.

 

The second movement, Allegro molto, attacks with ferocity, fraught with the anger of desperation and panic. Its pulsating energy evokes the ghastliness of war at its most cruel and violent. The sardonic waltz into which it dissolves is still driven; the D-S-C-H motive forms its melodic basis. The last two movements, both contrapuntal treatments of the D-S-C-H motive, seek to relieve the extreme tension generated by the Allegro molto and the waltz. In that respect, they are unsuccessful by design. Though he indulges in some rich string sonorities, stark unisons and open fifths reaffirm the profound sadness which permeates this work.

 

Rudof Barshai

The Russian violist and conductor Rudolf Barshai (b.1924) enjoyed an impressive career as an ensemble and solo player before moving to conducting. He played in the Quartet of the Moscow Philharmonic (a predecessor to the Borodin Quartet) and later with the Tchaikovsky Quartet. He must have been a formidable violist. His regular chamber partners read like a who’s who of important mid-century musicians: David Oistrakh, Sviatoslav Richter, Leonid Kogan, Mstislav Rostropovich, Yehudi Mehuhin.

 

In a 1990 interview with David Fanning, Barshai recalled his first meeting with Shostakovich:

 

 

In December 1946 I telephoned Shostakovich at home. The call went like this: “Dmitri Dmitrievich, I’m a student at the Moscow Conservatory. We – three other students and I – would like to play your First String Quartet for you.”

“Where and when is your next rehearsal?” Shostakovich asked quickly.

“Tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. at the Conservatory.”

“Classroom?”

“No. 49.”

“I’ll be there.”

 

That was the beginning of a creative and personal relationship that was to last for almost 30 years. Once I had become a conductor in my own right, Shostakovich often attended my orchestra rehearsals, and we had long, detailed discussions of the score in preparation, their unique features, the wealth of orchestral possibilities they contained and how to realize them.

 

 

After taking up conducting, Barshai founded the Moscow Chamber Orchestra in 1955. Under his direction, it became a significant pathbreaker in Soviet concert life, programming both new music and fresh approaches to old music. For example, his cycle of Mozart symphonies with the Moscow Chamber Orchestra was the first to observe all the repeats. Barshai introduced Russian audiences to Baroque music and the lesser-known literature for chamber orchestra.

 

Today, Barshai is best known for a series of transcriptions for small orchestra that he made for the Moscow ensemble. The best known are Prokofiev’s piano suite, Visions fugitives, and the Shostakovich Chamber Symphony, after Shostakovich’s Eighth Quartet. (Barshai also arranged Shostakovich’s Third and Tenth Quartets for string orchestra.) It is a tribute to Barshai’s musicianship and knowledge of string playing that Shostakovich permitted him to arrange these works for string orchestra.

 

Violin Concerto in A Minor, BWV 1041

Johann Sebastian Bach

 

• He was himself an excellent violinist as well as a virtuoso keyboard player.

• When playing in an orchestra, he preferred viola, to be in the middle of things.

• The soloist and orchestra share little material in the first movement.

• Bach’s slow movement gives an aria-like role to the violinist.

• Rapid scalar runs enliven the finale.

 

Bach's concerti can be chameleons. Some are rescored from Vivaldi's concerti. That exercise familiarized Bach with the Italian master's style, technique, and handling of musical material, thus giving him an advantage over many of his German contemporaries. Other Bach concerti originated for one solo instrument, but also exist in a later version for a different instrument. 

 

Most of Bach's concerti date either from his Cöthen period (1717-1723), or from the years in Leipzig when he was directing that city's Collegium Musicum: 1729-1737 and 1739-1741.  Scholars ascribe this one, BWV 1041, to the Cöthen years. (The catalogue listing, "BWV", stands for Bach Werke Verzeichnis, or "catalogue of Bach's Works," and is often referred to by its "Schmieder listing," after Wolfgang Schmieder (1901-1990), the German music librarian who first undertook an exhaustive bibliographical study of Bach's compositions.) The concerto also exists in a harpsichord version transposed to G-minor and catalogued as BWV 1058. We hear it this afternoon in its original key of A minor. 

 

What comes through most clearly in this polished piece is a sense of inevitability in its rhythm.  Each movement has distinct melodic and harmonic patterns, but it is the pulse that drives the music forward. Sections for full orchestra (called ritornelli) flow smoothly back and forth with thinly scored passages accompanying the soloist, partly because of reiterated rhythmic patterns.  Consistency of pulse does not, however, mean repetition of ideas, nor does it make for boredom.  Rather, it permits us as listeners to have a homing point to which other musical digressions relate in space, in time, in sound. Bach was nothing if not a consummate logician. 

 

His slow movement is a masterpiece of that song-like violin line called cantilena. A gentle, chordal accompaniment provides the foundation for a solo part that floats above, concentrating on richness and sweetness of tone. Those who know Vivaldi's Four Seasons will recognize the lyrical technique. In Bach's expert hands, the effect is even more moving. 

 

Bach switches his texture and meter for the finale, a graceful Allegro assai in 9/8 time that emphasizes brilliant, technically demanding writing for the soloist. He calls for a technique called bariolage, in which the violinist shifts rapidly back and forth between two, or even three, strings. The effect can be used to produce higher pitches, tremolo, or rapid repetition of one pitch by alternating a stopped string (one pressed down on the fingerboard by the soloist's left hand) or an open string. Such demands reflect Bach's own accomplishment as a fiddler and, as we heard in the E major concerto, bear testimony to the wonderful orchestra he oversaw in the court at Cöthen.

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Violin Concerto in C Major, Hob.VIIa:1

Franz Joseph Haydn

Born 31 March, 1732 in Rohrau, Austria

Died 31 May, 1809 in Vienna

 

• This was one of Haydn’s earliest concerti.

• The style has elements in common with Baroque and early classical period music.

• Haydn’s soloist was Italian, and the slow movement is linked to Italian opera arias.

• The outer movements showcase technique, while the Adagio focuses on tone.

 

In 1761, at the age of 29, Joseph Haydn changed jobs. He left the employ of Count Karl Joseph Franz Morzin to become Vice-Kapellmeister in the court of Prince Paul Anton Esterházy. His new employer was one of the wealthiest and most influential nobles in Hungary, and maintained a fine court orchestra. During his first months working for the Esterházy family, Haydn was delighted by the caliber of the orchestra. Furthermore, the Prince gave him leave to expand the orchestra and engage new, even more skilled players. Under Haydn’s direction, the ensemble flourished and grew to be among the best in Europe. He began to compose instrumental concerti that were designed to show off the superior skills of those players. 

 

The C major Violin Concerto that concludes this program was composed in the mid-1760s for Luigi Tomasini (1741-1808), the orchestra’s concertmaster. A native of Pesaro (the birthplace of Gioachino Rossini in 1792), Tomasini was initially engaged as a page to Prince Paul Anton Esterházy, possibly as early as 1752. The Prince had been Austrian ambassador to Naples, but relinquished that post to return to Vienna. Tomasini began playing in the court orchestra in 1756, and apparently studied violin with Leopold Mozart in 1760. Shortly after Haydn’s arrival in 1761, the new Vice-Kapellmeister arranged for Tomasini be relieved of his other duties so that he could play full time in the orchestra.

 

This concerto has many characteristics in common with the cello concerto in the same key, written for the Esterházy court cellist Joseph Weigl in 1765. The two works share a grandeur and spacious quality that derive in part from the moderate tempo of their opening movements. By relaxing the pace, Haydn allowed for more rhythmic variety and more detailed musical exchanges between the soloist and the orchestra. His extensive use of musical sequences is one way that this concerto is linked to the earlier Baroque concerto grosso.

 

Haydn’s Adagio begins with a simple ascending scale for the soloist with chordal accompaniment in the strings. Upon arriving at the upper octave, Haydn indicates a fermata (pause) that invites a mini-cadenza [called an Eingang in German] from the soloist, gently ornamented. Clearly Haydn was writing to celebrate Tomasini’s warm Italian tone and exquisite taste. It all serves as introduction. The violinist embarks on an elegant aria in F major, with strings now switching to pizzicato. The introductory music returns to close this reverie.

 

The finale, a lively romp in 3/8 meter, has plenty of dazzling figuration: passage work in tenths, double stopping, and rapid string crossings that suggest Haydn was acquainted with Vivaldi’s violin concerti. It makes for a brilliant conclusion to this tuneful concerto.

 

All three movements allow for cadenzas. Mr. Drucker plays his own.

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Program Notes by Laurie Shulman ©2025

First North American Serial Rights Only

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