Columbia Masterwork Recording. Printed in the U.S.A // Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) // Violin Concerto in D Minor Op. 47, / The Swan of Tuonela, Op.22 //
The Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Eugene Ormandy
Violin Concerto in D Minor
1st movement: Allegro moderato
2nd movement: Adagio di molto
3rd movement: Allegro, ma non tanto
It’s such an amazing sound that comes out, such an unusual sounding Concerto compared to one by Mendelsohn, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and stuff life that. I think there’s so much to it that you can sink your teeth into in the world of colour and sound that makes it such a great piece to teach and to play in the orchestra. “” TSO concertmaster jonathan crow on sibelius’ Violin Concerto in an interview with Blue Riband, june 2019.
before i started this blog half my creative efforts were spent fabricating titles for novels, albums, poetry collections, films and the like...that there surely will not be enough time for making---”One day I might die, until then there's too much to do…”(josh ritter, Bonfire). in the spirit of that useless exercise: what would make for a good title to a collection of musical experiences like the one this blog has been, is on it’s way to? ‘The Rest is Noise’ is taken (alex ross) and perhaps ‘One-Way ticket to Valhalla’ is a bit too on-the-nose...
I will say another word for the choicest ears: what I really want from music is that it be cheerful and profound, like an afternoon in October. “” friedrich nietzsche, Ecce Homo
how about ‘An Afternoon in October’? vague enough. enough of a seedling, not to mention the hell of a time to be had coming up with the cover art. it would also be quite an appropriate title, as i believe there is simply no better time in the year for musicking; the cheerful yellows of summer afternoons past, fading from memory, are replaced by an incomparable ochre: the mother to yellow, a withering yolk, a golden glow, a profound laughter, etc.
i’m not sure how i arrived at the association, but my musical memory of the past five or so octobers finds sibelius’s Violin Concerto as a dim soundtrack to the excess of vibrant colours of this time of year.
after about four years of listening to a choppy recording on a crap Crosley, i finally got the chance to hear this concerto live this past june, courtesy of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra with concertmaster jonathan crow as soloist---it lived up to all of my unrealistic expectations that were created by studio recordings with vioinists david oistrakh, and jascha heifetz in particular:
That very first note with the sound that he’s making you can imagine that close up it almost sounds like metal...it’s so incredibly intense. That’s hard to get across on a recording, I think with a lot of the recordings of violinist that I love, I feel somehow I’ve lost something that’s kind of softened compared to a live performance. The thing I loved about the Heifetz--and that’s probably because he put the mic probably two inches from his bridge--was the intensity that comes across from the recording, so great... “” jonathan crow on sibelius’ Violin Concerto in an interview with Blue Riband, june 2019.
my favourite performance, however, is the one above, of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and ling-ling-certified violinist, hilary hahn. owing as much to a well placed microphone as to her nearly combustible affair on the instrument.
even if this is your first time hearing this concerto it should nevertheless sound very familiar, as there’s credible gossip that the Games of Thrones theme rips off a melody played by the orchestra halfway through the first movement in this concerto. at best, the two works are oddly compatible, as example by TwoSet Violin, and in the worst case it seems the GoT theme was arrived at by a slight tangent off of a sibelius melody---blue banana, it’s a scandal.
it’s possible that all that can be said about the ‘dark sonorities’ of this concerto has been said by musicologist donald tovey, whose nickname for the final movement--’dance of the polar bear--became famous for how succinctly it captures the northern altitude and glacial heft of the orchestra’s part in the Allegro ma non tanto. technically, the work is a tight-knitted brocade of a small handful of threads, repeated over and over with intractable intricacy. most of the concerto happens in the first movement, which often goes unheralded in comparison to the fireworks of the finale. the main thread of the first movement, weaving together the whole, is an almost imperceptible phrase that in introduced on violas. after the tremolo that opens the movement, the soloist introduces the first theme as a melody in the finnish ‘speaking style’ which immediately flies off on a tangent into a cadenza that ends with the second theme played by orchestra. a duo of bassoon and clarinet seem to bring the trajectory of the development to a close but the soloist interjects with a rising phrase before reclaiming the orchestra’s second theme, while the viola section trails the soloist with that same rising phrase. the orchestra takes on the second theme again, heading towards another false curtain before it is reprised by soloist and finally brought, through showy trills, to a conclusion.
‘The Violinist’ by Théo van Rysselberghe (1903)
that would already have been enough activity for a first movement in the Classical four-movement format, but the Allegro moderato persists: the orchestra’s pace increases as violas continue with their same melody. flutes briefly introduce a light tune that gives way to bassoon and cellos over the continuation of the viola melody. the soloist finally makes an entrance with arpeggios over a sustained note on double basses. one of the techniques that makes this work feel as if it revolves around so few motifs is sibelius’s replacement of the typical development section of a first movement with a cadenza on the solo instrument, a characteristic feature of concertos by mozart and mendelssohn (whose Violin Concerto had a strong influence on the structure of this one). and so those arpeggios evolve into the long winding passages of a cadenza, at the tail end of which a bassoon returns with the first theme from way back when. the orchestra spouts this first theme and drives the locomotive to a climax in B major. on the other side of the climax oboes take up the viola theme, before clarinets reprise the second theme introduced by orchestra earlier. these two melodies are then synthesized by the soloist in a mini-cadenza. violas return again to repeat their theme; an airy cameo by flutes, then another round of arpeggios by the soloist brings the movement to a close with a reprise of the first. all that and then some, and still two movements to go...
The rhapsodic passages of the first movement need careful control if the piece is to hold together as a coherent whole. The second and third movements, by contrast, can scarcely fail if played strongly and competently. The slow movement is introduced by an elegant rising and falling duet, first on clarinets, then on oboes. The soloist plays a long, singing melody, supported by a rich carpet of four horns and bassoons. As the melody begins a gradual ascent, pizzicato cellos and violas help to move it forward. It rises to a climax, then has a sudden, and touching, moment of doubt, before reaching a resolution. “”robert philip on the second movement, The Classical Music Lover’s Companion to Orchestral Music
wedge inbetween two sprawling landscapes, it’s as if the all of the second movement is the slow docking of the monolithic cruise-ship that is the first movement, and the bustling port of the third movement:
As the soloist gradually rebuilds the energy, more fragments of the first theme begin to appear in the clarinets. The music rises to a great climax, with high octaves in the solo violin, and the orchestra bursts out into the reprise of the first theme. This has been transformed from its assertive dotted rhythms to powerful, tumultuous semiquavers. Suddenly the soloist takes it back to its original character. When the second theme reappears, it is played quietly by the clarinets, with the soloist weaving trills and a descant of harmonics over it. The end of the theme again breaks into continuous semiquavers, but this time they build up powerfully, until they reach a passage of wild octaves. The music fails for a moment as if ready to break apart. Dark, massive brass chords, and a final ascent from the soloist, brings the concerto to a close. “”robert philip on the Allegro, ma non tanto, The Classical Music Lover’s Companion to Orchestral Music
(song of the week: Rang Tang Ring Toon - Mountain Man)
Mountain Man is the slightly misleading stage name of an american folk band made up of three women: molly erin sarle, alexandra sauser-monnig and amelia randall meath---nothing says i’m a serious american folk musician more than the unnecessary flaunting of a middle name (benjamin francis leftwich, james vincent mcmorrow, gregory alan isakov etc). that said, Mountain Man isn’t just another rehash of a staid format of lady-trios in folk music; if you had to invent them in a lab you’d have to cross First Aid Kit on their best day with The Staves, or The Wailin’ Jennys with The Secret Sisters. but they’re more than comparison; their acapella style, and the harmonic latticework between their voices is something of a fresh throwback. i came about them during a brief Sylvan Esso phase---of which meath is one-half of the pop duo---spellbound by how they somehow made that john denver song their own.
the joy in Rang Tang Ring Toon is as unfiltered as it gets. the simple poetry of its lyrics, set to the slow beating pulse of a deliciously sapphic energy. (‘swim, swim’)...