Experiencing the Violin Concerto: A Listener's CompanionSince the eighteenth century, violin concertos have provided a showcase for dramatic interplay between a soloist’s virtuosity and the blended sonority of an orchestra’s many instruments. Using this genre to showcase skill and ingenuity, composers cemented the violin concerto as a key genre of classical music and gifted our ears with such timeless masterpieces as Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. In Experiencing the Violin Concerto, Franco Sciannameo draws on his years of scholarship and violin performance to trace the genre through Baroque, Classical, and modern periods. Along the way, he explores the social and personal histories of composers, and the fabulous virtuosi who performed concertos, and audiences they conquered worldwide. Inviting readers to consider not only the components of the music but also the power of perception and experience, Sciannameo recreates the atmosphere of a live performance as he paints a narrative history of technique and innovation. Experiencing the Violin Concerto uses descriptions in place of technical jargon to make the world of classical music accessible to amateur music lovers. As part of the Listener’s Companion series, the volume gives readers an enhanced experience of key works by investigating the environments in which the works were written and first performed as well as those in which they are enjoyed today. |
Contents
1 In the Baroque | 1 |
2 MozartHaydnBrunettiTomasini | 21 |
3 Viotti and Beethoven | 37 |
4 The Meteoric Paganini and His Epigones | 47 |
5 At the Heart of German Romanticism | 59 |
6 Brahmss Violin Concerto and the End of an Era | 75 |
Monsters and Leprechauns | 95 |
8 Pillars of Modernism | 115 |
9 Barber and Korngold Shostakovich and Schoenberg | 137 |
10 Music without Anxieties | 153 |
Notes | 171 |
| 173 | |
Selected Listening | 175 |
| 177 | |
About the Author | 185 |
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Experiencing the Violin Concerto: A Listener's Companion Franco Sciannameo No preview available - 2016 |
Common terms and phrases
Adagio Allegro Andante Anne-Sophie Mutter Antonio artistic audience Bach Bach’s Barber Bartók bassoon Beethoven Berg Berlin Brahms Brahms’s cadenza cello certo chords clarinets composer’s composition Concertante concerto for violin concertos composed David Oistrakh double basses Dvorak’s episode finally flutes Four Seasons Franz Franz Clement French horns G minor G string genre Grüssau harp harpsichord Haydn heard Heifetz instruments Italian Jascha Heifetz Johann Joseph Joachim Korngold listener Listener’s Companion London lyrical major manuscripts masterpiece Max Bruch melody Mendelssohn ment moderato Mozart oboes Pablo de Sarasate Paganini passages performed Philharmonic piano piece premiered Prokofiev recorded Reger’s rhythmical Romantic Rondo Salzburg Scherzo Schoenberg Schumann score second concerto second movement second theme second violin Shostakovich Sibelius soloist sonata sound Stravinsky style Symphony Tchaikovsky technical tempo third movement timpani tion triplets troppo Vienna viola violin and orchestra violin concerto violin concerto repertoire violin virtuoso violinist Viotti Vivaldi work’s written wrote