PROGRAM NOTES
by Dr. Richard E. Rodda

Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

Composed in 1878.
Premiered on New Year’s Day 1879 in Leipzig, conducted by the composer with Joseph Joachim as soloist.

“The healthy and ruddy colors of his skin indicated a love of nature and a habit of being in the open air in all kinds of weather; his thick straight hair of brownish color came nearly down to his shoulders. His clothes and boots were not of exactly the latest pattern, nor did they fit particularly well, but his linen was spotless.... [There was a] kindliness in his eyes ... with now and then a roguish twinkle in them which corresponded to a quality in his nature which would perhaps be best described as good-natured sarcasm.” So wrote Sir George Henschel, the singer and conductor who became the first Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, of his friend Johannes Brahms at the time of the composition of his Violin Concerto. Brahms at 45 was coming into the full efflorescence of his talent and fame. The twenty-year gestation of the First Symphony had finally ended in 1876, and the Second Symphony came easily only a year later. He was occupied with many songs and important chamber works during the years of the mid-1870s, and the two greatest of his concertos, the B-flat for piano and the D major for violin, were both conceived in 1878. Both works were ignited by the delicious experience of his first trip to Italy in April of that year, though the Piano Concerto was soon laid aside when the Violin Concerto became his main focus during the following summer. After the Italian trip, he returned to the idyllic Austrian village of Pörtschach (site of the composition of the Second Symphony the previous year), where he composed the Violin Concerto for his old friend and musical ally, Joseph Joachim.

Brahms originally envisioned the Violin Concerto as a four-movement work. He composed a scherzo and a slow movement for it, but decided to jettison them for reasons he did not reveal. “The middle movements have gone, and of course they were the best!” he wrote. He was probably being facetious about the quality of the discarded music because he continued, “But I have written a poor adagio for it instead,” referring to one of the most beautiful slow movements in the orchestral literature. The fate of the unused movements has never been exactly determined. The scherzo may have ended up as material for the Second Piano Concerto; the adagio may have been the basis of the present one in the Violin Concerto; or both movements may have been lost amid the aborted plans for a second violin concerto. (Brahms was rigidly systematic in destroying scores he did not want others to see.) His revisions proved effective, and after the Concerto was launched, he wrote to his publisher, Simrock, “It is well to be doubted whether I could write a better concerto.”

The first movement is constructed on the lines of the Classical concerto form, with an extended orchestral introduction presenting much of the movement’s main thematic material before the entry of the soloist. The last theme, a dramatic strain in stern dotted rhythms, ushers in the soloist, who plays an extended passage as transition to the second exposition of the themes. This initial solo entry is unsettled and anxious in mood and serves to heighten the serene majesty of the main theme when it is sung by the violin upon its reappearance. A melody not heard in the orchestral introduction, limpid and almost a waltz, is given out by the soloist to serve as the second theme. The vigorous dotted-rhythm figure returns to close the exposition, with the development continuing the agitated aura of this closing theme. The recapitulation begins on a heroic wave of sound spread throughout the entire orchestra. After the return of the themes, the bridge to the coda is made by the soloist’s cadenza. With another traversal of the main theme and a series of dignified cadential figures, this grand movement comes to an end.

The rapturous second movement is based on a theme that the composer Max Bruch said was derived from a Bohemian folk song. The melody, intoned by the oboe, is initially presented in the colorful sonorities of wind choir without strings. After the violin’s entry, the soloist is seldom confined to the exact notes of the theme, but rather weaves a rich embroidery around their melodic shape. The central section of the movement is cast in darker hues, and employs the full range of the violin in its sweet arpeggios. The opening melody returns in the plangent tones of the oboe accompanied by the widely spaced chords of the violinist.

The finale is an invigorating dance whose Gypsy character pays tribute to the two Hungarian-born violinists who played such important roles in Brahms’ life: Eduard Reményi, who discovered the talented Brahms playing piano in the bars of Hamburg and first presented him to the European musical community; and Joseph Joachim. The movement is cast in rondo form, with a scintillating tune in double stops as the recurring theme. This movement, the only one in this Concerto given to overtly virtuosic display, forms a memorable capstone to one of the greatest concerted pieces of the 19th century.

MORE NOTES ON THIS PROGRAM

SIBELIUS - Lemminkainen's Return
WALTON - Symphony No. 1

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