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STEREO PHS900-075

Violin Concertos in A Minor and E Major

Violin Concerto in

English Chamber

Orchestra

BACH (1685-1750) Violin Concerto in A Minor

Violin Concerto in E

STEREO PHS 900-075

MONO PHM 500-075

PHILIPS

HAYDN (1732-1809) Violin Concerto in C

ARTHUR GRUMIAUX, violinist

ENGLISH CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

RA YMOND LEPPARD, conductor-harpsicordist With all their enormous variety of conception, almost all concertos have one thing in common: a division of musical forces. Sometimes, as in the occasional concerto for double orchestra, the divi¬ sion is equal. Usually the size and re¬ sources of the groups employed are un¬ equal and, most commonly of all, the concerto pits a soloist against the com¬ bined efforts of the full orchestra.

Obviously fifty or a hundred orchestral players would have no difficulty in drown¬ ing out a solitary violinist or pianist if the contrast between them were presented purely in terms of volume. But the solo¬ ist has other weapons than sheer loud¬ ness, and the fascination of the classical concerto form lies in the way he estab¬ lishes his dominance by spiritual as well as by technical means—not only by the display of virtuosity, but by the exercise of his gifts of emotion, poetry and wit. This victory of the individual over the mass is akin to that of the human solo¬ ist in an aria and, in fact, the concerto developed out of vocal forms.

THE BACH CONCERTOS

Bach was essentially a practical musi¬ cian. His job was to provide music for the immediate needs of his contempo¬ raries and sometimes he had to provide it in a hurry. When that happened, he was always ready to adapt an existing composition to the needs of a new me¬ dium, and one of the most interesting aspects of these borrowings is his will¬ ingness to turn a chorus into a concerto movement or vice versa. Here again wit¬ ness is borne to the basically human char¬ acter of the soloist’s position, because, in spite of the disparity between, say, fifty voices and one violin, it is always the choral part of the music that is reduced into, or amplified from, the solo part.

The means by which Bach’s concertos spotlight the soloist are derived from the structural methods of the great sev¬

enteenth- and eighteenth-century Italian composers who produced so many con¬ certos and concerti grossi (concertos in which a group of soloists, known as the concertino, is contrasted with the full band, or ripieno). Both the A minor and the E major concertos, composed during Bach’s six-year period as Kapellmeister at the court of Anhalt-Cothen (1717-23) follow the Italian pattern.

In the quick movements, this consists of a recurring orchestral passage, or ri- tornello, interspersed with solo sections in which the violin sometimes presents new material and sometimes discusses motifs put forward in the ritornello. A broadening element in the form is the putting of the ritornello in different keys at its various occurrences, though its first and last are always, of course, in the home key.

The slow movements of both these con¬ certos are remarkably eloquent and po¬ etic. But the poignant individuality with which Bach’s profound musical mind in-

SIDE A:

BACH Concerto in A Minor

Allegro moderato . . .3:54 Andante.6:01 Allegro assai.3:54

BACH Concerto in E (beginning)

Allegro .8:10

SIDE B:

BACH Concerto in E (concluded)

Adagio .6:34 Allegro assai.2:57

HAYDN Concerto in C

Allegro moderato . 9:39 Adagio .4:31 Finale (Presto) .4:09

vests the form—an insistent (or ostinato) bass over which the soloist weaves a line of gradually intensifying complexity —should not blind us to the fact that his structural model is still taken from the Italians, particularly from Vivaldi (1675- 1741), whom he greatly admired.

THE HA YDN CONCERTO

The best-known concertos of the sec¬ ond half of the eighteenth century are Mozart’s, but Haydn wrote several at¬ tractive ones for violin, harpsichord, and other instruments. Mozart’s violin con¬ certos were written for his own use, but Haydn wrote his, at least three in number, for Luigi Tomasini, who was concert- master of Haydn’s orchestra at Esterhaz.

The C major concerto recorded here is an early work. It was composed in the early 1760s, when only about a dozen of Haydn’s hundred-odd symphonies had been produced. Formally, its first move¬ ment represents a fascinating halfway- house between the ritornello principle, used by Bach and the Italians, and the later form perfected by Mozart between 1775 and 1790', in which the structural lines broaden into something more like sonata form: a first exposition for the orchestra (the ritornello writ large); an expanded second exposition for the solo¬ ist; a central development or fantasia; a recapitulation for soloist and orchestra combined; a cadenza, and a coda.

In this Haydn concerto the content and style of the orchestral sections are already that of the sonata-style exposition, but the way they are distributed and the man¬ ner of the soloist’s interplay with them look back to the Italian form. The F major Adagio is an instrumental aria, in¬ troduced by a short modulating phrase which recurs at the end. Of the three movements, the final rondo is closest to Mozart’s concerto style, both in its high spirits and in its jaunty dance rhythms.

BERNARD JACOBSON

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