Dvorak, Violin Concerto in A minor

A celebrity of his time, the composer, teacher, conductor and brilliant violinist Joseph Joachim did not hesitate for a moment in sending back, "amended", the works for violin that younger composers would send to him reverently dedicated, in order to ask for his opinion and heed his invaluable advice. The master, aware of his worth, did not merely review the solo parts but also gave his opinion on the structure of the work and its orchestration.

Joachim, Bruch and Brahms
This had been the case with Max Bruch's G minor concerto in 1865, and later with Brahms' D minor concerto of 1878. Both – Bruch somewhat more compliant than Brahms – obeyed without question and obsequiously adopted his indications. Their works were premiered by Joachim and published with the dedication clearly marked.

This was not the case with Antonin Dvorak, who took two years to respond to the modifications Herr Professor Joachim had suggested for the Concerto in A minor that Dvorak had respectfully sent him in 1879.

Dvorak and Joachim
They had met the year before. After the meeting, Dvorak began work on a violin piece intended for Joachim. As had happened with Beethoven's violin concerto – practically rediscovered by Joachim in 1844 and thereafter turned into the well-known piece of our days – Dvorak doubted that there would be another violinist capable of revealing to the European musical scene a work with such effectiveness.

Dvorak, young (1841 - 1904)

Joachim's misgivings
Joachim had expressed interest in premiering the work. He would gladly do so, he said, but then added that as it was, the public would surely find it a bit coarse, "especially because of the orchestral accompaniment, which seems rather dense". He waited for a response for two years, after which Joachim invited the composer to a private premiere at the music school he directed. There, in the company of Dvorak's publisher, Joachim demanded a little more, this time encouraged by the publisher, who joined in the criticism.

Premiere, in the absence of Joachim
Dvorak, slightly exasperated, requested that the work be published immediately, to which the publisher finally agreed. The dedication to Joachim was maintained, but for the premiere another violinist had to be found, who unveiled it in Prague in October 1883. And although the work was soon as popular as Beethoven's concerto, Herr Professor Joachim never agreed to play it.

Concerto in A minor opus 53 - Movements

02:00  Allegro ma non troppo   - At its conclusion, it connects without pause with the second movement.

12:14  Adagio ma non troppo 

23:22  Allegro giocoso, ma non troppo   - A tribute to the composer's Czech musical heritage.

The rendition is by German violinist (and also pianist) Julia Fischer accompanied by the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, conducted by David Zinman, on the occasion of 2014 BBC Proms. As an encore, Julia Fischer presents us with the third movement of Paul Hindemith's sonata in G minor.

Giuseppe Tartini, "The Devil's trill" sonata

Giuseppe Tartini, violinist and baroque composer, author of about 135 violin concertos and about 200 sonatas, is today known and remembered mainly for one sonata for violin and basso continuo, in G minor. Rather, for the sonata's last section, which incorporates a famous trill, popularly called "the devil's trill", a nickname originated in a legend that, allegedly, Tartini himself was responsible for forging and spreading.

Early years
Born in 1692 in Piran, then a city of the Republic of Venice, today part of Slovenia, being very young he was sent by his parents to follow the ecclesiastical career in a monastery. As soon as he could, however, he dropped out to enroll in the university of Padua to pursue studies of law and music, where he ended up being very popular as a swordsman. He married in 1710 a young girl somewhat younger who turned out to be the favorite of the bishop of Padua, who accused him of abduction, forcing him to hide in a convent.
It was there that he learned to play the violin.

Giuseppe Tartini (1602 - 1770)

A remarkable violinist
Exceptionally gifted for the instrument, in 1720 he assumed the position of principal violinist and chapel master of the Basilica of St. Anthony in Padua, and over the years he gained a wide and widespread reputation as one of the most notable violinists of the time. Retired in 1765, he remained at the basilica teaching until 1768, when a stroke left him severely disabled. He died in 1770, the same year as the birth of Beethoven eight months later.

Sonata for violin in G minor - "The Devil's trill"
As the astronomer Jerome Lalande tells in a travel book of 1765, Tartini himself would have told him about a dream he had while he remained hidden in the monastery, under the protection of the bishop:

“One night I dreamed I had made a pact with the devil for my soul. Everything went as I desired: my new servant anticipated my every wish. I had the idea of giving him my violin to see if he might play me some pretty tunes, but imagine my astonishment when I heard a sonata so unusual and so beautiful, performed with such mastery and intelligence, on a level I had never before conceived was possible. I was so overcome that I stopped breathing and woke up gasping. Immediately I seized my violin, hoping to recall some shred of what I had just heard; but in vain. The piece I then composed is without a doubt my best, and I still call it “The Devil’s Sonata,” but it falls so far short of the one that stunned me that I would have smashed my violin and given up music forever if I could but have possessed it.”

The sonata, published 28 years after Tartini's death, is in four movements. The last one contains the famously demanding passage (13:26) where the violinist trills while simultaneously playing arpeggiated triads.
The version offered here is for violin and piano. On violin, the South Korean artist Ko-Woon Yang. Her compatriot Chiharu Aizawa, at the piano.

Khachaturian, "Spartacus" – Adagio

Inside the party headquarters and with a tenacity worthy of a better cause, comrade Mikhail Mikhailovich was taking pains to discover among hundreds of crotchets and eighth notes the bourgeois and counterrevolutionary character of Aram Khachaturian's music. By his side, Vassily Vasilievich was trying to do the same with other scores of the composer.

As he was about to invite his comrade to take a break, Mikhail Mikhailovich was surprised by Vassily Vasilievich's jubilant exclamation:

–Here it is! I've got it!

Mikhail Mikhailovich left his desk and hurried over to Vassily Vasilievich's, who victoriously brandished the autograph pages of the composer's last work. Indeed, in measures 34 to 57, it was possible to appreciate, even for a child, the composer's marked bourgeois tendencies.

Mikhail Mikhailovich felt pity. He had known Khachaturian since his entrance to the Moscow Conservatory in 1929 and had always thought him a nice guy.

Aram Khachaturian was twenty-six years old at the time. Born in Armenia, he was the youngest of five children and his love of music began by hearing his mother sing and listening to street musicians. Five years after his entrance to the Conservatory, he graduated and began an ascending career in the field of symphonic music and ballet, to which he incorporated ancestral motifs of Armenian folk music.

The comrade

Khachaturian joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1943. And there he was quietly until 1948 when he had the ill-fated idea of composing a symphonic poem without dedications. That was when Mikhail and Vassily came into the picture. As a result of their diligence, Shostakovich and Prokofiev also fell from grace. Along with them, Khachaturian had to incriminate himself as "formalist" and "anti-popular".

Aram Khachaturian (1903 - 1978)

The atonement

But soon after Stalin's death – coupled with the fact that the three composers were already recognized worldwide – they were vindicated. The three authors returned to the stage, literally, and in glory and majesty.

Comrade Khachaturian resumed his work composing dozens of symphonies, concertos and ballets, as well as numerous soundtracks for films, while his music was requested by directors such as Kubrick to be included in his films —the Adagio of his ballet Gayane is part of the soundtrack of 2001 Space Odyssey.

"Spartacus" Ballet

In 1954, during an informal conversation with friends that included Mikhail Mikhailovich and Vassily Vassilievich, now elderly and close friends of Aram, an idea arose for a ballet that would pay homage to the struggle of the proletariat against the Tsarist regime. The story of the slave Spartacus against his Roman oppressors was a perfect fit. Aram set to work and at the end of the year, he received the Lenin Prize for his ballet Spartacus.

The premiere took place in Leningrad in 1956. Two years later, with a change of choreography, it was performed at the Bolshoi Theater. From that date until today it remains one of the best known and most prominent works of Aram Khachaturian, also constituting a milestone in the history of ballets with a male protagonist, a role in which the Cuban dancer Carlos Acosta has stood out remarkably.

The Adagio of Act II is presented below, a performance by the Bolshoi Ballet, choreographed by Yuri Gregorovich, with Carlos Acosta as Spartacus and Nina Kaptsova as his smitten Phrygia.

Johann Christian Bach, Piano Concerto in E flat

A large number of musicians have had their parents, good amateurs or even talented professionals, as mentors in the profession. But none to the extent experienced by Johann Christian Bach and three of his brothers. All four were sons of the illustrious father of harmony, Johann Sebastian Bach, and it was from him, no more and no less, that they received their first lessons, to continue as adults a musical career on the basis of their own merits. Maria Barbara and Anna Magdalena contributed to continuing the lineage in equal parts, in a span of twenty-five years. The former, mother of Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Philipp Emanuel; the latter, mother of Johann Christoph Friedrich and Johann Christian.

Johann Christian

When Bach senior died in 1750, the youngest of the musician brothers, Johann Christian, fifteen years old, was sent to Berlin to live and continue his studies with his half-brother Carl Philip Emanuel, who at the age of 36 was already firmly established there. Determined to specialize in opera, Johann Christian later traveled to Italy where his first three works were such a success that his talent reached the ears of the kings of England, who called upon him as a composer of operas for the new King's Theater.

Johann Christian Bach
(1735 - 1782)

The "Bach of London"

Queen Sophie Charlotte, a twenty-year-old german, was delighted with the engagement of this young fellow countryman, with whom she could speak in her own language and long for her homeland. It was also a happy time for Johann Christian (before a new impresario took over the theater and terminated the contract). He was the music tutor of the queen and her children, but he also had to accompany the king whenever he felt like playing the flute. And as a grand finale, in 1764 he had the privilege of meeting an eight-year-old musician, Wolfgang Amadeus, when the Mozart family visited London on one of their tours, and on whom he would later exert a powerful influence.

Concerto for Piano and String Orchestra in E-flat major
Author of an extensive oeuvre that combines opera, sacred music, symphonies, and chamber music, Johann Christian Bach was one of the first harpsichord masters who knew a pianoforte and wrote music for the instrument. Of a total of 26 keyboard concertos, the concerto in E flat, opus 7 No. 5, is one of those that received the title of "piano concerto".

Movements

Written around 1770, it is structured in the traditional "classical" style, in three movements: fast - slow - fast:

00:00  Allegro di molto

06:09  Andante

11:48  Allegro

The performance is by the British orchestra The Hanover Band, with period instruments.

Soloist and conductor, Anthony Halstead.

A. Copland, Fanfare for the Common Man

In order to make an important and moving contribution to the war effort during World War II, the English conductor and composer Eugene Goossens called upon several American composers for the composition of a fanfare (a short composition written for brass instruments) that would open every concert of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra in the 1942-1943 season. Goossens was then serving as the orchestra's musical director and his intention was to replicate the experience carried out during the First War, with British composers.

The reception
Goosens' initiative was warmly welcomed by eighteen American composers who responded by contributing an equal number of compositions. Goosens had suggested ingenious titles such as "fanfare for the soldiers", or "for the airmen" and others of similar inventiveness.

Copland's contribution

Goosens was pleasantly surprised with the work proposed by the Jewish composer of Russian origin, Aaron Copland, who had studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in 1921 and had been closely acquainted with the compositions of Stravinski, Darius Milhaud, and others. He had also become a great admirer of French literature, particularly that of André Gide, a future Nobel Prize winner.

Coplan entitled his work "Fanfare for the common man".

Aaron Copland (1900 - 1990)

Fanfare for the Common Man

Out of the eighteen works that opened the concerts of that season, Copland's splendid title is the only one that has not passed into oblivion. In addition to being part of the traditional orchestral repertoire, it has been the subject of countless rewrites and quotations by various popular groups, the first in 1977 by the British rock band Emerson, Lake & Palmer. The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan would continue to recreate the piece, freely, opening their shows with it, as in its genesis.

Copland himself, after the war, adopted the work as the introduction to the fourth movement of his Third Symphony.

The work, a must in any festive ceremony of our days, is written for four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, and gong.

The performance is by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by James Levine.