Violin Concerto No. 1 (Prokofiev)

Sergei Prokofiev began his Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major, opus 19, as a concertino in 1915 but soon abandoned it to work on his opera The Gambler. He returned to the concerto in the summer of 1917. It premiered on October 18, 1923 at the Paris Opera with Marcel Darrieux playing the violin part and the Paris Opera Orchestra conducted by Serge Koussevitzky. Igor Stravinsky made his debut as conductor at the same concert. [Steinberg, 349.]

tructure

The concerto is written in three movements:

#Andantino
#Scherzo: Vivacissimo
#Moderato - Andante

History

Despite the events leading to the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and eventually the October Revolution, 1917 became Prokofiev's most productive year compositionally. Along with this concerto he completed the "Classical" Symphony, the Third and Fourth Piano Sonatas, and the "Visions fugitives" for piano. He also began the cantata "Seven, They are Seven", based on Chaldean texts, and worked on the Third Piano Concerto. Nevertheless, Prokofiev continued his habit of incorporating previously composed sections in the violin concerto (something he would also do in the Third Piano Concerto). He composed the concerto's opening melody in 1915, during his love affair with Nina Mescherskaya.Fact|date=June 2008 The remaining movements were partly inspired by a 1916 Saint Petersburg performance of Karol Szymanowski's "Myths" by Polish violinist Paul Kochanski.Fact|date=June 2008

The failure of the Paris premiere was due partly to the difficulty in finding a soloist. Had it taken place in 1917 as initially planned, Kochanski would have been the soloist. By 1923, however, he and the composer had lost touch. Bronislaw Huberman would not even look at the score. Nathan Milstein was still in Russia. Darrieux, Koussevitzky's concertmaster, was a solid musician and an able violinist, but that was all. The concerto achieved success in the West the following year, when Joseph Szigeti played it in Prague with Fritz Reiner as conductor, then toured Europe and the United States with the piece.

There were also the musical tastes of the Parisian public to consider. Audience members, especially those who came to Koussevitzky concerts, wanted modern music with a certain amount of shock value. The fact that "Le Sacre du Printemps" had failed a decade earlier was relative—the choreography had been a failure; the music was a success, as proved a few months later when it was heard enthusiastically in concert. While Paris welcomed spiked dissonant works such as the ballet "Chout (The Buffoon)" and the "Scythian Suite", the First Violin Concerto was simply too Romantic in tone for their preferences. The composer Georges Auric even called the work "Mendelssohnian." [Steinberg, 351.]

The premiere of the work in the Soviet Union is also worth noting since it was given just three days after the Paris premiere by two 19-year-olds, Nathan Milstein and Vladimir Horowitz. Horowitz played the orchestral part on the piano. Milstein later wrote in his memoirs, "From Russia to the West", "I feel that if you have a great pianist like Horowitz playing with you, you don't need an orchestra." [Quoted in Steinberg, 350.] Milstein and Horowitz also introduced Karol Szymanowski's First Violin Concerto at the same concert.Steinberg, 350.]

Analysis

The work opens ethereally, gains momentum and becalms; this describes both the opening movement, and the piece taken as a whole. The three movements begin in D major, E minor, and G minor respectively, and the work closes in a manner similar to that of the opening movement, seeming to climb peacefully. The concerto is scored for moderate-sized orchestra with a small percussion section.

References

Bibliography

* Steinberg, Michael " The Concerto" (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1998). ISBN 0-19-510330-0

External links

* [http://www.sfsymphony.org/templates/pgmnote.asp?nodeid=3327&callid=117 More on the History of the Concerto, from a Program Note]
* [http://www.prokofiev.org/catalog/workessential.cfm?WorkID=166 Prokofiev.org page on Concerto]
* [http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cuo/audio.html Free recording] by the Columbia University Orchestra.