In 1922 Maurice Ravel heard the young Hungarian violin virtuoso and niece of Joseph Joachim Jelly D?Aranyi in concert in London. Following the performance Ravel spent the remainder of the evening requesting D?Aranyi to play numerous gypsy tunes on her violin probing her on the technical limits of the instrument. The result of this encounter is Ravel?s virtuoso classic ?Tzigane?. Written originally for violin and piano or luthéal (a mechanism invented in 1919 that attaches to a piano producing a sound similar to the rich overtones of the Cimbalon) the premiere took place in London in April 1924. The composer had finished the work only days beforehand. Ravel laterorchestrated ?Tzigane? and both versions remain a ?must? for music-lovers and aspiring violinists today. Jelly D?Aranyi performed both versions regularly throughout her long career. This Urtext edition presents the first scholarly-critical edition of Ravel?s masterpiece. It is published both in the orchestral version complete with full score and performance material as well as in the composer?s earlier version for violin and piano. All known sources including letters have been drawn on for the new edition; one of the available sources consulted for the first time was a copy of ?Tzigane? from the estate of Jelly D?Aranyi which is today part of a private collection. The version for piano and violin contains besides the Urtext part a second violin part as a facsimile with performance instructions by Jelly D?Aranyi. D?Aranyi?s alterations and fingering reflect how Ravel must have heard the work in rehearsals and performance and as such are a document of early 20th century performance practice. The cooperation between Ravel and D?Aranyi is comparable to that of Brahms and Joachim working on the Brahms violin concerto.First scholarly-critical Urtext edition of the work Presented are both versions: for violin and orchestra and for violin and pianoIncludes Jelly D?Aranyi?s fingering

The Violin Concerto was commissioned by Stiftung Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival. It was first performed by Gidon Kremer (violin) and the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival Orchester conducted by DennisRussell Davies at the Musikhalle Hamburg Germany on 29 August 2003. Interpolated within this one-minute-one-movement layout is a recurrent refrain where the soloist articulates one of the basic harmonic foundations of anumber of the one minute sections (six dominant 7ths - on E F sharp C A B D) in an undisguised Bachian fashion. The slow arpeggios in the later variants of the refrain not unexpectedly find themselves sharing a bed with theopening of Berg's Violin Concerto. Nyman has effectively adopted Berg's orchestral template with two exceptions - the omission of the alto Saxophone and replaced Berg's Percussion section with Marimba and Vibraphone mallet instruments which intertwine with the soloist in the Concerto. Alban Berg's Violin Concerto was dedicated to 'the memory of an angel' Manon Gropius. Nyman's Concerto was dedicated to the memory of DanielToscan du Plantier a friend and neighbour - in Nyman's words 'certainly no angel but a major figure in the recording and film industries'. Arranged for solo Violin and Piano accompaniment the duration of thiswork is approximately: 25 minutes.