SKU: HL.49046240
ISBN 9783795714536. UPC: 888680964696. 6.0x9.0x0.237 inches.
The violin concerto from 1935 is probably the best-known and most frequently performed instrumental work by Alban Berg. Written on behalf of the violinist Louis Krasner, it is his last completed composition. Krasner played the solo part at the world premiere at the Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona on 19 April 1936 after Berg's death. The concert is dedicated to “The Memory of an Angel.†Berg processed the death of 18-year-old Manon Gropius, who had contracted polio, and his daughter Alma Mahler-Werfel's marriage to architect Walter Gropius. His intention was “to translate the traits of the young girl into musical charactersâ€. With more than 1,200 titles from orchestral and choral literature, chamber music and music theater, Edition Eulenburg is the largest score series in the world. It covers a large part of music history from the baroque to classical modernism and looks back on a long tradition.
SKU: HL.49045166
ISBN 9790220135002. UPC: 888680724214. 8.25x11.75x0.276 inches.
Violin Concerto is scored for a Classical-sized orchestra, with the addition of a harp and celeste, and lasts around 17 minutes. Although the work sets out to explore the lyrical characteristics of the solo instrument, it is only gradually that the violin finds its full, lyric voice, and thence, as the work progresses, a more dominant role. This, in one sense, is the 'journey' of the piece. The work's straightforward formal scheme consists of three movements (roughly fast-slow-fast) framed by a reflective introduction and epilogue. However, these formal divisions exist within a single, unbroken arc. Such an overall symmetrical shape places the slow Arioso (itself divided into three subsections) at the midpoint, sandwiched between the two Allegro movements. The dramaturgy of the piece centers on a twofold search. First there is the ongoing pursuit to recapture the simple melodic material stated by the solo violin - accompanied by thar harp's bass register - during the opening bars. Whilst aspects of this melody are invoked frequently throughout (especially in the violin cadenza which closes the Arioso movement), it is only with the final and most important climax of the work that the melody appears again in its complete form, now accompanied by violent, orchestral stabs. The second search is for a tonal resting place, the arrival of which is delayed until the close of the epilogue. The original version of the Violin Concerto, commissioned by the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, was premiered in Amsterdam in February 2012 with Gordan Nikolic as soloist. The present, revised version was created for Barnabas Kelemen and the Halle.
