Violin Concerto (Schumann)

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Robert Schumann - drawing by Adolph von Menzel after a daguerreotype from 1850

The Violin Concerto in D minor ( WoO 1 ) was Robert Schumann's last orchestral work . Created in 1853, it was only premiered 84 years later as part of a propaganda staging of National Socialism . The long-standing flaw in the work of being shaped by Schumann's declining intellectual strength - the composer was admitted to the mental hospital in Bonn-Endenich in 1854 , where he died in 1856 - is still felt today.

Emergence

On August 19, 1843, the 24-year-old Clara Schumann and the 12-year-old child prodigy Joseph Joachim performed together for the first time as violinists in a concert held in the Leipzig Gewandhaus . Joachim, for whom it was the first public appearance in Leipzig, was accompanied on the piano by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. Clara and Robert Schumann continued to follow the development of Joseph Joachim.

Robert Schumann worked in Düsseldorf as city music director from 1850 . After initially good cooperation with the local choir and orchestra, there were increasing dissatisfaction and conflicts, which resulted in calls for resignation.

Schumann engaged the now well-known Joseph Joachim for the 31st Lower Rhine Music Festival in 1853, which Schumann helped to shape as a conductor and composer. Joachim was celebrated with his rendition of Beethoven's Violin Concerto . On June 2, 1853 he wrote to Schumann:

"Would Beethoven's example inspire you to draw a work to light from your deep shaft for the poor violin players who, apart from chamber music, are so lacking in elevation for their instrument, wonderful guardians of the richest treasures!"

Schumann then composed a Fantasia for violin and orchestra (his op. 131) in the first days of September 1853 , and began composing another concertante work on September 21. In his meticulously kept “budget book” he noted on October 1, 1853 “Das Concert f. Violin quit ”(the actual suggestion for composing a violin concerto came some time earlier from Schumann's friend and Joachim's teacher Ferdinand David . For David, Schumann composed his 2nd violin sonata op. 121). The conceived violin concerto was orchestrated in the following days (until October 3rd) and a piano reduction was made the next day. It was during these days (September 30 / October 1, 1853) that Schumann's inspiring encounter with the young Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) , who had traveled from Hamburg and was just beginning his career as a composer, took place .

In mid-October Schumann sent the score to Joachim and planned the premiere in Düsseldorf on October 27, 1853. However, at the request of the concert committee, Beethoven's violin concerto had to be included in the program instead; In addition, Schumann's shorter Fantasia op. 131 was premiered at this concert .

External reasons also subsequently delayed a world premiere of the violin concerto: In addition to the rift with the Düsseldorf concert committee, the Schumann couple undertook a successful concert tour to Holland in November / December 1853.

In January 1854, at least one rehearsal of the concert with the local court orchestra took place in Hanover , but it did not go optimally. Joachim, who also worked as a conductor, apologized in a later letter to Schumann (who was already in the Endeich mental hospital at the time) that he had "tired" his arm while conducting and recalled the mutual joy that I especially did the polonaise (the 3rd movement). This letter does not speak of any criticism of the composition.

After Schumann's death

Clara Schumann, ca.1850

After Schumann's death in 1856, his wife Clara and Joseph Joachim decided not to publish the concert. The reasons for this have not yet been clearly clarified. It is also unclear whether Johannes Brahms , who supported Clara Schumann in the publication of her husband's works , had any influence on this decision. Joachim initially expressed objections because of technical difficulties related to the final movement, which Clara Schumann also noted had a "flaw". It is possible that she found the contrast of the cheerful, dancing final movement to the catastrophe of Schumann's last years as too painful. She even asked Joachim to compose a new finale, which Joachim refused. Later statements by Joachim, also to his first biographer Andreas Moser in 1898, show that Joachim saw a divergence between the technical demands and the musical substance of the concert in larger parts of the work. This assessment ran parallel to a general tendency of Schumann's reception, which increasingly wanted to recognize signs of intellectual decline in his later work.

Joseph Joachim

After Joachim's death in 1907, his son Johannes inherited the sheet music for the violin concerto and sold it to the Prussian State Library under the condition that it should be published at the earliest 100 years after Schumann's death (1956).

Publication and world premiere

Two of Joseph Joachim's great-nieces, the violinists Jelly d'Arányi and Adila Fachiri , who worked in England, were involved in the circumstances that led to its publication and its premiere in 1937 . They said they had been asked by the spirit of Schumann and Joachim at spiritualistic meetings to track down and perform the work. They made contact with the publisher Wilhelm Strecker , who worked for Schott-Verlag , who found the autograph in the Prussian State Library (Berlin). It was thanks to his efforts with Georg Schünemann (the director of the music department there) and his good relationships with Johannes Joachim that the latter gave the publication approval in 1936.

Finally, on November 26, 1937, 84 years after the concert was written, it was premiered in the Deutsches Opernhaus Berlin with the soloist Georg Kulenkampff and the Berlin Philharmonic under the direction of Karl Böhm . The framework was provided by a Nazi event in which Joseph Goebbels and Robert Ley appeared as speakers. It was intended to promote Schumann's work as a “German” replacement for the violin concerto by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, who was frowned upon as a Jew, which was removed from the repertoire . An offer from Schott-Verlag to Yehudi Menuhin , who was very impressed by the concert, to launch the work in America was prevented. Legal attempts by Schuman's youngest daughter, Eugenie , to prohibit the premiere from Switzerland were unsuccessful. The violin part of the premiere version was heavily edited compared to the original (among other things, probably to increase the brilliance) and octaves in parts. Paul Hindemith acted as the processor - anonymously, since he had fallen out of favor with the Nazi regime .

On March 15, 1938, Kulenkampff wrote to Carl Flesch :

“The Schumann concert drew a lot, a lot of nonsensical talk 'after' and 'with it'. I changed the violin part and so did Hindemith. Both are very similar - I play both! In my opinion, the original voice is still impossible! How happy would Schumann himself have been about changes that he had often asked Joachim to make in vain; besides, one is only too happy to forget, and the tough old relatives of Schumann emphasize it, that Schumann thought a lot of his violin concerto himself (before his illness) and that this concerto, which was certainly overly eruptive (within 14 days!), gave him that very dear to my heart. Certainly it is a somewhat strange sign of our times that the paradox exists: the compositional selection of this season of novelties is the performance of an old violin concerto by Schumann that was banned from playing! "

Part of this “unplayability” relates to the final movement, which in many cases - even today - is not played anywhere near the moderate tempo noted by Schumann. Instead of a “final fireworks display”, Schumann said he had planned a “stately polonaise” with a striding character.

reception

The first performance of the violin concerto met with a largely positive response in Germany, for example Hans Pfitzner said in 1938 , despite individual criticisms:

“There can be no question of this violin concerto being the work of a madman. […] And one must also disagree with Joachim in saying that the violin part is ungrateful. However, it is extremely difficult, but occasionally sound effects arise that are downright new and must interest every virtuoso violinist ... "

As early as December 1937, Menuhin also played the concert in America, here now in the unretouched original version. Shortly afterwards, the first recordings were made by Kulenkampff (edited version; with cuts that had not been made in the premiere) and Menuhin (original version).

After 1945 the work was played occasionally, but it was subject to reserved and even controversial assessments. In addition to the widely dominating view that Schumann's late work was generally weak - the musicologist Kurt Pahlen wrote in 1967 that the violin concerto merely offered "material for the psychiatrist" - the use of the work by Nazi propaganda could also be the cause.

It was not until around the 1970s that a gradual rehabilitation of the violin concerto began as part of a differentiated consideration of Schumann's late work. But that does not mean that the violinist and conductor have not also campaigned for the concert in the meantime. After the premiere by Kulenkampff and the American premiere by Menuhin, Gustav Lenzewski (who was consulted before the premiere) and Siegfried Borries were the earliest interpreters of the work. Borries kept the concert in his repertoire at least until the mid-1950s. At the same time, from the 1950s onwards, many violinists stood up for the problem child, including Isidor Latin , Alberto Lysy , Ida Haendel , Walter Schneiderhan , Peter Rybar , Henryk Szeryng , Jenny Abel , Susanne Lautenbacher , Patrice Fontanarosa , Jean-Jacques Kantorow , Thomas Zehetmair , Gidon Kremer , Igor Oistrach , Steven Staryk , Manfred Scherzer , Rainer Küchl , Wolfgang Wahl , Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Ning Feng .

A comparison of interpretations from 1995 could, in addition to the two first recordings, fall back on a further 12 recordings that were commercially available at the time, including two by Gidon Kremer. In the meantime, the concert has experienced a real renaissance and in 2009, after more than 60 years, a new edition by Christian R. Riedel and Thomas Zehetmair at Breitkopf & Härtel , free of numerous errors . Zehetmair, who as an interpreter made a significant contribution to the reassessment of the concert, took over the technical equipment of the solo part. In 2010 a new edition by Richard Kapp and Christian Tetzlaff followed by Schott-Verlag .

plant

Cast and playing time

The orchestra that joins the solo violin corresponds to the usual orchestral line-up of the Romantic era and at the same time also to that usual for the other concertante works by Schumann: 2 flutes , 2 oboes , 2 clarinets , 2 bassoons , 2 horns , 2 trumpets , timpani , strings (1st violin , 2nd . Violin, viola , violoncello and double bass ).

The playing time is about 30 minutes.

1 sentence

  • At a strong, not too fast tempo, 4/4 alla breve , MM Halbe = 50, D minor / D major, 355 bars

In contrast to Schumann's earlier concertante works, in which orchestra and soloist are strongly intertwined (e.g. the piano concerto ), the violin concerto predominantly juxtaposes the soloist and the orchestra in blocks. The orchestral exposition of the first movement begins with a monumental first theme, which is followed by a lyrical theme. In the subsequent solo exposure and performing the solo violin in dialogue with a thinned orchestral writing. Thematic developments are largely avoided and harmonious changes are in the foreground. The figurations and sequencing in the highly virtuoso solo voice are striking . In the coda , new (“synthetic”) thematic units are obtained from the combination of the two main themes.

2nd movement

  • Slow, 4/4, MM quarter = 46, B flat major, 53 bars

In the second movement, the violoncellos begin with a gentle, syncopated introductory theme, before the violin begins with the lyrical and vocal solo theme. Often references are made to echoes of the so-called "ghost theme", which Schumann wrote down in early 1854 - as he thought, dictated by the ghosts of Schubert and Mendelssohn - and which he himself varied before his collapse ( Johannes Brahms later wrote four-handed piano variations as his op. 23 himself about this theme). The orchestra and the solo violin, often in a lower register, subsequently exchange melodic leadership and accompaniment several times. The last bars of the comparatively short movement lead over to the third movement through accelerando and dynamic increase attacca .

3rd movement

  • Lively, but not fast, 3/4, MM quarter = 63, D major, 256 bars

The dance-like third movement combines elements of the sonata form with that of the rondo and is dominated by the polona-like character of the main theme, which recurs frequently and like a refrain. The again technically very demanding solo part dialogues with the orchestra in often athematic figurations, before themes and motifs from the previous movement are combined in the extended coda, which closes in D major . Like the previous movement, this movement also has no solo cadenza .

literature

  • Martin Demmler (2006): Robert Schumann , Reclam, Leipzig, ISBN 3-379-00869-9
  • Norbert Hornig (1995): Liberated from the ban , Fono Forum 2/95, pp. 26-30
  • Wulf Konold , ed. (1989): Lexicon Orchestermusik Romantik , Bd.SZ, Schott Mainz / Piper Munich. ISBN 3-7957-8228-7 (Schott)
  • Michael Struck (1988): Schumann - Violin Concerto in D minor , Wilhelm Fink Verlag, Munich, ISBN 3-7705-2453-5
  • Michael Struck (1984): The controversial late instrumental works of Schumann , Hamburg contributions to musicology Volume 29, Verlag der Musikalienhandlung Karl Dieter Wagner, Hamburg, ISBN 3-88979-007-0
  • Pocket score Schumann - Concerto for Violin and Orchestra D minor , Edition Eulenburg No. 1822, B. Schott's Sons, Mainz 1937, renewed 1965
  • Hellmuth von Ulmann (1981): The embezzled manuscript , Eugen Salzer Verlag, Heilbronn, ISBN 3-7936-0568-X

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Margit L. McCorkle: Robert Schumann: Thematic-Bibliographical Catalog of Works. Henle, Munich, 2003, ISBN 978-3-87328-110-3 .
    Breitkopf & Härtel No. 5317, Urtext edition, 2009
  2. ↑ Johannes Joachim, Andreas Moser : Letters from and to Joseph Joachim , Volume 1. Bard, Berlin 1911, DNB 366284347 , p. 59 ( digitized version ).
  3. ↑ See also: Neue Zeitschrift für Musik , Jg. 65 1898, p. 529 : “A violin concerto by Robert Schmann that has not yet been published and probably will never be published ...” : Joseph Joachim explains the reasons there he will not release for publication the violin concerto by Robert Schumann, whose manuscript is in his possession.
  4. ↑ Quoted from: Carl F. Flesch: "... and do you also play the violin?": The son of a famous musician tells and looks behind the scenes. Atlantis Musikbuch-Verlag, Zurich, 1990, ISBN 978-3-254-00158-0 .
  5. ↑ Hans Pfitzner in: The pond garden . Schott Publishing House. Quoted from: Michael Struck: Robert Schumann, Violin Concerto in D minor (WoO 23) (= Masterpieces of Music, 47). Wilhelm Fink Verlag, Munich, 1988, ISBN 978-3-7705-2453-2 .
  6. ^ Kurt Pahlen: Symphony of the world. Swiss publishing house, Zurich, 1967, DNB 457757760 .
  7. ↑ Norbert Hornig: Liberated from the spell. In: Fono Forum 2/95, 1995, ISSN  2568-3675 , pp. 26-30.