Penderecki: Violin Concertos Nos. 1 And 2

Description

Krzysztof Penderecki (b.1933)Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No. 1 ‘Metamorphosen’ Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No. 2Krzystof Penderecki’s First Symphony (1973) (Naxos 8.554567) brought to a climax his involvement with the post-war European avant-garde. Already in his Magnificat (1974) and tone poem Jacob’s Awakening (1975) the emphasis is on an expression with its harmonic roots in the late nineteenth century sound world of Wagner and Bruckner. This transition was completed with the First Violin Concerto (1974-6), commissioned by the Allgemeine Musikgesellschaft of Basle, which caused considerable controversy in new music circles following its première on 27th April 1977 by Isaac Stern, to whom it is dedicated, with the Basle Symphony Orchestra and Moshe Atzmon. The composer’s stated response, that "We can still use old forms to make new music", was to become almost a motto as symphonies and concertos moved to the forefront of his creative output. Although originally planned as a multi-movement work, the First Violin Concerto was eventually realised as a single-movement span, though vestiges of the initial conception are detectable in the frequent changes of mood and pace. Over heaving basses and timpani, the basic musical material emerges effortfully on strings, subsiding into the musing of clarinet and violas. Against this backdrop the soloist appears, elaborating the ideas heard so far into an upward-striving melodic sequence. Tension spills over into a funereal idea on strings and timpani, over which the soloist spins a more lyrical, though still impassioned cantilena, before ebbing away to a sighing motion in strings. A powerful orchestral tutti now develops, trombones and timpani urging the music to a jagged outburst, before the soloist introduces a more capricious mood. Agitated strings slither around chromatically, until the soloist alights on a held chord, and the music attains some degree of stability. Over pulsating strings, the soloist builds the most sustained outpouring so far, before the held chord reappears on strings. Brass sound a plangent response, and the soloist drives the music to a climactic peak. The capricious music now briefly returns, presaging a Shostakovich-like ‘scherzo’ section over repeated percussion rhythms. This is curtailed by the funereal music, to which the soloist responds in suitably plangent terms. A more pensive, even resigned section ensues, culminating in an eerie passage of solo trills against high-lying strings, woodwind and harp. A driving toccata motion bursts in, petering out in the face of the funereal music, before a sudden tutti outburst initiates the concerto’s cadenza. This sums up most of the soloist’s melodic ideas, interrupted briefly when the scherzo music steals back in. The toccata motion ends the cadenza, and the concerto’s climax is reached with baleful brass writing. The soloist winds down the tension into a bleak and co