Draeseke Violin Concerto

[Alan Howe]

The story of Draeseke's Violin Concerto in E minor of 1881 may or may not be known to members of this forum, but suffice it to say that the orchestral score seems to have gone missing during the early part of World War II, leaving us with only a manuscript (in two different hands!) of the piano reduction.

Anyway, the first performance of the violin/piano version has just recently taken place in Germany and some YouTube excerpts are available here...

http://www.draeseke.org/news/IDG2009VC/

Two caveats, however:
1. The first video on the page is of Hans Benda's arrangement of the Adagio of the VC - although interesting, it is essentially a recomposition of the slow movement and should not be regarded as being by Draeseke at all.
2. The other two video excerpts are labelled the wrong way round, i.e. the clip labelled 'first movement' is actually from the finale and the clip from the finale ('last movement') is actually the opening seven minutes or so of the first movement.

My initial reaction is that this is typical Draeseke - absolutely no-one else could have written this harmonically adventurous music; it is also intensely memorable and passionate - and very different from the roughly contemporary VCs of, say, Reinecke, Gernsheim, Brüll, etc.

[Mark Thomas]

Putting to one side the Adagio because there's doubt as to how much of it us actually by Draeseke, the really striking excerpt for me is the opening 7 minutes or so of the first movement. I usually find Draeseke's works quite a challenging initial listen, but this is glorious and accessible stuff which nonetheless seems to be really avant garde for 1881. The long lyrical, rhapsodic melody which flows from the very start of the movement is a real treasure but its treatment belongs to the 1900s and is really quite impressionistic. I wonder whether the full orchestral version would enhance or detract from its adventurousness?

From these partial impressions it certainly does seem to be a major and ground-breaking work and I'd love to hear it with the orchestral accompaniment.

[Alan Howe]

'Glorious' is right. This is major discovery - and a major historical puzzle because of the disappearance of the full score.

I think three things need to happen:
1. The violin/piano version needs to be recorded commercially.
2. There needs to be a thorough effort to find the whereabouts of the full score, if it still exists. As far as I can see, the only way of doing this would be for advertisements to be placed in newspapers all over Poland and Russia - remember the last planned performance was to have been in Liegnitz (now in Poland).
3. A Draeseke expert (yes, they do exist!) needs to be approached with a view to commissioning a performing edition of the orchestral score from the piano reduction.

More news anon...

[Alan Howe]

The problem of the mis-labelling of the YouTube clips has now been solved - and an additional clip from the slow movement has been added, although the quality doesn't appear to be as good as that of the other two.

[Alan Howe]

I have now been sent a privately-made live recording of the VC, made in Meiningen on 21st June (from which the YouTube excerpts came). The work is entirely characteristic of Draeseke harmonically and thematically - absolutely no-one else could have written it - and is clearly a masterpiece. If only the orchestral score could be found: the work is obviously trying to burst out of the confines of the piano reduction (which is all we have, but still magnificent).

[Alan Howe]

The Violin Concerto performance is now available to download here (scroll down to mp3 podcast details)...

http://www.draeseke.org/news/IDG2009VC/index.htm

[Gareth Vaughan]

This is clearly a major concerto for the violin. If the orchestral material cannot be found, we owe it to Draeseke to find someone conversant with his orchestrations to re-orchestrate this magnificent piece.

[Alan Howe]

Quite! The obvious person is the pianist in the performance - Wolfgang Müller-Steinbach. He is a Draeseke expert!

[Mark Thomas]

I guess then that the three key questions are:

1. Can he write a convincing orchestration in Draeseke's style?
2. Does he want to?
3. Where is the money to pay him to be found?

I suppose the answer to the third question might be the Draeseke Society. No question about the value of the piece, naturally.

[Alan Howe]

The answer to Q1 is, I believe, yes. The key question, though, is No.2: Professor Müller-Steinbach may wish the search for the lost orchestral score to be exhausted first. Trouble is, that could take forever...

[Alan Howe]

Re-assessing this work, albeit in its violin and piano reduction, has brought home to me once again the extraordinary quality of the music - utterly memorable and utterly individual. For those who know Draeseke's music, it stands out, like all his best music (of which there is an awful lot), as being completely unlike the music being written by his contemporaries. The main reason is Draeseke's background of involvement with the New German school and his absorption of its harmonic daring into a redefined classicism quite different from anything else of period.

The music itself has a power that lingers long in the memory and themes of intense beauty. For example, the opening of the first movement unfolds in an unendliche Melodie that is the equal of anything in the 19th century repertoire.

Truly great music.

[JSK]

Instead of paying for an orchestration, why not recommend the job to some musicologist looking for a publication or a graduate student looking for a doctoral dissertation?

[Peter1953]

Listening again to the excerpts of the 3 movements, it is very obvious that Draeseke's VC is a gorgeous, passionate and lyrical masterpiece, and above all highly original. Try to imagine how the concerto sounds if the piano is replaced by a full orchestra. A pity the excerpt of the 3rd movement is so short. The opening is a very subtle, slow introduction before the attractive and faster main (?) theme starts.
Anyway, we can only hope for a commercial recording of the piano and violin version, and, who knows, one day the full score turns up... but not on a 1st of April...

[Alan Howe]

The whole performance can be downloaded here (scroll down to podcast of entire concert)...

http://www.draeseke.org/news/IDG2009VC/

[Peter1953]

Thanks, Alan.