César Franck Violin Concerto!

[Gareth Vaughan]

It doesn't exist. See earlier in this thread where Alan makes this point - and urges us to keep on topic.

[Double-A]

This thread seems to have become a place for everybody to mention their favorite French VCs.  I find this a little sad.  After all the starting point here was no a VC (the title is a bit of attention grabbing hyperbolic irony--or so I understand it), but a duo sonata.

I'd rather like to know if anyone is aware of similar exercises, French or otherwise, where a small ensemble chamber piece has been orchestrated by the composer or someone else.  I think it must have been done, but apparently all of this effort has gone unsung.  Justified or not?  Is it a good idea to try and if so what qualities are promising in the sonata or trio that has to be chosen?

[Alan Howe]

Actually, I have let the thread run as it has because it has raised the interesting fact of the decline of the French VC in that era - something I hadn't previously realised...

[Revilod]

Concerning Matesic's point, if it is true (and it may not be...Stegemann's list is only representative) that fewer violin concertos than piano concertos were written in France (and probably elsewhere) after 1900 I have a couple of suggestions.

1. This was a new era in music. Composers were abandoning traditional functional harmony. New harmonies are going to be found on keyboard instruments rather than essentially single-line instruments like the violin. (Most innovative composers are pianists.) The era of the virtuoso violinist who also composed for his instrument was over; such composers were not innovators.

2. The violin is essentially a lyrical, melodic instrument and composers were less interested in melody. It was, at least for a while, out of fashion. (Compared with Stravinsky's Octet heard at the same concert, Prokofiev's lyrical First Violin Concerto was relatively unsuccessful when premiered in Paris in 1923.)

[Ilja]

@Double-A: the most obvious example would be Arthur Hill, most of whose symphonies began life as string quartets. And I think that Théodore Gouvy's G minor Symphony, Op. 87 (his 6th, 7th, or 8th, depending on how and what you count) was essentially and ochestration of a string quartet, too.

[matesic]

Of course, after 1900 the violin concerto was by no means a dead letter in the rest of Europe, nor the US. I hardly need make a list of the dozen or more great concertos that appeared during the first half of the 20th century, most of which could best be described as "late romantic" in flavour. Not one of the dozen was written by a Frenchman, although interestingly some received their premiere in Paris where one must assume they were at least politely received.

Meanwhile the total of what the home team had to offer seems to consist of Pennequin (1903), Giraud (1909), Milhaud (his first concerto in 1927), Gaubert (1929) and the first concerto of Martinon (1937), none of which I've been able to trace recordings of. Robin Stowell  in the Cambridge Companion to the Violin singles out the last for honorable mention, but judging from Martinon's later style I doubt it would qualify as "romantic". I think Revilod is right to suggest that it was the essentially lyrical quality of the violin that became emblematic of the romanticism that French composers were determined to reject.

[violinconcerto]

Meanwhile the total of what the home team had to offer seems to consist of Pennequin (1903), Giraud (1909), Milhaud (his first concerto in 1927), Gaubert (1929) and the first concerto of Martinon (1937), none of which I've been able to trace recordings of.

I already mentioned that the Giraud doesn't date from 1909, only as late as 1889-
Milhaud #1 available on an Orfeo CD
Gaubert available on a Timpani CD

and if you stretch the period of time to 1937 (so maybe 1940) there are several other French violin concertos (I just checked before for the time until 1910):

1928: Andre Pascal
1928: Robert Siohan
1929: Philip Jarnach
1931: Jean Hubeau
1932: Robert Casadesus
1933: Jacque-Dupont
1935: Eugene Bozza
1936: Marcel Delannoy
1936: Germaine Tailleferre
1937: Henri Martelli 1
1938: Claude Arrieu 1

Best,
Tobias

[matesic]

Thanks Tobias, just a few more! The dates suggest that at least amongst "minor" composers interest in the genre starts to pick up again in the late 1920's. Not many of these composers have yet penetrated the pages of imslp but some of their concerti must surely be worth investigating. I gather Tailleferre's was revamped into a sonata with piano - the opposite of what happened with Franck!

[Alan Howe]

OK, now that we've established this, let's return to the VCs which are suitable for discussion here.

[jdperdrix]

Similar to Franck's "violin concerto" are the Grieg "violin concertos" from his violin and piano sonatas and available by Henning Kraggerud (the orchestrator) at Naxos.

[pcc]

I am undoubtedly behind in this, but when do Émile Sauret's two violin concertos date from? I remember coming across a pile of orchestral parts for his works at a music camp I attended in California when I was in high school, and they looked surprisingly substantial.

[Alan Howe]

The VC Op.26 was published in 1884. Don't know about the E major concerto.