Eduard Lassen - Violin Concerto in D, Op. 87

[eschiss1]

the several dozen for the Sibelius or the not quite a dozen for either the Saint-Saëns, the Elgar, the Schumann? None of them are as many as the top few are getting, no, I'm quite sure, though I can't claim surprise. And those are all except the Schumann standard repertoire - and the Schumann fails to be only because it had to be rediscovered, I think...; it's at least sort-of/edge-of standard...

Now if only the violinist here renamed himself to d'Aranyi! (Silly attempt at a joke, sorry. Though there's also the question of Mendelssohn's -other- violin concertos and sonatas and their rediscoveries/histories/etc.- they've done not half badly either since then, from which something too might be learnt; I don't think those mostly (the 1838 sonata apart etc.) student works are as good as Mr. Lassen's mature concerto*, after all. Good, refreshing, memorable, yes, I just mean relatively...)

*And, having seen the score of Lassen's first symphony and some of his Faust music championed- at the expense of Liszt's and Wagner's, e.g.- by Mahler, I'm -still- curious about that!!

[Alan Howe]

My point is: the standard repertoire's incredibly, nay scandalously narrow.

[eschiss1]

btw Roth mentions the broadcast here; hopefully somewhere else on his blog (or Facebook or elsewhere...) it might be possible to ask him if there are plans to record it commercially... (and an alternate, streaming, link to the concert with the concerto performance can be found here for the next 3 weeks or so for comparison.) (I espy with my wandering eye an oratorio by Friedrich Schneider there, too, but more than 3 weeks ago; still, neat.)

[Alan Howe]

Thanks, Eric. Very helpful.

[Double-A]

My point is: the standard repertoire's incredibly, nay scandalously narrow.

Maybe there are market forces involved?

Lets start with the concertos in question:  19th century VCs are not pieces you practice a little in the morning and perform in the evening.  Not even if you are Hilary Hahn.  It takes even the best among them a long time to get one of those to "performance maturity".

Now everybody wants to hire the same few violinists--the ones who draw an audience.  And their repertoire is narrow by necessity:  To travel like they do while maintaining even a narrow repertoire is a monumental task.  So they rarely learn new repertoire--especially untested* repertoire.

Nowadays there are an awful lot of good musicians out there with a level of technical perfection rare even two generations ago.  They can't all make it into the above mentioned elite club--there is a limit to the number of people who can draw a large audience.  Those who "don't make it" are still fabulously good and can produce great recordings like the one discussed here, they just lacked that little luck are that little aggression or those connections (think Anne Sophie Mutter - Karajan).

But if the great names don't take up a piece it stays outside the standard repertoire (BTW the standard repertoire for VCs seems to be much more stable over time than e.g. for string quartets--most of which aren't such an enormous task to prepare for performance).

* Untested in the sense that they haven't proven to draw an audience--which is where these people'e money comes from.

[Alan Howe]

I know the reasons. Mr Roth evidently disagrees...

[mjkFendrich]

Hello Eric,

thanks a lot for that GREAT link  !!!!!!

(and an alternate, streaming, link to the concert with the concerto performance can be found here for the next 3 weeks or so for comparison.)

[eschiss1]

Welcome.

As to the standard repertoire, the comparison I brought up with earlier examples/periods/etc. is I admit misleading.  A factor present now to a greater degree in the (musical side of the) competition for time, money, ... is not only other classical music but also other genres of music.

(Snarkily arguing over whether or not to call it music is satisfying but no more than that; the issue remains indifferent to the sarcasm. Whether it's really an explanation when the same incentives are felt by programmers in different countries and yet some still manage to program more unusual classical music- whether or not it's 19th century Romantic that everyone here absolutely adores 100%, or just "Unsung Composers" tout court even if not 19th century Romantic Unsung Composers (tsk! how dare they?) - or in the US where very often and more and more, over the years, fewer Unsung Composers of any century and any style, have been programmed at all, tysvm... - whether competition from a source (popular music, eg) affecting both European  and American programmers (eg) equally can explain differing results between them, is doubtful; but it's a factor if not an -explanation-...

[semloh]

A belated 'thank you' to BerlinExpat from me for recording this and making it available to us.
UC is fortunate to have so many committed and generous participants.

[chill319]

the not quite a dozen [recordings] for either the Saint-Saëns, the Elgar, the Schumann...

Just for the record, so to speak, I own 24 different performances of the Schumann violin concerto issued commercially on LP or CD, and there are other commercial CDs available that I don't own.

[eschiss1]

that's because I did NOT MEAN [recordings], chill319, I meant [performances] (that I could track down) in the (brief period of time) described (between January and June 2017, I think) for the comparison we were making. Context is all.

[chill319]

Thanks for clarifying, Eric!