Messages

 Géza Frid left Hungary for good in 1929, where he had received his musical training from his teachers Kodaly (composition) and Bartok (piano). He settled in the Netherlands at the invitation of his friend and violinist Zoltán Székely. As a stateless Jew, however, he once again had to fear deportation and extermination in Holland and was unable to perform in public during the Nazi occupation. It was only after the Second World War that he was granted Dutch citizenship in 1948 and was finally able to lead a free musical life as a pianist and composer. He became one of Holland's leading contemporary composers. In 1989, at the age of 85, he died in a tragic fire accident in an old people's home. Since his escape from Hungary, he remained in contact with Bartok, Kodaly and the Hungarian music scene, but as a composer he was also influenced by Debussy, Ravel and neoclassicism. For a long time he was one of the most frequently performed composers in Holland, but the development of music in the post-war period increasingly made him one of the many forgotten composers. Only recently has the quality of his music been rediscovered.

The oeuvre of this "Hungarian Dutchman" comprises more than 100 works. Frid's son, Arthur Frid, commented on the style of Géza Frid's diverse compositions: he had "a pronounced rhythmic sense", he often used contrasts and possessed "a melodic imagination that is firmly rooted in the music and folklore of his homeland".

One of his most successful works was the Concerto for Two Violins and Orchestra, composed in 1952. Everything is determined by the two: two violins, two movements with an introduction, each with two themes, based on two musical traditions, the Dutch and the Hungarian-Romanian, and yet the work has an astonishing unity. After the premiere, the Algemeen Handelsblad wrote: The concerto is 'a composition that finds its way to the listener's heart thanks to its simple structure and accessible themes.' One could add: Like some of Ravel's pieces, it combines musical modernity with rhythmically captivating directness.

Géza Frid himself introduced his concert with the following words: «The work owes its creation to the Hungarian-American conductor Antal Dorati who, struck by the exceptional unity of vision and style of Herman Krebbers and Theo Olof, proclaimed his amazement that no Dutch composer had as yet seized the opportunity to compose a concerto for the unique duo. Everything, remarkably enough, is doubled in this concerto: there are two soloists and also two movements, each being preceded by an introduction. Both movements contain two principal themes and each movement concludes with a coda in which the two themes are combined. The first movement (Andantino pastorale) is written in sonata form and contains nostalgic flowing lines; the second movement (Allegro molto) is in total contrast, with Romanian and Hungarian folk elements – youthful memories from Maramures, the region of my birth. The quoted music it contains can be regarded as a rhapsodic adventure in the past" (Géza Frid).

More cf.:
https://unbekannte-violinkonzerte.jimdofree.com/e-4/frid/

There is growing interest in the rediscovery of composers who dominated the music scene regionally and, in some cases, internationally before the Second World War. Their innovations survived somehow hidden during the Second World War and were then marginalised or even forgotten at the beginning of the musical avant-garde after 1945. The Swiss composer Willy Burkhard is one of these composers. He studied in Bern, Leipzig, Munich and Paris. As a convinced Protestant, he contributed to the renewal of church music in his time, in particular with his oratorios 'The Face of Isaiah' (1934) and 'The Year' (1940/41), but he left behind a large oeuvre in all genres, from chamber music and orchestral music to opera ('The Black Spider', 1948), comprising 99 opus numbers. The Burkhard collection is now in the Paul Sacher Foundation in Basel.

Burkhard's life was not only affected and restricted by the Second World War, but also privately by a protracted lung disease. From 1933 onwards, he lived remotely and far away from the active music scene in the lung health resorts of Montana and Davos, before being appointed as a teacher of theory and composition at the Zurich Conservatory in 1942. Burkhard's unexpected, premature death in 1955 prevented any further development of his compositional approaches.

His 20-minute, single-movement but clearly three-part violin concerto was composed in 1943. Walter Labhard, a connoisseur of 20th century Swiss music, describes this composition as a combination of neo-classical musicianship with 'a sound treatment of masterly transparency modelled on French examples. The composer uses an intervallic structure based on a sequence of thirds extended to the seventh and constantly varied secondary motifs to achieve a unity that is neither jeopardised by different expressive elements nor by the increased virtuosity in the final section."

The following remarkable letter excerpt from September 1939 serves as motivation to listen to this violin concerto by Willy Burkhard from 1943 today: 'It is something special when someone tells me today that my music will still have a task to fulfil. I have said often enough in the last few days and weeks that it is now highly unimportant whether this or that performance takes place or not. [...] But in the end we only need to ask ourselves who means more to us, Hitler or Goethe, Goering or Schubert, Goebbels or Kant (to speak only of the Germans), and we are (sic!) not at a loss for an answer. And it is very doubtful whether our spiritual goods can be destroyed, however bitter and black the future looks. Every now and then I feel quite funny when I write music instead of joining in and playing politics. [...] And - I can't help it - but somehow even such bad and worst times must act as a stimulus!" (Willy Burkhard in a letter to the Indermühle family dated 12 Sept. 1939).
 
These lines are still highly topical in 2024.

More about Willy Burkhard's Violin Concerto: cf:
https://unbekannte-violinkonzerte.jimdofree.com/e-4/burkhard/

Louis Spohr's best-known violin concerto is undoubtedly Concerto No. 8 (in A minor 'In the form of a song scene'). Spohr's most compositionally accomplished violin concerto is Concerto No. 7 in E minor, at least according to connoisseurs of all Spohr's works. However, Spohr's least known and best violin concerto is Concerto No. 9 in D minor. After all, Spohr included the violin part of this concerto in his own 'Violin School' and wrote a second part to accompany it. Spohr wrote this concerto in D minor in 1820 for his own Europe-wide travelling activities as a solo violinist. From 1822 and his appointment to Kassel, he concentrated more on his conducting activities and musical life in Kassel.

Here you find a listening guide:
https://unbekannte-violinkonzerte.jimdofree.com/e-2/spohr/

Louis Spohr: Concertante No. 1 in A major for two violins and orchestra op.48

"A musical gem" is what music writer Hartmut Becker calls the second movement of Concertante No 1 for two violins by Louis Spohr. And really: a dreamlike melody filled with poignant semitones, always played on the dark G-string of the violins, opens a mystical space, thus opening the central Larghetto, one of Spohr's most romantic slow movements.

Louis (Ludwig) Spohr acquired a highly substantial and outstanding reputation in the first half of the nineteenth century as a violin virtuoso, conductor, author, teacher and prolific composer of over a hundred works. In terms of music history, he stands in the transition from the Classical to the Romantic period, but today he is usually only represented in concert programmes with chamber music works (e.g. his Nonet in F major).

Among Spohr's works there are 18 violin concertos and 7 compositions for solo instruments and orchestra, five of which he called Concertante. Among the Concertantes published by Spohr himself, there are two Concertantes for 2 violins, a rare instrumentation in the Romantic period, namely No. 1 in A major for two violins and orchestra op.48 and, as its counterpart, Concertante No. 2 in B minor op.88.

Spohr composed the Concertante No. 1 in A major for two violins and orchestra op.48, at the age of 24, in the spring of 1808, during a creative phase in which he experimented with original forms and complicated techniques. It comes across as a refreshing alternative to the usual repertoire, precisely because it was written for 2 soloists. Here you will find a guide to listen more closely:

https://unbekannte-violinkonzerte.jimdofree.com/e-2/spohr/

One is Moeran's tragic life, the other the late romantic beauty of his music inspired by Irish folk music. It's almost unimaginable how that went together, or a message to the human condition: how a person endures the tensions of his fate.

The tragic life: born 1894 Spring Grove Vicarage, Heston, Middlesex, his father was an Anglo-Irish clergyman, his mother was from Norfolk. At the age of 22 Moeran suffered a war wound to the head in France during World War 1. After returning, lifelong after-effects of the head injury, the war experiences linger. Despair, alcohol orgies, wild life. An inheritance from his mother made a life without paid work possible, Moeran began to compose, researched and collected Irish folk music. After a long period of silence and following an accident in 1930, he began to compose seriously again. The Symphony in G minor, the Violin Concerto and a Cello Concerto are among his major works. In 1945, after a long acquaintance, he married the cellist Kathleen Peers Coetmore, for whom he wrote his last works, a cello concerto and a cello sonata. His marriage broke up, and he repeatedly abused alcohol. The first signs of mental illness prevented him from completing a second symphony. On a walk along the sea, he suffered a brain haemorrhage at the age of 56, fell into the water and died.

Contrast this tragic life with the beauty of his music: his late Romantic musical style is informed by his love of Ireland and its folk music, and influenced by his teacher John Ireland, by Frederick Delius and Ralph Vaughan Williams, and by his younger contemporary William Walton. Although conservative for his time, his music is full of passion, sometimes dark, but ultimately full of a longing for tranquillity and spiritual expansiveness, so that he also felt most creative composing while wandering through his landscapes.

Here you will find a listening companion to Moeran's Violin Concerto by Anthony Burton!

The Violin Concerto in B minor op 10 by Elisabeth Kuyper should simply not be forgotten. That is why I have created a listening guide that might encourage people to listen to and appreciate the concerto despite its lack of interpretation. I join the above wishes that a new additional recording of this violin concerto is urgently needed soon.

Here is the link to the listening guide:
https://unbekannte-violinkonzerte.jimdofree.com/--3/kuyper-elisabeth/

The concert piece that the violin virtuoso Pablo de Sarasate played and loved most during his lifetime was La fée d'amour by Joseph Joachim Raff.  He played it with piano accompaniment as well as with orchestra. As unknown as this then successful concert piece has become in the meantime, its composer has also become unknown to many concertgoers. According to a contemporary English music critic, however, he was one of the three most famous German composers of his time: Joachim Raff was - astonishingly for us - the third most famous, along with Wagner and Brahms!  Today, his music is hardly ever played, although he left behind an enormous body of work.

The concert piece recommended here, La fée d'amour, received much praise from Liszt. Liszt thought Raff could rest on his laurels for a long time after such a work. The work was then performed again and again by its dedicatee Edmond Singer, the concertmaster of Liszt's Weimar orchestra. And - as mentioned - Pablo de Sarasate also loved to play it. Clearly, the theme is immortal, it is about love, which outlives all lovers and concert pieces. Raff wrote the piece for his engagement to Doris Genast. This composition was about "the inner experience of his engagement", his daughter later said.

I can only recommend this enchanting, formally original violin concerto by this musician, who was 32 years old at the beginning of his career. I would love to experience it live in concert.

More and a link to listen to
https://unbekannte-violinkonzerte.jimdofree.com/--2/raff/

Here are some violin concertos that are unfortunately played far too rarely and of which there are few recordings. Is there a live performance somewhere in this year 2023 or 2024?

Mieczysław Karłowicz (1876 - 1909): Violin Concerto in A major op. 8 (1902).
Sergei Ivanovich Taneyev (1856-1915): Concert Suite for violin and orchestra in five movements op. 28 (1908/09)
Felix Weingartner (1863 - 1942): Violin Concerto in G major op. 52 (1911)
Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek (1860 - 1945): Violin Concerto in E minor (1918)
Ottorino Respighi (1879 - 1936): Concerto gregoriano (1920)   
Carlo Giorgio Garofalo (1886 - 1962): Concerto ottocentesco (1927)
Reynaldo Hahn (1874-1947): Concerto pour Violon et Orchestre (1928)
Ina Boyle (1889 - 1967): Concerto for violin and orchestra (1932-33, rev. 1935)
Richard Flury (1896 - 1967): Violin Concerto No 2 (1940)
Ernst John Moeran (1894 - 1950): Violin Concerto (1942).

In order to get to know these concertos better, I have created a completely non-commercial homepage. There you will find information about the genesis of each concerto and a listening guide.

https://unbekannte-violinkonzerte.jimdofree.com/--3/