Giovanni Battista Viotti: Violin Concerto No. 16 in E minor (1789/90)
Giovanni Battista Viotti,
born on 1755 in Turin
died on 1824
Completed:
around 1785
Published:
Paris 1789/90
CD recommendations:
Andreas Röhn 1971 (Mozart version)
Franco Mezzena 1996
Guido Rimonda 2020 (Mozart version)
Viotti's best-known violin concerto is Violin Concerto No. 22 in A minor, which was highly praised by Brahms. But this concerto has since disappeared from the concert halls, as have all
Viotti's other works, including 29 violin concertos. Yet Viotti was an innovative violinist who had studied with Gaetano Pugnani in Turin and joined the royal chapel there as a violinist in 1775.
Pugnani took Viotti on a tour of Europe in 1780. In Paris, the violinistic centre of Europe at the time, he gave a great performance in 1782 (in the famous Concert Spirituel) with such success
that from then on he remained in Paris and was given many opportunities to perform in the aristocratic circles, including for Queen Marie-Antoinette. In 1792, in the wake of the Revolution, he
had to flee to London, where he then devoted himself mainly to the wine trade for pragmatic reasons. The popularity he had gained as a violinist with his singing tone gradually waned, and he died
impoverished in London in 1824. However, he was of great importance for the development of violin concertos, especially for the French violin school. His violin concertos were models for later
violin composers such as Pierre Rode, Rodolphe Kreutzer and Pierre Baillot. Paganini had concertos by Viotti in his repertoire and Mozart had already appreciated the then well-known instrumental
composer Viotti and probably wrote timpani and trumpet parts for the 1st and 3rd movements of Viotti's 16th Violin Concerto in E minor (K. 470a) in 1790 (for what occasion is unknown). He left
the second movement unchanged.
In our listening guide, we therefore present this Concerto No. 16 in E minor, which Mozart held in high esteem. Viotti composed it in the mid-1780s and published it in Paris in the midst of
the turmoil of the French Revolution in 1789/90. It is written, somewhat unusually for classical violin concertos, in a minor key, E minor, which is not atypical for Viotti, however, as several
of his violin concertos are composed in a minor key.
Listen here:
1st movement
2nd movement
3rd movement
Listening companion:
I. Adagio non troppo – Allegro
The violin concerto attracts attention with a weighty introduction in E minor, as in a symphony by Joseph Haydn. Dark E minor, the horns throb, foreboding fate. But then the orchestra shifts to a
flowing allegro, making an insistent three-note motif (with three-eighths upbeat and with trilling suggestions) the movement's main theme, augmented by sighing melodies. A constant urging of the
three-eighths upbeat motive finally leads to chromatic downward movements of the orchestra and once again brings the main theme with the three-note motive and the balancing melodic sighs. The
violin enters at the highest pitch with the E minor introductory theme, expressive but also cutting and aching. These extreme notes are replaced by the melodic sighs in the solo violin and the
subsequent runs by the violin's more middle, full-sounding registers. With its second appearance, the violin introduces a radiant G major triadic theme as a secondary theme, which fades into
flattering melodies. Then virtuoso runs through all registers of the violin again, until the orchestra intervenes, again throbbing admonitions and briefly wearying. The violin answers, new,
energetic, with a variation (a kind of development?) of the G major theme, first in the high register, then again in the middle register. Virtuoso violin runs, the insistent motif of the main
theme and double-stop figures finally lead back to the dark orchestral introduction of the beginning, again the throbbing of the horns, warning of an impending future. The violin responds with
the urgently insistent three-note motif, then lets the secondary theme resound once more, this time in E major, and leads the substantial, even temporally long movement to a confident
conclusion.
Mozart's arrangement with timpani and trumpets in the orchestra gives the weighty movement additional symphonic depth, as if Mozart also sensed the uncertain future that can come back to us at
any time.
II. Adagio
The concerto continues contemplatively and confidently in the second movement. Gentle E major sounds in oboes and horns, underpinned by the strings, prepare a carpet of sound for the violin. The violin begins to sing with a wistful sighing theme in multiple unfoldings, repeats its singing in a different key and leads into a quiet cadenza, a short 4 minutes of contemplation!
III. Rondo Allegro
The orchestra begins with a strikingly faltering rondo theme in E minor, oscillating between playfulness and melancholy, repeats the theme again and rhythmically prepares the entry of the violin. The violin rises soloistically over one and a half octaves and then enters into the faltering rhythm of the orchestral theme, repeats this appearance and imaginatively continues the faltering rhythm until it is exhausted. Then the violin introduces a swinging G major secondary theme that leads into soothing tied 16th note runs without this halting rhythm of the rondo theme, conjuring up melodious moments. After an orchestral interlude, the halting rhythm of the rondo theme returns, reintroduced by the solo violin after a brief interlude. A Maggiore interlude follows, with a new ingratiating violin theme, now in E major. After virtuoso violin passages, a section follows with a melody reminiscent of the sighing themes of the other movements. Painful passages, then the violin "ad libitum" leads back to the halting rondo theme. The theme, which rises spiritedly over one and a half octaves, also returns in the violin and dissolves into virtuoso 16th note passages in the violin, which lead towards the end in E minor. The orchestra also insists on E minor, concluding the movement. The whole movement recalls the wistfulness of Mozart's great G minor symphony, which could have been written at the same time as Mozart's reworking of this 16th concerto by Viotti, although of course the two works cannot be placed on the same level.