Amanda Maier Röntgen: Violin concerto in D minor in one movement (1875)
Amanda Maier Roentgen
born 20 Feb. 1853 in Landskrona (Sweden)
died 15 July in Amsterdam
Year of composition:
1875
CD recommendations:
Gregory Maytan 2015
Cecilia Zilliacus 2021
Amanda Maier was just 22 years old when she wrote her violin concerto. She completed her violin studies in Stockholm at the age of 20 with sensationally good grades and then went to the musical
city of Leipzig to continue her studies, where the legacy of Mendelssohn and Schumann could still be felt. She studied violin with Engelbert Röntgen, father of her future husband, and
composition with Carl Reinecke and Ernst Friedrich Richter. She wrote her violin concerto for herself and her soon to begin tours as a violinist through Sweden and Norway. When she married the
composer and pianist Julius Röntgen in 1880, she stopped touring and performing publicly. However, she continued to compose and ran a salon in Amsterdam, where famous guests such as Eduard Grieg,
Josef Joachim and Johannes Brahms came by. She fell ill at an early age and wrote a remarkable piano quartet in E minor three years before her death. She died in her 41st year. The early violin
concerto by the exceptional violinist of the time testifies to great self-confidence and stylistically ranks in the succession of violin concertos by Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Schumann.
Unfortunately, only one movement has survived; Amanda Maier seems to have composed two more movements, but performance programmes prove that she also only performed this first movement, which
lasts just under 20 minutes, separately.
Listen here!
Listening compagnion:
Movement title: Allegro risoluto
Only very briefly is the main theme risoluto introduced by the whole orchestra, then the violin immediately takes over the main theme and presents a melody rhythmically advancing in D minor
seriousness.
The solo violin leads playfully in the high register to a resolutely gripping orchestral interlude, but then takes the lead again with vocal runs and virtuoso double-stopping passages.
The solo violin only calms down when the clarinets sound the second beautifully sung, lyrical-songy theme (in F major), which the violinist then immediately takes over. One can imagine the tender feelings of a budding love. Was Amanda composing for Julius at Röntgen's house, as Schumann once did for Clara? Horn sounds accompany this enchanting mood. A third, multiple descending motif in the orchestra, accompanied by violin virtuosity, ends the exposition and leads to an imaginative development. Violin runs and orchestral interjections alternate, but give the violinist every opportunity to show what a violin is capable of.
The reprise of the main theme appears first in the violin, then in the full orchestra. But once again the violin recalls the enchanting love theme, this time in D major, which is soon taken over by flute sounds as well. As in the Beethoven concerto, the violin accompanies and caresses this beautiful melody. There is evidence that Maier was rehearsing the Beethoven Concerto Opus 61, rediscovered by Joachim, while composing this concerto. This is also evident in the subsequent cadenza composed by Maier, where octaves lead back into the orchestra at the end, as in Beethoven. The orchestra and violin then finish this youthfully self-confident concerto movement in a virtuosic manner with and after each other.