Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek: Violin Concerto in E minor (1918)
E. N. von Reznicek
born 4 May 1860 in Vienna
died 2 August 1945 in Berlin
First premiere:
26 Feb. 1926 in Berlin by Ignatz Waghalter
Second premiere:
1941 in Berlin by Alice Schoenfeld
Recordings:
Erich Röhn (1943)
Michael Davis (1984)
The genesis of Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek's Violin Concerto in E minor was unusual and complicated. That is probably one reason why this interesting work is rarely played. With his 5-minute
overture to the opera Donna Diana, Reznicek is one of those composers who had such great success with one of their works that subsequently all other compositions were relegated to the background
and almost forgotten. 1894 was the premiere of the opera Donna Diana in Prague. As a contemporary and friend of Richard Strauss, but also as his competitor, he was active as a composer and
conductor throughout Europe, leaving behind a rich oeuvre that is only slowly being recognised again. Yet orchestral compositions such as Schlemihl (1912) or the 3rd Symphony in the Old Style
(1918) deserve to be performed anew, works which, in their colourful orchestration and somewhat grotesque and self-deprecating manner, would consistently have their place between Mahler's
Weltanschauung symphonies and Richard Strauss's youthfully exuberant Symphonic Poems.
Of his Violin Concerto in E minor, Reznicek wrote:
"I had made an unfortunate choice of interpreter for the solo part,
and as a result I had lost interest in the piece for years.
I lost interest in the piece for years to come. For in such cases I am
own. I am not one of those who, when they have composed something, kneel in adoration before
every note. If, for some reason, I find a hair in the piece, I put it aside
I put it in the drawer for the time being. This further concerning the
Violin Concerto found itself a few months ago in the form of a twenty-year-old violinist.
[Alice Schoenfeld], who played the piece on record on the radio
with excellent success, and the prospect was raised of broadcasting this record in the near future.
to broadcast this record in the near future. The music-loving listener will then be able to make up his or her own
judgement about the piece and the interpreter.
I may allow myself one judgement (as an exceptional case): It is written for, not against the violin.
The details of the genesis seem to have been as follows:
In 1918, Reznicek wrote a three-movement concert piece for violin and orchestra in E major. It was completed at the end of August 1918.
What prompted him to write the violin concerto again (possibly because of a new commission from the violinist Carl Flesch?) is not clear. In any case, a concerto in E minor is now being
written, in the classicist late Romantic style, with subtle allusions to Mendelssohn. For this new concerto, Reznicek takes the second movement from the E major concerto piece and writes two new,
completely different corner movements.
This concerto was rejected by Flesch as being rehashed Bériot (how could anyone have come up with this idea?). The E minor Violin Concerto then went to press in Berlin in 1924 and was
premiered by Ignatz Waghalter on 26 February 1925, a performance that Reznicek found insufficiently well played. The concerto remained unperformed from then on; only in 1941, when Reznicek was
already 81 years old and ill, was it played again by Alice Schoenfeld, and this performance was then considered the official premiere for Reznicek.
What is striking about the E minor concerto is its orientation towards Mendelssohn, unmistakable right at the beginning, but also otherwise formally and in the typically repeating violin runs
upwards. Whether this orientation towards Mendelssohn (Reznicek studied in Leipzig with Carl Reinecke and Salomon Jadassohn) has to do with a general longing for reorientation after the
spiritual catastrophe of the First World War? Reorientation was culturally perceived as a necessity (e.g. surrealism in painting, for example in the work of Max Ernst and others). In music,
neo-classicism emerged: Pulcinella by Stravinsky was written in 1920, Prokofiev's Classical Symphony in the years 1916 to 1917. Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek's Violin Concerto can also be placed in
this environment.
Listen here
Listening Companion:
I. Allegro molto
Like a reminder of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto, the concerto - after a short bar of accompaniment - begins immediately without orchestral prelude with the violin and a sweeping E minor melody. This classical theme comes from Cherubini, Reznicek himself said. The plucked bass underneath takes us along and leads us to culmination points where the violin knows how to present itself virtuously. After a few virtuoso runs by the violin and forte interjections by the orchestra, the Mendelssohn mood flows over into harmonically new regions and becomes increasingly frayed with its opening motif. After renewed decisive orchestral beats, a loose B major march theme follows as the second theme, which loses itself more and more in development-like chromatic submotifs; an orchestra calls back twice to the B major theme. But without much development or cadenza comes the recapitulation of the Cherubini theme and its motivic succession, replaced a little later by the striking second B major theme. Everything leads into a virtuoso cadenza by the violin, the orchestra gently rejoins, and once again the Cherubini theme, which continues to evaporate and leads into an increasingly gentle, late romantic, wide-ranging and spherical-sounding tranquillo final section. Delicate flute garlands and violin singing in the highest regions form the wide-ranging attacca transition to a new movement marked "espressivo".
II. Andante espressivo – Adagio – Andante espressivo
This long, beautifully late Romantic melody gives the soloists the best opportunity to demonstrate their yearning feelings on the G string with a beautiful, tasteful vibrato and to convey them to the listeners. The winds answer the singing, the low cellos sound almost Wagnerian transfigured, woodwinds and horn sing along with the melody. In a middle section, the violin scales the heights of its top notes again and again. The opening melody with its romantic prelude returns, a night music, enchantingly romantic until it fades away in the most beautiful way possible.
III. Allegretto con commodo, capriccioso
A dance-like 3/8 theme, waltz-like as if invented by a stand-up violinist, opens the final movement, formally following the tradition and type of classical violin concertos, but burlesque and
colourful in its own way, shining in all registers of the orchestra and giving the violin the opportunity to lead the dance. Then follows a dark second, Csardas-like theme in the low violin,
which brightens up more and more with longing, horn sounds recall the second movement, the violin ascends into ever more heavenly regions... Violin and high flutes merge sonically in joint
playing. Then the tempo picks up again, as if in a recitative, the violin leads back to the buoyant 3/8 theme, the orchestra takes over the theme and it continues with verve. A little later, the
Csardas theme is heard again, accompanied by flute interjections that can evoke associations with birdsong. Everything sounds fresh in the morning, playful and digressing into romantic, ironic,
burlesque regions; a horn calls out, the music rises again into the highest fine flute-violin sounds, as it were, to quote Schönberg, to feel "air from other planets".
Soon the orchestra revives, the violin increases the tempo, we are led back into a waltz mood, the cellos and bassoons sing Viennese melodies in unison, the violin accelerates further and seems
to lead to a relaxed conclusion, but then the mood clouds again shortly before the end, and a coda concludes briefly and conclusively this exalted and burlesque world of the 1920s seeking its
way.