Boris Tishchenko
born 23 March 1939 in Leningrad
died 9 Dec 2010 St. Petersburg
First performances
Violin Concerto No. 1: 1967 in Leningrad by Viktor Lieberman
Violin Concerto No. 2: 1982 by Sergei Stadler
CD recordings
Violin Concerto No. 1: Liberman 1977
Violin Concerto No. 2: Stadler 1986
Boris Tishchenko (also spelled Tischenko or Tischtschenko) belonged - along with André Volkonsky, Edinson Denissow, Alfred Schnittke, Sofia Gubaidulina, Arvo Pärt and Sergei Slonimski - to
the avant-garde of Russian music in the second half of the 20th century.
The Violin Concerto No. 1 by Boris Tishchenko dates from 1959, when the composer was still a student in Leningrad, and seems to have been revised in 1964. Nevertheless, it is more than a
student work; it is a strikingly original and individual work. Central is the middle movement. Stylistically, neo-classical approaches can be heard, reminiscent of the young Shostakovich of
the 1st Symphony. The violin is central, introduces its themes and interacts with the orchestra in an original way.
Listen here:
1st movement
2nd +3rd movement
Listening guide:
The violin plays its theme, alone, simply, lyrically and vocally, with a memorable rhythmic idiosyncrasy that will shape the rest of the movement again and again.
The orchestra first responds, likewise lyrically, with thematic particles in the woodwinds, before dramatising the mood with wild interjections.
Turmoil, the violin braces itself and finds its way back, at first slowly but then quite unexpectedly, to the idyllic mood of the introductory theme with its striking rhythm. The music becomes
youthfully sweet, as if the violin has fallen in love and cannot get away from its theme.
The orchestra almost smirks and ironically throws in rhythmic particles of the theme. Then again violent movement and increase towards the violin's cadenza, which abandons itself entirely to the
theme and its rhythmic particles, entirely to itself. Then timpani beats. Violent objection from the orchestra. The end of the movement, however, becomes melodious and rapturous, the woodwinds
come again with their lyrical melody and contribute their part to a sweetly beautiful fade-out of the movement in the violin.
Soft murmuring in the clarinets, flowing in eighth notes, above which the violin begins to sing, but its main theme cannot hold its own against the increasing flow and surging of the whole orchestra. Increase in the murmur of eighth notes, driven by the violently occurring percussion, and outburst of the entire orchestra. Dissonant trumpet blaring and trombone glissandi, wild woodwinds, finally only the hard rhythm in the percussion remains of the flowing murmur. Then a sudden break, the violin alone, interrupted only by the percussion, the violin loses itself in a cadenza with solo runs, glissandi and finally tires more and more... the murmur is forgotten and the violin leads lonely fading attacca into the third movement.
Despite the highly virtuosic solo part, the composer sees his four-movement work more as a symphony with an obbligato violin than as a violin concerto. The magazine Gramaphone writes about
Tishchenko's second violin concerto: "It is music which moves between the Shostakovichian poles of terse epigram, macabre pageantry and bleak anti-pessimism. Its closest relative among recent
violin concertos is probably Penderecki's, but Tishchenko's purging of self-pity and his greater sensitivity and musical resourcefulness put his work on an altogether higher plane."
Listen here:
1st movement
2nd movement
3rd movement
4th movement
Listening guide from the CD booklet by Northern Flowers
"The first (Allegro moderato) is a huge introduction, which also has dramatic development, but its evident understatement and incompleteness requires a further serious talk. It starts with a chorale of French horns, a motif of great importance throughout the movement.
In the culmination, French horns will reappear in the forefront, but this time with a mighty theme of heroic attitude. Grotesquery, irony,
scherzoso attitude, and some incoherence are characteristic of the
extended initial section – all these are typically Tishchenko’s narratives,
and as it often happens, musical motion rather unexpectedly acquires a
nature of steel. The ostinato rhythms, and gradual joining- in of the
orchestra’s percussion and brass lead to a quite powerful culmination,
after which the scattered motifs of the beginning return. The French
horns’ melodic formulas reappear, more muted this time; the musical
texture gradually dissolves in a high clear register with the soloist and
the orchestra."
"The Presto of the second movement begins with a cadence by the soloist. Convulsive virtuoso replies of violin create a feeling of search for the theme, obsession, query. Little by little, other instruments of the orchestra joint the soloist, until a dashing scherzo appears at last,
whose gaiety is deceptive: something satanic can be heard under rampant bouncy rhythms and catchy determined intonations. After a few pauses, the scherzo resumes running, gradually falling into a
controllable chaos of sounds. After a few failed attempts to regain, to
find the nearly lost scherzo, a violin cadence of a mega-huge scale and
mission begins. Probably it has no parallel in the world’s concert
repertoire: Tishchenko uses here all possible and impossible techniques for strings. The cadence is followed by the third movement, Allegro, which is also quick."
"These are variations, in the most classical sense of the genre. More exactly, they are even rondo variations, since the main theme, its first
powerful tutti chordal tune, is recurring almost unchanged. But the
musical material of the third movement is continuously varied,
appearing in whimsical instrumental and rhythmic combinations. The head motif gets cluttered by second voices, details, and techniques (not only in the solo part, but also with many orchestra soloists), and, as often happens with Tishchenko, a sustained buildup of volume is going on.
The third movement breaks off when chanting the main theme, whose varying metre vaguely resembles another episode in Russian music, Stravinsky’s Danse Infernale from The Firebird."
"The finale, Andante, is also variations, but now in the genre of passacaglia, to an unchanged bass. Several famous passacaglias of
Shostakovich can be recalled, primarily from Violin Concerto No. 1. It
seems Tishchenko in his Second Violin Concerto remembered his mentor by addressing the old-time polyphonic style.
The unison statement of the first theme sounding like an appeal, like a
trumpet challenge to single combat declared by the entire orchestra, is
followed by a reply full of tenderness and sorrow. Moreover, the orchestra’s unison is announced three times, as if recalling Orpheus’s conversation with the Furies. Next, 16 statements of an unchanged theme in the bass follow in a passacaglia; the sound is gradually enlarging. In the culmination, the first calling voice reappears, and once again the answer is full of quietude and conciliation. The last pages of the score bring the listener back to the material of the concerto’s first movement. The music dissolves in the upper register, repeating the
ending of Allegro moderato, spanning a conceptual arc, drawing a
circle, in the centre of which there is room for drama, sarcasm, love,
and issues of existence, in short everything around us."