Sándor Veress: Violin Concerto (1939/48)
Sándor Veress
born 1 Feb. 1907 in Kolozsvár, then in Hungary (today Cluj-Napoca in Romania)
died 4 March 1992 in Bern (CH)
First performance:
1939 in Amsterdam with Sándor Vegh (violin) and Sándor Veress on piano.
CD:
Sándor Vegh 1959
Sándor Veress was born in Kolozsvár, then in Hungary (now Cluj-Napoca in Romania). However, he spent the last half century of his life as an exile from communism in Switzerland. In the 1930s
he worked as a research assistant to Bartók on his work on Hungarian folk song, with results that can be heard in the two early string quartets and in his violin concerto.
Although Ligeti did not consider his fellow Hungarian composer Veress to be a particularly good teacher - although this later contradicts the effect Veress had on composers such as Heinz
Holliger or Roland Moser at the Bern Conservatoire -, according to Ligeti, "he was a political role model. Veress was a one hundred percent straightforward person with an incredible ethos. A
person with courage. That's why he left Hungary."
Ligeti also writes remarkably about Veress's early work as a composer:
"His harmonic world is brighter, more transparent than that of Kadosa and Szervánsky; characteristic of Veress is the major chord with a major seventh. His melodies are noble and breathe a
broad, free air. But his music - for all its simplicity - is often difficult to access. When you hear it for the first time, you think it is insignificant, meaningless. Its richness only unfolds
when you get to know the works better. Then one suddenly discovers that it is quite great music, full of hidden beauties that do not come to the listener: You have to seek them out. A high
ethical attitude characterises his music, especially his main work, the Psalmus of Saint Augustine. The Second Violin Sonata and the Violin Concerto are also of great importance." (Ligeti: "Music
in Hungary", in: Melos 16/1 (1949) s.5ff)
The Violin Concerto is an early mature work by the 32-year-old Veress, written before he fled to Hungary. His ethnomusicological studies in Transylvania allowed him to "experience the ancient
Hungarian folk song melodies as a sounding, living reality". "At that time everything was melody, real melody... (Veress).
The Violin Concerto was dedicated to Sándor Végh, who played the premiere in Amsterdam in 1939, without the second movement, which was added later. The composer himself played the orchestral
part on the piano. Then in 1948 the premiere of the present version with orchestra seems to have taken place. In 1959 it was recorded for the first time with Sandor Vegh. Modern CD recordings are
lacking.
To be heard here:
Movement 1 (Aria. Andante)
Movement 2 (Cadenza orchestrale. Andante rubato - Allegro -
Andante)
Movement 3 (Finale. Allegro molto)
Listening companion:
I. Aria. Andante
A melody runs like a thread for over 14 minutes and speaks of melancholy and everything that holds the world together or makes it sad.
This melody, inspired by Transylvanian folk music, is accompanied by slowly striding half notes. Here the harmony imaginatively serves the melody.
One can simply follow this melody and experience freedom in the sense of Veress: "One of the most fascinating aspects of composing is that with every new and different note set after previous
ones, new doors are always opened."
This first movement is structured like an aria: a short descending introduction by the strings, then the violin immediately enters with its solo melody, in a second part the orchestra takes over
the melodic forward search, then the violin melody enters dolce again and increases into a kind of solo cadenza. Back again in the first tempo, the violin enchants its melody into fine melismas
in pianissimo and leads into an Adagio section that begins on the low G string and takes the melody into deep solitude. There the orchestra rejoins with the opening melody of this movement and
surrenders to it in a long breath. Only at the end does the violin rejoin with a cadenza and then slowly leads the movement to a tiring end with its melody.
II. Cadenza orchestrale. Andante rubato - Allegro - Andante
After the long Aria, which was entirely devoted to the violin's performance, the orchestra now takes over the short second movement and plays its own cadenzas. The solo violin is silent throughout the movement. The strings begin in tutti, trombones and horn mingle, a horn and clarinet play an allegro duet. The orchestral tutti leads to an oboe solo. Bassoon and flute and finally the timpani come out and present themselves. Only now, at the end of the second movement, is a solo by the violins (the concertmaster!) allowed to lead into the final movement.
III. Finale. Allegro molto
Immediately, the violin soloist takes the lead again and immediately brings a dynamic Hungarian dance that "reeks" of violin and no longer makes one think of Brahms. The orchestra accompanies, peeling out a main motif, while the violin plays all kinds of motif variations. The exposition is repeated before the violin introduces a kind of dance-like development. This intensifies more and more and then discharges first in a long-drawn-out violin melody and later in a wild violin cadenza. The orchestra returns with its main motif and the violin follows with its varied playing until the timpani introduces a kind of coda, which soon comes to life in an extensive violin cadenza. A rhythmically wild orchestral final rush - driven by the fastest violin peggios - concludes the concerto.