Andrew Waggoner: Violin Concerto (2015)
Andrew Waggoner
born November 10, 1960 in New Orleans (USA)
World premiere
February 15, 2015 in Seattle by Michael Lim and Philharmonia Northwest, Julia Tai conducting
Recording:
2018 by Michael Lim
There are pieces of music that can jump out at you immediately. That's what happened to me with the Violin Concerto (2015) by Andrew Waggoner. Whether it was the recognition of the world of fifths, which is fundamental to violin playing and on which everything the violin produces is built. Whether it was the symbolic depth of the world of fifths, which is always inherent in the art of violin playing and which becomes the theme of this violin concerto?
"Following an opening movement in which everything is in some way an acoustical trace of the solo violin’s open A and E strings, and a second movement, itself arising from the open D and A, in which this buzzing of fifth-based resonance becomes a kaleidoscopic, at times unhinged,perpetuum mobile, the third is an elegy that wanders through a series of free variations until it explodes in a catharsis that is both excruciating and ecstatic. Theviolin and orchestra become unstuck from each other after this revelation, with the orchestra retreating into hushed echoes while the violin pushes farther outward, upward, deeper into its own anguished process of discovery. It is as if too many ghosts have been disturbed by the violence of the climax, and the orchestra wants to return them to rest, while the violin is determined to make them speak, to answer for something long neglected and denied." (Andrew Waggoner)
What additionally fascinates me about Andrew Waggoner is his reflection on music and his statements about what music can existentially open up and bring about:
"You see, I want in music to be seized; terrified; bathed in immersive beauty; dismembered and reborn; I want to be forcibly plunged into its political, social, and sensual dimensions; I want my relationships to memory, the passing of time, and my own mortality laid bare; I want to be in the presence of the other. This, for me is real presence. This is my call from across the Styx. Our completion as human beings, our access to the expansion of soul that music makes possible, demands this encounter with its otherness. This is true whether we are doubters, atheists, or are unshakable in our faith. The experience need not extend out there, running up the overtone series and into the music of the spheres, but simply illuminate the unseen yet essential dimensions of the here and now." (Andrew Waggoner)
And about the approach to his music, Andrew Waggoner said:
"I think the best way for people to approach me and my music is to know going into it is that the two paramount values for me in any musical exchange are strangeness and beauty.
I say “strangeness” because the most arresting, durable encounters we have with creative work are marked by a level of confusion, or of the numinous, of something that immediately strikes us as “other,” but that, hopefully, the work itself gives us the tools to sort out over the course of the experience.
“Beauty” is perhaps a little more self-evident, but it can manifest in myriad ways, of course, including beauty of form, of shape or dramatic arc. Much of the music I love most (J.S. Bach, Beethoven, Stravinsky, Duke Ellington (below), Miles Davis, Harbison (really!), Elliott Carter, Pierre Boulez) moves me at the level of the big shape as much as at that of surface sensuality.
That said, sensuality is hugely important to me, and when I feel I’ve found a unity of shape and surface beauty that makes a listener want to stay with a piece long enough to figure out where
its strangeness is coming from and what it means, I feel like I’ve hit the jackpot. This doesn’t happen all the time, of course." (Andrew Waggoner in an interview)
Without having access to the score, I tried to translate my personal listening experience into a listening companion (See below!). Something of the immediate fascination of this violin
concerto, which seduced me into a deeper engagement, should shine through. Any intensive listening has to do with the immediate experience of the "here and now" in the momentary personal context
of one's life.
To be heard here:
Movement 1: Moderate. Broad. Anxious
Movement 2: Faster. Dogged
Movement 3: Slower (Solitary; Remembering)
Listening Companion:
I. Moderate. Broad. Anxious
A torn fifth (a - e of the upper violin strings) and a short subsequent resonance phase of the accompanying ensemble (aiming at a sforzato conclusion): Like an access code, this open fifth
interval opens up the musical events and sweeps the listener right into the middle of a rhythmically lively and strangely attractive fifth sound space.
In this throbbing interval space, the solo violin spreads out its ascending and descending tonal material before us in broad sweeping phrases until, after a brief stop, we have to catch our
musical breath anew.
Again the a-e fifth in the solo violin! The violin advances broadly and, accompanied by rich ensemble sounds, gives the impression of improvising freely. The fifth intervals are omnipresent, and
both the solo violin and the instruments of the ensemble seem to enjoy them and mirror each other.
The violin stops briefly, a clarinet enters the action in duet, then a viola, a trumpet. The violin continues to assert its rhythmic and repetitive leadership. The ensemble instruments and the
solo violin sketch out new melodic approaches, but then frightening moments of sound pile up dissonantly. Short halt.
II. Faster. Dogged
Again - attacca - the fifth opens the movement, but now on the lower strings of the violin (D and A). Without a pause, the resonance access code from the beginning follows immediately. Stubbornly, the violin immediately accelerates the musical action. Pizzicati of the strings accompany and push along. The solo violin ascends into higher sound ranges. A flute prances in the high register, a clarinet in the background. The solo violin and pizzicato strings increase repetitively, indeed the whole musical event pushes forward. Irregular rhythms bring the flow of sound to a halt. But the interval of fifths remains present, forming a constant perpetuum mobile, as it were, minimalistically flowing and almost formless, but at the same time willing to evade extinction.
III. Slower (Solitary; remembering)
Immediately without a pause, the access code fifth (now again a fifth lower in G - D) is heard for the third time, marking a new beginning. Immediately after the opening, the movement departs from its dominance by fifths and instead sets a minor third against it, freeing itself from the hitherto all-dominant space of fifths into a breezily free new atmosphere. The solo violin soon begins in this new atmosphere with a beautiful lyrical elegy. It is followed by variations and reminiscences of material from the first movements, the violin gets into downward and upward movements. Instruments of the ensemble again duet with the violin. Slowly, however, the orchestra loses its airiness, brass and the muffled rumble of the percussion darken the atmosphere, but at the same time awaken associations of the unconscious and the hymnal past in the listener. The violin, however, increasingly detaches itself from the ensemble. Over drawn-out brass blasts and strange ensemble sounds, it splits off from the ensemble sound in a nervous search. The musical events become more and more paralysed. Only haltingly and intermittently does the violin contribute. Despite energetic tapping of the timpani against this isolation of the violin, the solo loses itself in lonely final fifths and a final A.