Violin Concerto (1978)
for violin and orchestra (16 Mins.)
Recorded 10 December 1982 by the Utrecht Conservatorium Orchest, Melvin Margolis, Music Director, with Maria Teofilova, violinist, at the Utrecht Conservatorium, Holland.
Opus 4 — A.S.C.A.P. work I.D. 520600691
SCORE
Opus 4 — A.S.C.A.P. work I.D. 520600691
SCORE
NOTES
Violin Concerto (1978)
This piece began after hearing violinist Carol Sadowski play a high Eb in my piece HUMBLE CAKE. There was something powerful about that Eb. I heard it, and I couldn’t believe that I wrote it. It sounded so much better than it did on paper – in my head – or as I clunked it out on the piano.
That’s because I didn’t really completely write it. The violinist’s interpretation of that moment in the piece was an equal part of the process. Composer writes the mechanics; performer brings it to life. Composer dreams up and dictates some so far non-existent musical statement; Performer, using a lifetime of technical, musical, and imaginative experience, interprets the bare information from the score. Composer — Performer. The Composer hashes out the rough material, which the performer decodes and illuminates.
After hearing Carol’s Eb, I decided right then and there that I would always write my music for the best musicians and interpreters of modern music that I could imagine. I imagined the music, and I imagined the performance. And I have done this. Often my music has been performed by such performers, but just as often it has been performed by musicians, who are in fact terrific musicians, but are less experienced with modern music, more easily thrown by the rhythmic complexity, foreign peculiar-sounding narrative, or seemingly technical impossibilities.
When I began my Violin Concerto, I had not a clue how I would get it performed – there was a very good chance that it wouldn’t get performed at all. But that wasn’t important. The importance was that I was writing it. I had to follow that Eb. I trusted/hoped that something would happen sometime, somehow it would get performed - sometime.
From the beginning its strange texture worked for me. The solo violin sneaks into that texture, matching its strength against the entire orchestra’s - the strength that I learned from Carol Sadowski’s Eb in HUMBLE CAKE. The single violin gradually takes over, pushing its will on the orchestra’s 80 musicians. After some pondering, there is a lengthy violin cadenza, that brings a unity between the soloist and the orchestra. But the violin wants more – and tries to take more, continuing the cadenza. The orchestra objects. The entire string section combine its forces and gradually sneaks in and challenges the solo violin. The soloist tries to keep its advantage, but loses as the string gracefully overtake the solo violin, which gives its final statement, as the strings passively conclude the piece.
I started writing my Violin Concerto in New York and then finished it in California, working with my teacher Andrew Imbrie. We had some terrible arguments during those sessions – you can read about them HERE. Then, when I finished the piece, I started trying to convince someone, anyone to perform it. But it didn’t seem like it was going to happen. After all, I needed a virtuoso violin soloist, a conductor able to understand the complex music and lead the orchestra, and, of course, I needed 80 or 90 musicians that make up the orchestra!! I left California after getting my Ph.D. and moved to Paris for a couple years. In Paris, I composed and tried to find someone to perform my Violin Concerto. I didn’t get very far. I had a young violinist interested, but he wasn’t really up to the task – I mean listen to the cadenza! And, the violinist thought that I had an orchestra lined up, which is what I thought he had access to, so our relationship didn’t get very far.
After I had been in Paris for a year, someone suggested to me that I contact a conductor in Utrecht, that he might be interested. That someone was my dad. The conductor was Melvin Margolis, a young, frightfully brilliant musician, who was the conductor of the Utrecht Conservatorium Orchestra. My dad had mentioned him several times. My dad was Melvin’s mother’s doctor, and the two I imagined discussed their two sons and their attempt to make their livings in music. Although I didn’t think it would get anywhere, I decided appease my dad and write to Melvin. The response almost immediate. Melvin called me in Paris. It was a three-way phone call from Mel and the Director of the Utrecht conservatory, discussing the upcoming performance of my VIOLIN CONCERTO. Holy Cow! In December, 1982, I traveled up to Utrecht, for my first experience hear music for orchestra!!
Melvin met my train. Nice guy. He took me to his place, where we had some dinner and then studied my score. He really was brilliant. The score that I had sent him was completely marked up, and he didn’t balk at my metric writing that change meter every single measure – or that the time of measure 30 was 2 2/3 Quarter notes! Or that I was constantly dividing the beat itself in 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 parts, like the D.B. of bar 37, where the solo violin divides the beat in 5 parts, in a 2+2+1 (or 8th, 8th, 16th within one beat). Maria Teofilova, with whom I rehearsed the next day, didn’t mind it at all either. Luckily, I could play the orchestra part of my piece, so the next day that’s what I did, while Maria played the solo and Mel conducted us. What an experience.
By the way, I’m not finished with my interpretation of the musical process. The equal parts Composer — Performer is incomplete without someone to listen. The listener needs to listen. If that doesn’t happen, the sound just flutters away, lost forever. Next time you have the opportunity to listen to some music, think about that. Although the performer interprets and presents the composer’s ideas. It is the listener who invents the meaning of the sounds. The listener is a sort of translator, allowing the sound to become emotional reality. Listening is not a passive experience. The listener needs to participate in this process. To aggressively listen and allow the music to reveal itself.
Violin Concerto (1978)
This piece began after hearing violinist Carol Sadowski play a high Eb in my piece HUMBLE CAKE. There was something powerful about that Eb. I heard it, and I couldn’t believe that I wrote it. It sounded so much better than it did on paper – in my head – or as I clunked it out on the piano.
That’s because I didn’t really completely write it. The violinist’s interpretation of that moment in the piece was an equal part of the process. Composer writes the mechanics; performer brings it to life. Composer dreams up and dictates some so far non-existent musical statement; Performer, using a lifetime of technical, musical, and imaginative experience, interprets the bare information from the score. Composer — Performer. The Composer hashes out the rough material, which the performer decodes and illuminates.
After hearing Carol’s Eb, I decided right then and there that I would always write my music for the best musicians and interpreters of modern music that I could imagine. I imagined the music, and I imagined the performance. And I have done this. Often my music has been performed by such performers, but just as often it has been performed by musicians, who are in fact terrific musicians, but are less experienced with modern music, more easily thrown by the rhythmic complexity, foreign peculiar-sounding narrative, or seemingly technical impossibilities.
When I began my Violin Concerto, I had not a clue how I would get it performed – there was a very good chance that it wouldn’t get performed at all. But that wasn’t important. The importance was that I was writing it. I had to follow that Eb. I trusted/hoped that something would happen sometime, somehow it would get performed - sometime.
From the beginning its strange texture worked for me. The solo violin sneaks into that texture, matching its strength against the entire orchestra’s - the strength that I learned from Carol Sadowski’s Eb in HUMBLE CAKE. The single violin gradually takes over, pushing its will on the orchestra’s 80 musicians. After some pondering, there is a lengthy violin cadenza, that brings a unity between the soloist and the orchestra. But the violin wants more – and tries to take more, continuing the cadenza. The orchestra objects. The entire string section combine its forces and gradually sneaks in and challenges the solo violin. The soloist tries to keep its advantage, but loses as the string gracefully overtake the solo violin, which gives its final statement, as the strings passively conclude the piece.
I started writing my Violin Concerto in New York and then finished it in California, working with my teacher Andrew Imbrie. We had some terrible arguments during those sessions – you can read about them HERE. Then, when I finished the piece, I started trying to convince someone, anyone to perform it. But it didn’t seem like it was going to happen. After all, I needed a virtuoso violin soloist, a conductor able to understand the complex music and lead the orchestra, and, of course, I needed 80 or 90 musicians that make up the orchestra!! I left California after getting my Ph.D. and moved to Paris for a couple years. In Paris, I composed and tried to find someone to perform my Violin Concerto. I didn’t get very far. I had a young violinist interested, but he wasn’t really up to the task – I mean listen to the cadenza! And, the violinist thought that I had an orchestra lined up, which is what I thought he had access to, so our relationship didn’t get very far.
After I had been in Paris for a year, someone suggested to me that I contact a conductor in Utrecht, that he might be interested. That someone was my dad. The conductor was Melvin Margolis, a young, frightfully brilliant musician, who was the conductor of the Utrecht Conservatorium Orchestra. My dad had mentioned him several times. My dad was Melvin’s mother’s doctor, and the two I imagined discussed their two sons and their attempt to make their livings in music. Although I didn’t think it would get anywhere, I decided appease my dad and write to Melvin. The response almost immediate. Melvin called me in Paris. It was a three-way phone call from Mel and the Director of the Utrecht conservatory, discussing the upcoming performance of my VIOLIN CONCERTO. Holy Cow! In December, 1982, I traveled up to Utrecht, for my first experience hear music for orchestra!!
Melvin met my train. Nice guy. He took me to his place, where we had some dinner and then studied my score. He really was brilliant. The score that I had sent him was completely marked up, and he didn’t balk at my metric writing that change meter every single measure – or that the time of measure 30 was 2 2/3 Quarter notes! Or that I was constantly dividing the beat itself in 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 parts, like the D.B. of bar 37, where the solo violin divides the beat in 5 parts, in a 2+2+1 (or 8th, 8th, 16th within one beat). Maria Teofilova, with whom I rehearsed the next day, didn’t mind it at all either. Luckily, I could play the orchestra part of my piece, so the next day that’s what I did, while Maria played the solo and Mel conducted us. What an experience.
By the way, I’m not finished with my interpretation of the musical process. The equal parts Composer — Performer is incomplete without someone to listen. The listener needs to listen. If that doesn’t happen, the sound just flutters away, lost forever. Next time you have the opportunity to listen to some music, think about that. Although the performer interprets and presents the composer’s ideas. It is the listener who invents the meaning of the sounds. The listener is a sort of translator, allowing the sound to become emotional reality. Listening is not a passive experience. The listener needs to participate in this process. To aggressively listen and allow the music to reveal itself.
