Violin Concerto

“I’ve got some lovely themes for a violin concerto,” Jean Sibelius wrote to his wife, Aino, in September 1902. The Finnish composer, already a national figure and the recipient of an annual

pension from the Finnish government at 37, had been asked by the celebrated German violinist Willy Burmester to write a concerto. Despite the “lovely themes” Sibelius had in mind, the concerto wasn’t coming along as expected. The difficulties had mostly to do with the composer’s alcoholism, which around this time began to alarm his family. It was a year before Sibelius sent the piano score to Burmester, who responded enthusiastically: “I can only say one thing: Wonderful! Masterly! Only once before have I spoken in such terms of a composer, and that was when Tchaikovsky showed me his concerto.”

But plans did not unfold as anticipated. Burmester was expecting to play the world premiere of the new work in spring 1904, but Sibelius, for financial reasons, pushed for an earlier date even though Burmester wasn’t available (and the orchestration of the concerto wasn’t finished). Sibelius completed the concerto before the end of 1903 and gave it to a local violin teacher, Victor Nováček, to perform. By all accounts, Nováček was hardly more than a mediocre player. Leading Sibelius biographer Erik Tawaststjerna writes that at the Helsinki premiere, “A red-faced and perspiring Nováček fought a losing battle with a solo part that bristled with even greater difficulties in this first version than it does in the definitive score.”

The poor first performance aside, Sibelius was still dissatisfied with the work and decided to revise it entirely. The definitive version premiered with Karl Halíř as soloist, but the work was ultimately dedicated to an exceptionally gifted 17-year-old Hungarian named Ferenc Vecsey, who would become the work’s first champion, performing it internationally, including its first presentations in Cleveland.

Written in the first years of the 20th century, Sibelius’s concerto looks back to the great Romantic concertos of the 19th. The opening of the first movement, with the orchestral violins playing tremolos as the soloist plays a wistful melody above, is unabashedly old-fashioned. The only unconventional features are the repeated leaps, which create harsher sonorities, and the irregular phrase structure of the theme, which makes it difficult to predict how the melody is going to evolve.

Simple and songlike at first, the violin part gradually becomes more and more agitated. The orchestra eventually introduces a second idea, which the violin soon takes over. This is followed by a third, purely orchestral section, lively and energetic. There is no traditional development section in the first movement; its place is taken by a cadenza, which occurs in the middle of the movement rather than at the more customary position near the end.

The second movement is based on the combination of two themes, one played by the two clarinets at the beginning, the other by the solo violin a few measures later. The violin melody is, according to the composer, “sonorous and expressive.” The clarinet theme later grows into an impassioned middle section whose dynamism carries over into the recapitulation of the violin melody. Only at the very end does the melody find its initial peace and tranquility again.

Speaking about the third-movement finale, it is impossible to resist quoting Donald Francis Tovey’s characterization as a “polonaise for polar bears.” Tovey’s words capture the singular combination of elegant dance rhythms and a certain heavy-footedness felt at the beginning of this movement. Again, there are two themes, one in a polonaise rhythm and one based on the alternation of 6/8 and 3/4 time. “With this,” Tovey concludes, “we can safely leave the finale to dance the listener into Finland, or what-ever Fairyland Sibelius will have us attain.”

— adapted from a note by Peter Laki

Peter Laki is a musicologist and frequent lecturer on classical music. He is a visiting associate professor of music, emeritus, at Bard College and was The Cleveland Orchestra’s program annotator from 1990 to 2007.