A Primer on Stravinsky's Violin Concerto

In concerts on February 28 and March 1, German violinist Isabelle Faust makes her MinnOrch debut as soloist with Thomas Søndergård conducting Igor Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto. For one of the 20th century’s most unique composers, the Violin Concerto stands as one of Stravinsky’s most unique and charming compositions. It’s a work that’s been rarely heard at Orchestra Hall, and to help get you ready to experience this concerto with your favorite hometown band, we put together a primer to walk you through some of its most interesting features:

1) Stravinsky was hesitant to write a violin concerto.

At least he was at the beginning of the process. He was a trained pianist, and his first foray into the genre came with the completion of his Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments in 1924, which he also premiered. Willy Strecker, Stravinsky’s publisher and friend of Polish American commissioning violinist Samuel Dushkin, suggested that Stravinsky write a concerto for Dushkin in 1930. It would be funded by Blair Fairchild, an American diplomat, composer and businessman who was also Dushkin’s patron.

This was Stravinsky's initial reaction. He thought that his lack of knowledge of how to play the violin would hinder his ability to write a quality concerto that would match Dushkin’s formidable technical chops. He sought counsel in fellow composer Paul Hindemith, who wisely advised Stravinsky that not being able to play the violin was instead an advantage that would help the composer “avoid a routine technique and would give rise to ideas which would not be suggested by the familiar movement of the fingers.” The Violin Concerto is the only non-piano solo concerto that Stravinsky would write in his career.

2) The concerto’s most important musical idea was initially sketched onto a napkin.

Dushkin provided technical guidance to Stravinsky throughout the concerto’s compositional process. One day, the pair were out to lunch at a Parisian café, and Stravinsky sketched out the opening chord he had in mind to ask Dushkin if it were playable. Initially shocked by the great distance Stravinsky was requiring the hand to stretch, Dushkin said no—to Stravinsky’s visible dismay.

Luckily, Dushkin took the napkin home, attempted to play the chord and found it to be playable. He immediately rang Stravinsky to give him the good news. This sonority appears at the beginning of each of the four movements in various guises, uniting the work in its entirety—its role is so paramount in the underlying musical architecture that Stravinsky called it the concerto’s “passport.”

3) This music brought out Stravinsky’s emotional side.

Stravinsky famously once said that music was incapable of expressing true emotion. In his autobiography published in 1936, he writes: “For I consider that music, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all, whether a feeling, an attitude, a psychological mood, a phenomenon of nature, etc. Expression has never been an inherent property of music. It is simply an additional attribute…we have come to confuse with [music’s] essential being.” Later, Stravinsky would amend this statement to include “music expresses itself,” to reinforce his thinking that music—with its own inherent nuances—can express what it means to without necessarily bringing human experience to the score.

Program annotator Eric Bromberger notes that in the concerto’s third movement—a tender lamentation with Baroque inspiration—Stravinsky writes for the melody to be played cantabile, or in a singing style. Furthermore, Stravinsky writes dolce (sweetly), which Bromberger points out is “an unusual marking from a composer who was characteristically reserved in his performance markings.” Through his careful instruction, it’s clear that Stravinsky intended for this music to serve as the emotional heart of the concerto. (Skip to 11:22 in this performance by Patricia Kopatchinskaja to hear this heartfelt music.)

4) It looks back to look forward.

Stravinsky was a composer of many creative eras, and his musical style transformed itself several times throughout his career. Early, groundbreaking works like The Rite of Spring focused on using Russian folklore for inspiration grounded in a widespread artistic principal called Primitivism. But in the 1920s, Stravinsky’s foundation of creativity shifted to the music of the past, ushering in his neoclassical era. Lasting over 30 years, this era was inspired by the musical aesthetics of the baroque and classical periods. The Violin Concerto—written in 1931—bears great influence from Mozart's charming wit and Bach's deep understanding of musical architecture. (It was also during this time that Stravinsky was focused on de-emphasizing expression in his music.)

During World War I, Stravinsky fled to Switzerland to safety from Paris with his family. When the war ended Sergei Diaghilev—the impresario who commissioned The Rite of Spring—asked Stravinsky to return to the Ballet Russes to compose. He suggested Stravinsky base his new ballet, Pulcinella, on music that was believed to have been written by 18th-century Italian composer Giovanni Pergolesi. In studying these works, he found a wellspring of musical inspiration, later writing “Pulcinella was my discovery of the past, the epiphany through which the whole of my late work became possible.” For many years to come, Stravinsky would continue his self-professed “love-affair” with music of the past, boldly blazing his way through music history as one of its most unique voices.

This blog is written in fond memory of Dr. Maureen A. Carr, Distinguished Professor Emerita of Music at Penn State University, who dedicated her career to Stravinsky’s life and music, and to the success of each of her students.