Beethoven’s iconic Violin Concerto: what to listen for and why it was an initial flop!

00:00:00

John Banther: I'm John Banther, and this is Classical Breakdown. From WETA Classical in Washington, we are your guide to classical music. In this episode, I'm joined by WETA Classical's Evan Keely, and we are talking about one of the most beloved concertos for the violin, Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D Major, Opus 61. But it wasn't always so popular, as we'll learn. We'll show you what to listen for, how Beethoven approached the violin differently, and we gleaned unique insights from writings and video of the big soloists today.

This concerto is so ubiquitous, so popular, so beloved, you might think it's been performed and loved by everyone ever since Beethoven put it to paper. But that is not the case, as we'll learn in this episode. And along those lines, Evan, I think one might even be able to loosely describe this as a cult classic.

00:00:53

Evan Keely: Yeah, certainly a classic.

00:00:55

John Banther: And Beethoven wrote this in 1806 in Vienna for a violinist named Franz Clement, who was a virtuoso and really at the peak of his popularity around this time. He was about 25 years old. And it got its premiere in December of that year, but things did not go quite as expected with the concerto, and we'll get into that in a little bit.

Now, while we've heard this performed and recorded so many times, I am telling you there are things that will surprise you. Even for me, Evan, there are aspects of this that I had never thought of before. Some might not even know there's an entirely other instrument that the concerto's been written for, and actually even another that I didn't even know about. There's a lot here.

00:01:34

Evan Keely: Yeah. Just getting into this episode with you, John, as we've been preparing for this Classical Breakdown episode ... I've known this piece intimately since I was a kid, and I'm still discovering things about it.

00:01:47

John Banther: And I think this is a work that is very emblematic of Beethoven. If you can understand some of the things happening here, I think you'll have the tools to unpack a lot of his other music as well, and there's a lot here that is quite easy to understand. And maybe we can play a game, Evan, as we jump into the first movement here. We play the concerto, and then we'll stop it when we need to ... Well, have something to say.

Okay. We have to stop there already, Evan, and be a little annoying because that opening is so intriguing. There is so much happening with just a couple of notes. Today it sounds, I mean, almost mundane, but back in 1806, this would've grabbed people's attention.

00:02:37

Evan Keely: Yeah. In the 21st century, we think, " Okay, this is fine. This is interesting." But yeah, 1806, this is a pretty unconventional opening for any piece of music, certainly for a violin concerto.

00:02:48

John Banther: This is a type of work that, well, when an orchestra plays it for the first time ... I mean, when you play in orchestra, when you have a solo line or something, you don't want anyone looking at you. You learn that pretty quick in youth orchestra. Don't look at the person playing a solo. But when you're older, things are a little bit different. If I was playing and playing bass, and the timpani opened like this, I would turn to my friend and mouth, "What are you doing?"

00:03:14

Evan Keely: What is this?

00:03:14

John Banther: And they would laugh and shrug and just point to the part, that kind of thing.

00:03:18

Evan Keely: Blame the composer.

00:03:19

John Banther: But a reason I really wanted to get into this episode was because of big- time violin soloist, Augustin Hadelich. And he's done some pretty fantastic videos on this concerto, especially for violinists, like half- hour series videos on this. And I want to play the first minute of what he says here about this concerto because it explains everything, I think, about this opening.

00:03:43

Augustin Hadelich: The motive that runs through the full first movement is first played by the timpani at the very start, that the timpani plays ... And these repeated notes, every time they return in the piece, they have a slightly different character, a slightly different meaning. Sometimes it's just like a question. Sometimes it can be quite dramatic when it happens. It's actually quite a dissonant note to have a D- sharp, so harmonically shocking that it would be ... And then the answer. It's a tritone interval. So it's actually quite ... It's extremely dramatic. Some instances of the motif seem pleading that ... It's reaching to the next bar.

00:04:45

John Banther: Who knew there is so much to say with four quarter notes? Literally one of the first things you learn page one in band class, which seems so boring, no one wants to play. Let's get to the fun stuff. Here for Beethoven, no, there are all kinds of things that need to be done with just these quarter notes. And are they long? Are they short? Do they change harmonically? And so forth.

00:05:14

Evan Keely: One of the things that makes Beethoven so great that may be less obvious ... We listen to his music. It's so inspiring and heroic. And yes, that's marvelous, but he's also one of the most economical composers ever. Every measure, every note, there's something packed into it that's very significant. He's able to say a great deal with very little material in a way that hardly any other composer can do, and we really see that in this concerto.

Beethoven is, among other things, a rhythmic composer. He uses a lot of these very small ideas from which to expand and build an entire work. So we have this four- note motif with the timpani, the timpani starting the piece. Very strange thing. One of the things about Beethoven, he's an innovator in so many ways. And we might forget he's an innovator when it comes to the role of the timpani. Nowadays, we hear the timpani doing all kinds of interesting things. We're not surprised by it. But before Beethoven, the timpani was kind of an added color to certain rhythmic things, or maybe a martial aspect. You think about the Hallelujah chorus in Handel's Messiah. It's emphasizing things. It's adding color, but it's not a solo instrument.

And then Beethoven comes along. Here's a violin concerto. We're expecting to ... Of course there's going to be an orchestral intro before the violin comes in. That was normal in 1806. But for the timpani to have a solo. Not only for the timpani to have a solo at the very beginning, but for that solo to introduce the motivic element that's going to guide the whole movement. This really gives you a sense of Beethoven's, incredible originality. A four- note motif, a very simple motif. And he builds an entire movement, this whole musical journey, on this very simple thing that he says right away at the very beginning. And we're certainly seeing that here in the violin concerto.

00:07:04

John Banther: I love how you explained that, Evan. A great Beethovenian aspect. Something small in the beginning that gets expanded, like the opening of the Fifth or the Third or the First Symphony and so on. And here, the orchestra plays alone this entire opening section in which we hear the quarter note motif do all those different things that Hadelich mentioned. And the orchestra is introducing a lot of the thematic material.

And there are also some more Beethovenian aspects here as well. I think one that is just absolutely one of my favorite things is how he writes these long stretching lines over moving, more turbulent counter- lines like in the lower strings, something scalular or an arpeggio. And these long lines, you can see almost like a ball being thrown hundreds of feet. You can see this beautiful arc and you know exactly where it's going to land.

And you'll notice, after the soloist comes in, that there is a particular kind of sound in this concerto and really throughout. And that is because of who Beethoven was writing for at the time, Franz Clement. So in this piece, we're not finding moments where the violin is having to put out a huge amount of sound like we find in the Tchaikovsky or the Sibelius concertos that come much later. This is because Clement, while an outstanding virtuoso, could do almost anything on the violin, he was coming from a different school, a different era of violin playing where he did not have this massive sound. It was more, I believe, an emphasis on resonance rather than projection. And so he had this very clear, very delicate sound where he was not playing lots of fortes and fortissimos. So there's a lot of softer dynamics here, and also a lot of things that are very, very high, in the high register, that just seem to really just almost float from the stage when you hear this live.

00:08:58

Evan Keely: Yeah. I think it's a style and a school of violin playing that really emphasizes the ability to project a great deal of meticulous detail, with a lot of feeling, and a very delicate style that's still very nuanced and very expressive.

One of the things I love about this concerto, John, is you have a solo part that's certainly very virtuosic. Any violin virtuoso will tell you it's a very challenging piece to play. But it's not a showpiece in the same way as some other concerti are. It's not like a ... I don't mean any disrespect, but Pablo de Sarasate, you think of the Carmen Fantasy, something where there's just this incredible pyrotechnics and you expect smoke to be rising from the fingerboard. And you don't have that with this piece. You just have this really beautiful, lyrical violin writing.

And it's important to remember too Beethoven, of course, his main instrument was the piano, really renowned for his extraordinary virtuosity as a pianist and especially as an improviser at the piano. But Beethoven, of course, was also a very accomplished string player, even from childhood. As a teenager, he played in the court orchestra in Bonn for the orchestra of the Elector. Played the viola, actually, in that. But he was a very skilled string player, unlike, say, Johannes Brahms, who was a very gifted pianist also but needed help from friends like the great violinist Joseph Joachim when Brahms sat down to write a violin concerto. Beethoven really knows what he's doing with the instrument. He really knows how to utilize the instrument's many qualities. And of course, he knew Franz Clement personally and knew his playing style and was really writing in a very sophisticated way for the instrument and for this particular soloist.

00:10:39

John Banther: So many soloists have just, well, loved this piece for very obvious reasons. Another one that's popular today is Patricia Kopatchinskaja. She is brilliant, and she's also written some great things about this concerto in particular, about the sound and some of the things that you were just saying, Evan. Here's what she wrote, " One has also to mention the balance between orchestra and solo violin. Especially in recordings, the solo violin is often intrusively put into the foreground. This might be acceptable for concertos by Paganini or Mendelssohn, where indeed the violin is the hero accompanied by humble escorts. But in Beethoven's concerto, the main musical thoughts are mostly in the orchestra, and the solo violin plays around them in an improvisatory way. In this concerto, I often feel like a small bird flying over a majestic landscape. I take my twists and turns and sometimes even disappear between the clouds. In fact, this concerto is a symphony for orchestra and improvising violin." That last sentence for me, Evan, totally changed how I hear this.

00:11:46

Evan Keely: Yeah. I just find this such an insightful perspective on this concerto. And like you, John, hearing her comments on this really shapes the way, and makes me hear this concerto in a whole new way.

00:11:58

John Banther: From the first entrance, it sounds improvisatory, like a bird flittering about, but not random. You see a bird going around your yard. It's not a random number generator going any direction, but there's something going on.

Speaking of bird- like, there's this violin trill in the soloist over the theme being played in the winds. It sounds very bird- like. It's very sweet, very delicate, very dolce. And I imagine this must have been in Clement's wheelhouse. And it also shows something in music and how you'll hear this played so many different ways. And that is, well, you have a long note with a trill. You don't just sit there and do a trill randomly, irrespective of what's happening around you.

Here in this recording, we're hearing a lot of Janine Jansen ... That's who we're listening to in a lot of these examples. The line is shaped. It may get louder. It gets softer. The vibrato might speed up or slow down. There's so many things that happen within just one line. And I'm sure many violinists have pretty, I don't know, unhappy teachers or something at some moment, saying, " What are you doing? You're not doing enough here with this. You're not shaping it the way you should be with the wind line." You're supposed to hear those things even as you practice them.

00:13:13

Evan Keely: It is deceptively difficult to play a whole note, four beats or whatever, playing a trill just on this one or two notes and just sustain that in a way that maintains interest and vitality. And you have these great violinists like Janine Jansen or Augustin Hadelich, that we're listening to in this episode, who really understand this. And again, it gives us a sense that Beethoven must have had a real understanding of the instrument. And I would guess he had a real respect for Clement's ability to express these nuances in a performance.

00:13:47

John Banther: One thing I want people to really come away with is what you said earlier, Evan. Beethoven being really economy of means, using very little to do a lot, especially with just a little quarter note line, and all the things you can do and how it goes through all these different emotions. But there's so many times where a trill in the violin or just a little moment here and there, there's actually very little music happening. There is just a violin part, maybe a couple of things elsewhere. It is very, very, very sparse. So I think that's another reason why also soloists gravitate towards this, because there's so much you can do. And I mean, this is also a piece where you can really fall flat.

00:14:31

Evan Keely: Yes. Yes. You're very exposed in a situation like this, not just the violinist, but the orchestral instrumentalists who are also playing these very sparse passages. We have this stereotype of Beethoven. Everything is larger than life and grand and heroic. And that's certainly true, but Beethoven is also a genius at these very delicate moments where there appears to be very little happening on the surface, and then as we listen more closely, we are really discovering there's a whole world being unfolded.

00:15:00

John Banther: I had never really spent time looking at the score ever for this. And so looking at it was like, " Oh, there's nothing here. There's not a lot happening right here in this section."

In the middle, towards the middle, in the development section where we're deviating from D Major, the quarter note motif is everywhere. And something that I like that Beethoven does here that maybe I don't hear in a lot of his other works are when he brings back the theme, it's brought back in a particular way that feels like a page is turning. And I'm talking about when the violinist is not playing. It feels like a page is turning and we're moving onto a new scene in a diorama. And I found the place, Evan, where the quarter notes happen the most, because I was listening and thinking, " Well, who does this the most? Maybe it is not timpani," but it is in fact timpani, where it's just pounding away. Or maybe not pounding, but there's one section where it's hitting these quarter notes longer than anywhere else in the entire work.

00:16:07

Evan Keely: This is part of the skill of Beethoven as a composer, where you have these constantly repeated motivic pieces like this quarter note. Bum, bum, bum, bum. Extremely simple. And it never gets tedious. It never feels overdone. It gives the music an ongoing drive that continues to build excitement and interest, and we are just carried along on this journey. Like you said, here, John, where the timpani just plays those quarter notes continuously more here than anywhere else. I really feel like we're entering into a very dramatic moment in this very symphonic concerto.

00:16:44

John Banther: And as you were explaining that, Evan, I was also thinking of Bruckner, and how he used the timpani to roll in some sections to create a foundation. And well, here, it's almost a similar thing, but it's just these quarter notes that are happening.

00:16:59

Evan Keely: Yeah, yeah. Bruckner definitely knew his Beethoven. So you can draw a line from Beethoven to Bruckner, that use of repetition, that use of small motivic pieces over and over again, that really builds a powerful set of expressions.

00:17:13

John Banther: Yes. And like Bruckner, we also find ourselves searching at some point in this. Well, and like a lot of concertos, in the middle, you're wandering around almost in the dark. The orchestra eventually takes over, and maybe the biggest fully realized version of this so far in the concerto. And with that, let's go ahead and jump to the cadenza here because this is, as you might imagine, a work that there's been many, many, many cadenzas written for because it's been recorded so many times. In fact, maybe more than any other concerto.

00:17:46

Evan Keely: Probably.

00:17:47

John Banther: The one that is most popular and most used, I think, is the one by Fritz Kreisler, and that's the one that Janine Jansen uses in this recording. But many others have put their own spin and takes on this. Hadelich has some really impressive things that he does in the cadenzas. The one that has to be mentioned is Kopatchinskaja because she wrote a cadenza out, but it also involves two other violins, a cello or two, and also the timpani again.

00:18:31

Evan Keely: And it's not inconceivable that even in the early 19th century, a cadenza might have involved those kinds of things. I doubt the first performance of this concerto looked that way. But it's wonderful, the ways in which really gifted artists are able to be creative with these cadenzas. And unlike some of the Beethoven piano concertos where we have cadenzas that Beethoven himself wrote out, we don't have one by Beethoven. So you have these incredible violinists, over generations, going back to the 19th century, writing these cadenzas that have been passed down. Different artists interpret the cadenzas differently. It's just a marvelous layering of different geniuses contributing their perspective to this extraordinary concerto.

00:19:15

John Banther: The way he gets out of the cadenza is interesting too. There's this trill. And we've learned so many times where usually, especially before Beethoven, you get out with a big bang that brings you to the end. But here, it's just this soft bird- like trill, as this lullaby is brought back in. And he's almost lulling us to sleep before a rather sudden big ending.

00:19:36

Evan Keely: The orchestra almost tiptoes back into the room.

00:19:39

John Banther: Yes, tiptoeing.

00:19:40

Evan Keely: Very, very unusual. Not completely unheard of for a concerto in 1806, but as you said, John, very often a cadenza ends with this big tonic chord. And the orchestra brings us to the coda and the movement ends with a big sound. And this is a little bit more off the beaten path, where the orchestra just very delicately creeps back in as the cadenza is ending. There's a blurry line between the cadenza and the rest of the concerto.

00:20:06

John Banther: And I think something you said before applies here too, where it's not virtuosic in the sense of the Sarasate and other concertos we have. And that applies to the orchestra too. They're doing things different, but it's not catching your attention. Oh, see what I'm doing here? When he's doing different things, like tiptoeing back in with the orchestra. Beethoven wrote this fantastic concerto. It must have been an explosive hit when Franz Clement played it, right? I mean, he was this amazing soloist. Probably got like three encores, 10 minutes of a standing applause, Evan. Something like that?

00:20:37

Evan Keely: Yeah, not entirely. The first performance was two days before Christmas, December 23rd, 1806. Didn't go very well, apparently. There's varying accounts of where Beethoven was in the compositional process. There's a rumor, there's kind of a legend that Beethoven just finished it earlier that day and Clement had to sight- read it, which is probably not true. But it may be exaggerating circumstances in which there was some unfinished business at the last minute. Whether or not Clement had to sight- read it is not really clear. But it's very unlikely he was sight- reading. But it does seem like there probably wasn't a lot of prep time for soloist or orchestra, and there may have been some last- minute additions and changes even that very day.

So not ideal circumstances for a performance, especially of a demanding concerto, both for the soloist and for the orchestra. Clement maybe therefore wasn't able to give the very best performance, but even a great artist like Franz Clement was probably able to give a very impressive display nevertheless.

And this may be among the reasons why this concerto, after this 1806 performance, really wasn't often played thereafter for a long time. It's also a very large, very big piece. Very long. Like we were saying, a very long first movement. The whole piece is much longer than most of your other concertos of this era, or even a lot of the symphonies. You think of a Haydn or a Mozart symphony. It's a very big piece, makes a lot of intellectual demands on the audience. And in 1806, maybe folks weren't entirely ready for that.

And of course, this is an interesting way to get an insight into what it was like to go to a concert in that era. Apparently, Clement played some of his own music. He was a composer himself. There's a story that he did a bit of a circus act between the first and second movements. He played something that he wrote with one string. There's different accounts. He had the violin upside down, or maybe it was behind his back. There was some very impressive display that happened there, or maybe that was after the last movement. Maybe that was a way of saving the day. If the concerto performance wasn't so impressive, he could do something else that would delight the audience.

So the concerto didn't have an auspicious beginning. And then you have to fast- forward to 1844. Joseph Joachim in 1844, 12 years old, was the soloist in a London performance with Felix Mendelssohn conducting of this Beethoven violin concerto. And that was a big hit. And ever since then, that's really where this concerto takes on a new life. And from there on, it starts to become one of the most often played violin concertos.

00:23:33

John Banther: We are so fortunate to Mendelssohn for bringing this back, and also Joachim, 12 years old. Just imagine. I mean, yeah, it sounds like that's why it just languished for a couple of decades. It's a concerto that's way too big. The performance wasn't great. And Clement is ... Don't blame me, blame the composer. See how great I am on this fun virtuosic piece I wrote? Book me next week.

00:23:56

Evan Keely: Remember too, Beethoven died in 1827. So the 1844, this is long after Beethoven is gone. Still has a great reputation, of course. But yeah, it took Joseph Joachim and Felix Mendelssohn to really breathe new life into this concerto.

00:24:11

John Banther: And we'll get into other instruments this concerto has been written for and the other movements right after this.

This is not something we're going to be getting into during this episode, but you may have not known that Beethoven also wrote this out for piano, Opus 61a. And he actually even published it. And I wonder if that was ever really performed, or what was done with that. Either way, we're going to have a link on the show notes page to a performance of it. I don't know if the word is uncanny, but it's kind of funny and humorous in ways. Maybe it's not meant to be, but I get that feeling a little bit.

00:24:46

Evan Keely: It kind of messes with your brain when you're used to hearing this as a violin concerto. Don't forget, Beethoven earned his living as a composer. So publishing scores was one of the ways he earned his living. So sure, arrange the concerto for some other instrument, maybe sell some more scores. Why not?

00:25:03

John Banther: As the saying goes, money for old rope.

00:25:06

Evan Keely: There you go.

00:25:07

John Banther: And also, this has been arranged for other instruments after Beethoven, like for clarinet by Mikhail Pletnev. I'll also have a link on the show notes page to that. And that'll make you really question your ears for a moment, hearing this concerto played by clarinet.

But going into the second movement. And you already mentioned, Evan, that the first movement is big. It's longer than the other two movements combined. So with the second movement, we get this slow orchestra introduction. It's this beautiful lime that is passed around and around. It's almost hymn or procession- like, but the soloist doesn't actually play it. About a minute into it, there's an entrance where you think, " Okay, here is where the violinist plays this very serene line," but actually, it's the horns that take it. And the violin does that initial dancing around, reminding me of what Kopatchinskaja said. This concerto is a symphony for orchestra and improvising violin.

00:26:25

Evan Keely: Yeah, the orchestra is really the star in this particular section, and the violinist is almost like a Greek chorus commenting.

00:26:34

John Banther: And I will also put a link to Kopatchinskaja's performance of this as well, because she plays the second movement devastatingly, almost insultingly soft. It is so delicate. I mean, it's really something. I imagine the whole hall, everyone's seated, has to lean forward at some points to actually hear, which is in direct contrast to the massive amount of sound she can throw out too.

So the violin continues to noodle around almost bird- like, but not quite random. We build up to a very lush and drawn- out part that feels very regal. And then we get the violin taking up a theme that is even more delicate than the first one. And this makes me wonder, Evan, how would Clement have sounded on this? Because that's made me hear this a little bit differently, knowing that Clement was from that older school, more delicate, softer, higher playing.

00:27:40

Evan Keely: Yeah. And again, we don't know, but there's good reason to believe that he was really skilled at playing this kind of music with this specially powerful nuance and expressiveness. And oh, to have been there, even if he was sight- reading or not as well- prepared as he would've wanted to be.

00:27:58

John Banther: And one thing that violinists and Clement and everyone gets to do deliciously are these delays of the resolution in the solo line. We call this, here specifically, suspension, when you have this note that's lingering above and resolves just a bit later, often one beat later. And it lets everything really, really settle.

Now, Evan, bringing it back to your economy of means point. I wonder if this is the most sparse place in the ... Not just movement, but in the whole concerto, where it's just a soloist with just a couple of pizzicato strings that can be interpreted in so many ways.

00:28:38

Evan Keely: Very, very lean writing here. And again, there's not a lot on the page. There's not a lot happening in terms of the number of instruments or what they're playing, but so much is being said here.

00:28:57

John Banther: I found myself, after listening to this several times, and really just wondering, " What is this? What is this music? What is happening here?" Because this isn't a romance, like the ones that Beethoven had written. It doesn't feel like a conversation, like in Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in that slow movement. It doesn't feel like a meditation. Nothing's being lamented. It's almost like this is really meant to be experienced live. And it's just, I don't know, some kind of moment.

00:29:26

Evan Keely: Yeah. There's extraordinary intimacy in this section, which as you said, John, it's hard to really describe or understand what's happening, and yet we're so utterly drawn into it.

00:29:37

John Banther: And as the movement ends, it actually transitions into third movement, which is quite a contrast. We're going from this very slow, serene, ethereal something, to what feels like a fantastic country dance. And what motivated me to do this episode is that soloist we mentioned, Augustin Hadelich. I heard him play this with Jacksonville maybe nine years ago or something like that. And it had such a rustic country dance feel to it. I was just enthralled. It was like a fiddler just playing some dances, noodling around on a porch.

00:30:13

Evan Keely: Yeah. The contrast really works too. It's amazing. It takes a composer of Beethoven's phenomenal skill to pull this off. And you have almost this reverence in the slow movement, this almost religious kind of feeling. It's so powerful and so intimate. And then you have this really raucous ... Like you said, this rustic dance. And how do you go from one to the other? And yet it works perfectly well. And we're just brought into this celebration of life with this finale, this dancing finale.

00:30:45

John Banther: And thankfully, we have another bit from Hadelich on this exact moment. Now, unfortunately, he does not have a commercial recording of this yet, but he has some live performances. But also from that series that we played a little bit from before, we have another moment to play where he talks about this moment and how it can be approached. And this is actually a clip stitched together by the YouTube channel, Tonebase Violin.

00:31:11

Augustin Hadelich: Now, there's a long controversy with this piece because Beethoven wrote a dot for the upbeat. So that's clear ( singing). And it's like a little hop before you land, but then he did no longer write dots after this. There's no dot on the second one. There's no dot on this one. There is a tradition of playing it where you play the dots on the first two, and then long. And this has many adherents. Many conductors and soloists prefer it to play it this way. But there are also those like me who think ... I think that we're still in the same theme, and it's a dance, ( singing). I like to stay as much into the same character as possible. So I don't necessarily play ... As short. And I play this. It doesn't have to be ... But it's not legato either.

00:32:12

John Banther: And big thanks to Tonebase Violin for editing that bit together. The dot he is talking about is the staccato marking that Beethoven puts on those notes, what looks literally like a dot. And it indicates that the note is not held its full length. It's shortened. But what that means exactly is something musicians argue about all of the time, but the way Hadelich approaches this adds so much character. It's perfect in my opinion, Evan.

00:32:38

Evan Keely: And I have such great respect for Augustin Hadelich, who started off as a child prodigy and has had this great career. He's still doing amazing things. He brings incredible intellectual depth to his interpretations as well as just this dazzling passion and commitment and virtuosity. And I'm so intrigued by his insights about this Beethoven concerto, which as you point out, he's played many, many times over the years.

00:33:06

John Banther: And if you ever get a chance to see him play, I think it's been a couple of years since he's been in Washington, but whenever that happens, you definitely have to hear him play. So this feels like, to me, in 2024, like a rustic, good Viennese time. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but with that, the character I think should be bigger. It should be a little bit rougher. And I know that basically flies in the face of what I said earlier about Clement's playing and how Beethoven wrote for him, but that is the energy that I feel here. And no one's going to convince me otherwise, especially because towards the beginning, we have this part that's repeated in the orchestra, and then the flute comes in on the last iteration and it adds such a rustic flair. It is everything to me. I don't know why I'm obsessed with it, but if it's not brought out in a recording, I often stop it. That's how much I love it.

00:34:00

Evan Keely: I love what you're saying, John, about this rustic flair and this dance- like feeling. Vienna, they know how to dance in Vienna. At the end of this same century, this is when the waltz is going to take over the world. It emerges out of the tradition of the Landler and other dances. Beethoven saw people dancing, and dance music was so much a part of the culture, certainly anywhere in Western Europe. But in the Viennese tradition, these very light, airy, very free- spirited dances are ... There's a long, wonderful musical tradition of that. Beethoven certainly knows it, and I think he's invoking that spirit in this finale.

00:34:42

John Banther: What also adds to the rustic fiddle- type sound, I think, are the double stops that he includes. The multiple notes being played at once by the soloist. There's even triple stops at one point as well. And this is a rondo. So there's going to be this constant back and forth with the orchestra with the theme returning again and again, and it's going to go in different directions harmonically, into a minor key. And in some points, it feels rather almost sinister. Not quite Fantasia- like, but there were moments where this feels like we're conjuring something up here. And another quote from Patricia Kopatchinskaja that picks up from where I left off before, she writes, " The bassoon soli of the last movement provide a fine example," in just talking about the symphony versus improvisatory violin. " These are not accompaniment. Rather, they are the leading solo material, and it is the solo violin who accompanies them with elfin lightness, even sometimes vanishing into the background."

00:35:42

Evan Keely: Yeah, Kopatchinskaja's insights into this really fascinate me. As I was saying earlier, John, I hear this concerto in a new way because of her perspective on it. You and I talked about the Beethoven Fifth Piano Concerto last season where the piano is really the hero. And this concerto, that's not the case. The violin often takes a backseat. The orchestra really has something to say. The violin is sort of commenting in the background. It's a remarkable approach to writing for a solo instrument.

00:36:10

John Banther: Towards the middle of the finale, there is a moment that feels like pure joy. And it's a sudden change in the music, which will grab everyone's ears, where the pickup is now pizzicato. It's plucked on the violin. And then it's like this rocket up to this high note. It's played in so many different ways by soloists. Everyone has their own way of playing it. And this is also another point where musicians have to think about, " Well, what is this pickup? What does it mean? What is it related to?" Is it related and involved in with what comes after it or with what comes before it? And well, how do you play these pizzicatos in relation to what comes after? So small changes like that with just a simple pickup can have big effects or consequences.

And then after a bit of back and forth, Evan, we get to the final cadenza of the concerto. And as we said, the most popular one or most often performed is the one by Fritz Kreisler. It feels a little short to me. I like it when people take a little bit more time here, especially because the finale is ... It's a bit shorter and it's a rondo, so there's a lot of similar themes being repeated, but this is also just a moment for a soloist to do whatever they want.

00:37:36

Evan Keely: Yeah. There is a tradition, of course, John, in concertos, especially your typical three- movement concerto, where sometimes there isn't any cadenza in the finale, or if there is one, it's often shorter and is less elaborate than the one in the first movement. So it's not that strange that a lot of soloists even today observe that kind of practice. But yeah, I think given this joyful dance we're enjoying with this finale, sometimes one's hungry for more.

But I'm also reminded as the cadenza ends and the orchestra comes back in, again, there's this sort of sneaking back, like in the first movement, ( singing) in the lower strings. And we're reminded here that one of Beethoven's great gifts as a composer is he knows how to be funny. He has this marvelous sense of humor, and there's always this sense of this mischief. He's kind of playing a joke on us. Maybe it's a little bit of a joke at our expense, and yet we're laughing along with him. And I find there's something funny about the way the orchestra comes back in with this gleam in the eye, this wink and a nod, this mischievous spirit that's part of this delightful rustic dance. Rustic and yet profoundly sophisticated at the same time.

00:38:53

John Banther: And there are so many different cadenzas that, well, I think there's one for everyone. I'm going to search out and find one I especially love beyond just Kopatchinskaja's, which I definitely love. So if you find one that you think is different or unusual or should be noted that maybe we don't even know about, please definitely let us know.

And after this jovial aspect coming back in, there's this final frolic to the end, and it feels also very Beethovenian as we get bigger and bigger. But it doesn't just end very simply into ... There's a lot of rhythmic play. I know you've talked a lot about, Evan, where Beethoven plays with the beat and makes it feel like, well, where is beat one for a few seconds.

Beethoven's Violin Concerto, in a nutshell, it is a huge work. And thank goodness for Mendelssohn for bringing it back to us in 1844. Some clear Beethovenian aspects in this work that I think you will also hear elsewhere. But they are very easy to, I think, hear and understand in this work. So in the end, I wonder, Evan, how this really affected Beethoven's writings, because as you said, he's a composer. He needs to publish and make money. Do you want to write a whole other violin concerto if this one wasn't as popular? I wonder how it affected the rest of his violin writing.

00:40:37

Evan Keely: Yeah, it's a great question, John. And there are sort of mysteries around it. He wrote five piano concertos, one violin concerto. Why didn't he write another one? What other works did he write for violin and orchestra? Prior to this, before 1806, there are the two romances, the Opus 40 and the Opus 50. They're both very short. They're both like seven, eight minutes apiece. Wonderful, wonderful works.

In the Missa solemnis many years later, 1823 is when he finished writing that. It's around the time he's writing the Ninth Symphony. And in the Benedictus in Missa solemnis, there's this extraordinary violin solo. So that's all violin and orchestra there.

There he wrote 10 violin sonatas, violin and piano. But there's not a lot of music for violin and orchestra by Beethoven. It kind of ends with the concerto, and then there's the Missa solemnis later on. Why didn't he do more of it? This is not a question I think really can be answered. Maybe, as you were saying, John, the fact that this concerto was not a great success might have discouraged him, or he just wanted to do other things. But thank goodness he gave us this one amazing violin concerto.

00:41:44

John Banther: And this is especially a work I realized, as I was listening to it, there is so little music happening right in this moment, but it is Beethoven who was able to just write these lines in a way that just carries you all the way through. Well, thank you so much, Evan, for joining me for all things Beethoven Violin Concerto.

00:42:02

Evan Keely: Thank you, John.

00:42:06

John Banther: Thanks for listening to Classical Breakdown, your guide to classical music. For more information on this episode, visit the show notes page at classicalbreakdown. org. You can send me comments and episode ideas to classicalbreakdown@ weta. org. And if you enjoyed this episode, leave a review in your podcast app. I'm John Banther. Thanks for listening to Classical Breakdown from WETA Classical.