Overture Magazine - 2015-2016 Season November-December 2015 | Page 29
Hilary Hahn last performed with the
BSO in Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto
in E minor, Op. 64 for the BSO Gala,
September 2011.
ABOUT THE CONCERT:
Violin Concerto in A Minor
Antonín Dvořák
Born in Nelahozeves, Bohemia, now
Czech Republic, September 8, 1841;
died in Prague, May 1, 1904
Johannes Brahms’ generosity and energy
in promoting the career of his younger
colleague Antonín Dvořák is one of music’s
heartwarming stories. From 1875 to 1878,
Brahms served on a committee for the
Austrian government that awarded annual
stipends to the still relatively unknown
Dvořák as a citizen of the Austrian dependency of Bohemia. But deeply impressed
with Dvořák’s talent, Brahms also wrote
his publisher, Fritz Simrock, to urge him
to publish Dvořák’s Moravian Songs for
soprano duet.
And Brahms did still more. He introduced Dvořák to his close friend, the violin
virtuoso Joseph Joachim, with whom he’d
just created his monumental violin concerto.
In 1879, Dvořák too wrote a violin concerto
and, dedicating the work to Joachim, sent
it to him for review. Although Joachim
accepted the score warmly, he urged major
revisions, and the Czech largely rewrote
the work in 1880. Two more years elapsed
before he heard again from Joachim, who
again suggested significant changes.
Why was Joachim both intrigued and
dissatisfied with this concerto? He complained to Dvořák that the orchestral
part was “rather heavily scored.” But, as
a worshipper of the classical, well-built
German forms at which Brahms excelled,
Joachim was probably bothered more by
Dvořák’s unorthodox first movement: an
“unbalanced” sonata form in which Dvořák
breaks off the recapitulation of his opening
material— the moment of satisfying
“home-coming” we wait for — after a few
seconds and moves directly into a bridge
to the slow movement. Despite Joachim’s
pleas, the Czech refused to change this, and
YOU’RE NOT
IN OVERTURE?
YOU’RE
MISSING OUT,
HON.
Advertise, and reach over 150,000 patrons of the BSO
five times a year in Overture, a program that’s about
more than just beautiful music.
TO ADVERTISE, CONTACT:
Ken Iglehart: [email protected]
Now also distributed at Strathmore Music Center in Bethesda
Get noticed
with award-winning design and print services that
are within your area code and within your budget.
For over 20 years, we have provided print and digital communications to
businesses and nonprofits throughout the region, producing everything
from 200-page training manuals to logos. (We even designed and printed
the magazine you’re holding now.)
108 years of top-notch design. Our design and production staff
emulate the same high standards reflected each month in Baltimore
magazine, the nation’s oldest city magazine at 108 years.
Competitive fees. Because we generate millions of dollars a year in
printing and have a dozen design and production experts on the staff of
the magazine and its ancillary products, we can offer wholesale printing
and design fees that are kept low by our company’s efficiency of scale.
To see samples of our work or for an estimate on
your next project, call us at 443.873.3900.
Proud supporter of the BSO
NOVEMBER– DECEMBER 2015 |
O v ertur e
27