violin concerto no. 1

program note

Leshnoff’s Violin Concerto has a fascinating genesis.  The composer himself provides the following thought-provoking statement: 

I once heard a story from a Holocaust survivor. He told me that in a certain camp, the SS guards lined the inmates up and forced difficult labor. To insult the prisoners further, the SS would require that the inmates sing Nazi propaganda songs, which they did. However, as the guards advanced farther up in the line, the prisoners in the back of the line would infuse prayer into the melody of the propaganda song.

 This story haunted me for a long time: how such pleas for help or communication with the divine could be infused in such dire circumstances is remarkable. I knew that, as an artist, I had to do something with this story, but I did not know what.  My solution came in the structure of this concerto. The second movement is a sustained adagio. The harmonies are quite poignant and the tone is contemplative. This, to me, represents the prayer of the survivor. This sustained and “prayerful” movement is juxtaposed by several agitated and restless movements, which utilize motives of the second movement. The elegiac fifth movement, following a large climax at the end of the fourth movement, brings all elements of the concerto to an introspective close. The integration of the prayerful motives in various textures represents the courage and faith of the inmates that transcended their immediate environment. This work does not use quotation of liturgical prayer or programmatic representation of the concentration camps.

It can justifiably be said that each of the performances to date has contained alterations and revisions not found in any previous performance. Basic composition took place between January and June 2005, and on June 16 Leshnoff flew to Columbus, Ohio to meet with violinist Charles Wetherbee to go over the concerto. The session resulted in a virtual reworking of the entire piece: the plane ride home, he says, “left me with much to think about.” As a result of Wetherbee’s suggestions and his own reflection, he recounts: “I rewrote the second movement, changed half of the first movement, revised the third movement extensively, and added a fifth movement. Only the fourth movement escaped wholesale revision, but even it underwent changes!” In addition Leshnoff lightened the heavier orchestration of the first movement after the Columbus premiere.  There is also a separate version of the score with reduced instrumentation (minus 2 horns and harp).  It is this one that the BCO will perform.  Wetherbee too has been responsible for numerous suggested revisions of the violin part, which he regularly sends to the composer!

After the Baltimore premiere, Baltimore Sun critic Tim Smith wrote, “There is something at once familiar and fresh about both the harmonic and melodic language.” The attentive listener will hear influences of several twentieth-century composers who wrote revered violin concertos: Serge Prokofiev in the motoric writing of the first movement, Samuel Barber in the lyricism of the second, and Dmitry Shostakovich in the jocular scoring for winds and strings in the third. The influence of George Crumb, for whose music Leshnoff has a particular affection, can also be heard in some of the subtleties of percussion scoring. But such influences are transitory. While Leshnoff generally has fully integrated the solo violin part into the accompanimental fabric, eschewing the flashy cadenzas so typical of nineteenth-century concerti, his writing for the violin (an instrument he has studied) is not only fully idiomatic but also makes considerable virtuosic demands. More traditional concerti generally conform to a three-movement format with a slow movement placed between two fast movements.  Leshnoff’s approximately twenty-four-minute work runs almost seamlessly from the first movement through the fifth in a style that is his alone: one that shows great harmonic invention, soaring lyricism, impressive rhythmic vitality, and haunting orchestration.

© Carl B. Schmidt | cschmidt@towson.edu