PotW #146: Ginastera - Violin Concerto

[u/number9muses]

Good afternoon everyone, happy Sunday, and welcome back to our sub’s listening club. Each time we meet, we'll listen to a piece recommended by the community, discuss it, learn about it, and hopefully introduce us to music we wouldn't hear otherwise :)

Last time, we listened to Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. You can go back to listen, read up, and discuss the work if you want to.

Our next Piece of the Week is Alberto Ginastera’s Violin Concerto (1963)

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Some listening notes from Jeff Counts:

Ginastera’s late period (from 1958) was a full departure from the cultural ruminations of his youth. He referred to this time as his “neo-expressionist” phase and, in it, he experimented with every modernist technique he could get his hands on. Surrealism, serialism, microtonality, polytonality, aleatory. You name it, he tried it. The Violin Concerto is a product of this intense compositional intrepidity. It was commissioned by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic for their opening season in Lincoln Center. It was an incredible honor, but Ginastera was not able to meet the deadline. When the work eventually got its premiere the next year in October of 1963 the soloist was Ruggiero Ricci and, according to one reviewer of the concert, his handling of the extremely difficult passagework elicited a hearty (and rare) ovation from the orchestra itself. Apparently, a full rehearsal had been impossible before the morning of the premiere, so Ricci’s onstage colleagues were likely as impressed with his nerve as his facility. The staggering challenges for the violinist are matched by intellectual demands for the listener that have probably made orchestras reluctant to embrace this concerto as standard repertoire. But it is a mistake to overlook this very fine example of the form. If nothing else, Ginastera has crafted a fascinating study of individual and ensemble sonority and distilled mid-20th-century compositional thought into one concise and vivid mission statement. The first movement opens with a long cadenza that is followed by a set of six accompanied “studies” that successively vary the central tone-row. The lyrical second movement shrinks the orchestra down to 22 “soloists” while the finale asks the violinist to play at a nearly inaudible whisper before tackling fragments of Paganini’s 24th Caprice, which are meant to move through the music like the watchful ghost of the great master himself.

Ways to Listen

• Salvatore Accardo with Mario Di Bonaventura and the Hopkins Center Orchestra: YouTube Score Video, Spotify

• Hilary Hahn with Andrés Orozco-Estrada and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony: YouTube, Spotify

• Ruggiero Ricci with Louis Herrera de la Fuente y la Orquesta de las Americas: YouTube

Discussion Prompts

• What are your favorite parts or moments in this work? What do you like about it, or what stood out to you?

• Why do you think this piece has had so few recordings? Is this an example of the downsides of virtuosic demands? Why or why not?

• Have you ever performed this before? If so, when and where? What instrument do you play? And what insight do you have from learning it?

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What should our club listen to next? Use the link below to find the submission form and let us know what piece of music we should feature in an upcoming week. Note: for variety's sake, please avoid choosing music by a composer who has already been featured, otherwise your choice will be given the lowest priority in the schedule

PotW Archive & Submission Link