Violin Concerto in D Symphonies of Wind Instruments Igor Stravinsky n 1930 the German publishing company of the range of the violin by stretching the IB. Schott’s Söhne gained the rights to a num - phrase to the octave below and the octave ber of works Igor Stravinsky had composed above, Stravinsky would insist on altering early in his career. The following year one of the very foundations correspondingly. He the firm’s directors, Willy Strecker, broached behaved like an architect who if asked to the possibility of the composer writing a change a room on the third floor had to go brand-new piece for their catalogue. Strecker down to the foundations to keep the pro - had recently made the acquaintance of the portions of his whole structure. young American violinist Samuel Dushkin, whose musical outlook he believed might ap - peal to Stravinsky — perhaps even enough to IN SHORT merit the full-blown Violin Concerto in D. Born: June 17, 1882, in Oranienbaum, now Stravinsky later recalled in his Autobiography: Lomonosov, Russia Died: April 6, 1971, in New York City I hesitated because I am not a violinist, and Works composed and premiered: I was afraid that my slight knowledge of Violin Concerto composed 1931 in Nice and that instrument would not be sufficient to Voreppe (Isère, France); premiered enable me to solve the many problems October 23, 1931, in Berlin, with the composer which would necessarily arise in the course conducting the Berlin Radio Symphony, of a major work especially composed for it. Samuel Dushkin, soloist. Symphonies of Wind Instruments composed 1920; revised Stravinsky sounded out his colleague Paul 1945–47 into the version performed here; Hindemith, who was a professional violist as dedicated to the memory of Claude Debussy; well as a composer. Hindemith assured Stravin - premiered June 10, 1921, at Queen’s Hall, sky that lack of firsthand experience with the vi - London, with Serge Koussevitzky conducting; in its revised form, on April 11, 1948, at The olin would be no impediment; on the contrary, Town Hall in New York, with the composer he imagined that it would help Stravinsky conducting “avoid a routine technique and would give rise to ideas which would not be suggested by the New York Philharmonic premieres and most recent performances: Violin Concerto familiar movement of the fingers.” premiered February 2, 1961, Alfred Waller - Stravinsky and Dushkin hit it off splen - stein, conductor, Zvi Zeitlan, soloist; most didly, and the composition of the concerto recently performed April 29, 2010, Valery turned into a deeply collaborative work. Gergiev, conductor, Leonidas Kavakos, soloist. Stravinsky took Dushkin’s advice about tech - Symphonies of Wind Instruments, premiered nical matters very seriously, but applying March 8, 1958, Leonard Bernstein, conductor; those ideas was not a simple matter of chang - most recently played, April 22, 2010, Valery ing a note here and there. Dushkin reported: Gergiev, conductor Estimated durations: Violin Concerto, ca. 22 Whenever he accepted one of my suggestions, minutes; Symphonies of Wind Instruments, even a simple change such as extending ca. 10 minutes OCTOBER 2018 | 33 The Violin Concerto was first performed casual reader as much different from “Sym - on a Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra phony of Wind Instruments,” though that is broadcast, which by reports was just barely not what the composer chose to call his piece. up to the task. When Dushkin and Stravinsky It is not a “symphony” at all, at least not in the introduced the composer’s version of the way that term is used to denote a particular piece for violin and piano a year later, the kind of multi-movement orchestral work. critic and musicologist Alfred Einstein ob - Instead, it traces its meaning back to where served that “this time the Berlin Radio Or - the word “symphony” began, to the Greek chestra made a better showing and hit off the roots signifying a “sounding together.” Since work’s precision-based style more faithfully.” Stravinsky uses the plural form of the word, This work finds Stravinsky in his neo- his title conveys the idea of the “soundings Classical — or, better put, neo-Baroque — together” — the sonic combinations — of mode, right down to the fact that the princi - wind instruments. pal theme of the first movement is little more Stravinsky was not deaf to the possibilities than an ornament, a curlicued elaboration on of string instruments, which generally make a single note. Its most fundamental charac - up the core of a symphony orchestra. A sump - teristic is a ceaseless, ebullient sense of tuous work like The Firebird stands as ample rhythmic pulse. That is surely one reason testimony to that. However, as the decade of why choreographer George Balanchine em - the 1910s progressed, he seems to have grown ployed it for his ballet Balustrade , in 1941. increasingly suspicious of the tendency of Stravinsky considered that setting to be one string instruments to be “expressive,” a char - of the most successful of all ballet produc - acteristic that did not jibe well with the way tions using his music. his particular form of sonic modernism was playing out. When he did use strings, he The title of Stravinsky’s Symphonies of increasingly did so in a non-traditional way, Wind Instruments might not strike the as in the entirely “objectified,” partly percus - In the Composer’s Words While consulting with Stravinsky on the Violin Concerto, the soloist, Samuel Dushkin, raised a question concerning rhythm with the composer, who had subjected a certain rhythmic accom - paniment to an alteration that made it suddenly unsymmetrical. Stravinsky responded: In mathematics there are an infinite number of ways of arriving at the number seven. It’s the same with rhythm. The difference is that … in mathematics the sum is the important thing; it makes no difference if you say five and two or two and five, six and one or one and six, and so on. With rhythm, however, the fact that they add up to seven is of secondary im - portance. The important thing is, is it five and two or is it two and five, because five and two is a different person from two and five. Violinist Samuel Dushkin and composer Igor Stravinsky during intermission at the World Premiere of the composer’s Violin Concerto 34 | NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC sive approach to string playing required in In Revision his Three Pieces for String Quartet of 1914. Symphonies of Wind Instruments is an or - When Stravinsky’s Symphonies of Wind In - chestral work that disposes of the string com - struments was new, the conductor led from a ponent entirely. Stravinsky found the wind manuscript score. Stravinsky’s publisher, Edition instruments well suited to the kind of unin - Russe de la Musique, didn’t issue the work in print flected sound he was after. In a commentary until 1926, when it was released as a piano re - he prepared to accompany early perform - duction made by the composer Arthur Lourié. The company generated three sequential proofs of ances of this work, he described Symphonies the orchestral score in 1933, and Stravinsky (as of Wind Instruments as “tonal masses ... well as colleagues) entered substantial revisions sculptured in marble … to be regarded objec - onto two of them; but still the piece was not seen tively by the ear.” through to printed form. The composer used the Stravinsky dedicated the work to his fellow first of these proofs, and Lourié’s piano reduction, composer, Claude Debussy. They had met in when creating a new full score of the work from 1910, when Debussy congratulated him 1945 to 1947, as he did not have access to his own enthusiastically following the premiere of manuscript. The resulting score, published as the The Firebird , and they remained friends from “1947 Revised Version,” therefore differed con - then on. In 1913 Stravinsky dedicated his can - siderably from the 1920 original, moving the tata Zvezdoliki (Le Roi des étoiles ) to Debussy; piece a step further in the direction of an “objec - tive” and even acerbic sound. in 1915 Debussy dedicated the third move - ment of his two-piano suite En blanc et noir to Stravinsky. The latter felt the loss keenly at the outset. “Cheers, hisses and laughter,” when his older colleague died, in March 1918. wrote Ernest Newman, critic for The Musical Not long after that, Stravinsky inscribed in a Times , following the premiere. “I had no idea sketchbook the sonority that became known Stravinsky disliked Debussy so much as this.” as the “bell motif” that would later appear in Stravinsky disliked the performance, too, if Symphonies of Wind Instruments — very pos - for different reasons. “The audience did not sibly, some scholars believe, inspired by hiss enough,” he wrote, placing the blame in thoughts of Debussy. conductor Serge Koussevitzky’s lap. “They In 1920 the Revue musicale , a distin - should have been much angrier . … The radi - guished Parisian publication, began plan - cal misunderstanding was that an attempt ning an issue in tribute to Debussy, and the was made to impose an external pathos on editor approached various composers about the music.” contributing memorial pieces that might be included in a musical supplement titled Instrumentation: Violin Concerto calls for Le Tombeau de Debussy . Stravinsky had re - two flutes and piccolo, two oboes and English cently sketched a solemn chorale, tentatively horn, two clarinets and E-flat clarinet, three for the harmonium, and decided to submit bassoons (one doubling contrabassoon), four that as his piano piece. In orchestrated form horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, (beginning with brass choir) it would serve as timpani, and strings, in addition to the solo vi - the conclusion of Symphonies of Wind In - olin.