Violin Concerto 2013
date completed
2013
duration
30'
instrumentation
violin and orchestra
orchestration
2(II=picc.).2.2(II=bass).2-2.2.2.1-perc(2).hp.pno-strings
commission
Berkeley Symphony
premiere
February 2014 in Berkeley, CA
I - expo
II - q=152
III - aria
IV - coda, coda
Program Note by Samuel Adams
The exterior of the piece is similar to many violin concertos. A dynamic between the soloist and the ensemble unfolds over its duration, it has cadenzas, and it requires a high degree of virtuosity of the violinist. But to find relevance in these tropes, I had to reconsider their emotional profiles in my own terms. Here, cadenzas, which typically signify confidence, reveal vulnerability. Recapitulations, which typically signify comfort, reveal a suspicion of making the same mistake twice. Sequences, which typically signify assurance, reveal stubbornness.
The work is in two ‘acts,’ each of which contain two movements played without pause.
I: 'expo' is made from two contrasting materials: a set of translucent triads played by the strings and aggressive interjections by the solo violin. The shape of the movement quickly departs from a conventional subject/countersubject dialectic and proposes a completely different narrative. The movement is punctuated by several quiet and concise cadenzas.
II: 'q=152' marks the tempo of this movement. Over its brief duration (c. 5 minutes) the solo violin is at its most virtuosic, gliding above the ensemble at intervals as wide as seven octaves.
III: 'aria: patiently waiting for the past to come' is made from fragments of a baroque ritornello form. After several statements of an unstable harmonic cycle, a failed recapitulation emerges.
IV: 'coda, coda' is less of a ‘movement,’ and more of a series of question marks. The statements presented in the first movement are reiterated above a texture that slips away like water. In the last moments of the work, the orchestra ascends and descends simultaneously, leaving the violin with only its open strings, oscillating.
- Samuel Adams
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press
"Samuel Adams’ new Violin Concerto is a work of quiet and spellbinding feats and effects, a work of imagination that releases the listener’s imagination. Attending its world premiere Thursday at Zellerbach Hall was like riding on a sound cloud: There, high above, was the solo violinist, spinning long lyric lines that twist and fan out like kite ribbons; and there, way down below, was the orchestra, a landscape of gentle surges and eddies and strategic colorized plumes, drifting up toward the kite."
"The sensation of great distances, of distinct levels of altitude and degrees of light — it was extraordinary, and the result was a dramatic journey across the concerto’s four movements, which last close to half an hour. "
San Jose Mercury News ↗
“The third movement, aria: patiently waiting for the past to come, was especially poignant. In an achingly beautiful use of texture and form, Adams presents a series of deconstructed fragments of a baroque ritornello form. An effect used before in Adams’s Drift and Providence (commissioned last year by the San Francisco Symphony) was once again employed to great effect: the brakedrums in the percussion section were rubbed rather than struck, creating a grating and ominous texture unique to Adams’ writing. Adams refers to the final movement coda, coda in his notes as “a series of question marks” which eventually fades away leaving only the solo violin’s open strings. It was refreshing to hear a concerto end without the proverbial bang. The quiet ending left the feeling that while the concerto explored themes of uncertainty, Adams was quite sure of the way in which he presented those themes.”
ICAREIFYOULISTEN ↗
