Three Major Violin Concertos — Why They Are Difficult
I’d rather not speak about ranking those beautiful violin concertos because they all are all three very difficult on the same level, but also very difficult to play for the violinist as well as I don’t like ranking concertos, but also difficult to hear for the listeners. You can think I don’t like the other concerts and which is not true at all.
First of you need to know a little bit about these composers.
Brahms was born in Hamburg on the 7th of May 1833. He died on the 3rd of April 1897. He was a German composer, pianist, and conductor. He comes from a Lutheran family. During his professional music life, he resided in Vienna. He wrote many works for symphony orchestra, chamber music, piano, organ and for voice and chorus. Brahms was very close friends with Robert Schumann’s wife Clara Schumann and violinist Joseph Joachim (he wrote his violin concerto for).
Tsjaikovski was Born on the 7th of May 1840 and he died on the 6th of November 1893. Tsjaikovski was born in Votkinst, a small town in Vyatka Governorate (now Udmurtia) Russian Empire. He was a Russian composer in the Romantic period. He comes from a military family. He needed to be that man too, but he wanted to be a musician. He begins his musical career when he was 5 years old and played the piano. He went to the Saint Petersburg Conservatory and there he graduated in 1865. In 1884 he got honored by Emperor Alexander III for a lifetime pension. He belongs to The Five together with Mily Balakirev, Alexander Borodin, Cesar Cui, Rimsky Korsakov and Modest Mussorgsky. Tsjaikovski married to Antonia Miliukova. He was not happily married as it was discovered he was homosexual.
Paganini was born in 1782 en he died in 1840. He was an Italian violinist, violist, guitarist, and composer. He was born in Genoa. His father was a mandolin player and a trader (very unsuccessful). Paganini got violin lessons from his local teachers Giovanni Servetta, Giacomo Costo. But as all of them couldn’t teach them properly as Paganini has so much talent, he was sent to other teachers: Ferdinando Paer and Gasparo Ghiretti. Paganini has chronic illnesses why he couldn’t play a lot of violins or go on tour. These chronic illnesses were not proofed, but his concert schedule took a toll under this. In 1822 Paganini goy Syphillis and in 1834, when he was in Paris, he got tuberculosis. After that he got fewer concerts to give. He has a son with singer Antonia Bianchi, whom he met in Milan in 1813.
No violinist
Brahms and Tsjaikovski were no violinist and didn’t know how to write for the violin, Paganini at the other hand, was a violinist himself and knew exactly what to write and all the way he tested the violinist of how capable he is using the instrument.
Paganini had big hands and could do a lot more with chords, which the violinist with small hands have to work much harder to get it done. But that is for each violinist a challenge, I think.
Listening to the concertos
When you listen to those concertos and rank in difficulty, I would say, Brahms, Tsjaikkovski, and Paganini. Brahms has no melody in his violin concerto. Tsjaikovski has no melody as well, but you can hear if the violinist has difficulty with playing this concerto as you can play the wrong notes easily, but on the other hand, the violinist can easily use the phrasing to not let you hear the wrong notes and chords. With Brahms, you can also do that, but it is more like you play notes and chords that just written after each other with no purpose. Paganini has a lot of passages that re difficult to hear in this concerto.
All three violin concertos have not really a melody like Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn or Vivaldi used in their violin concertos. The last four composers belong to the classical period and the Brahms, Tsjaikovski, and Paganini belong to the Romantic period.
Brahms wrote his only violin concerto for the legendary violinist Joseph Joachim. As Joachim put this concerto in words: “The one by Brahms vies with it in seriousness.” As said, there are a few melodies in it as far as you can speak of a melody, but the phrases they used could be a melody as well.
Tsjaikovski wrote his violin concerto for violinist Leopold Auer. This is what Auer said about it: “When Tchaikovsky came to me one evening, about thirty years ago, and presented me with a roll of music, great was my astonishment on finding this proved to be the Violin Concerto, dedicated to me, completed and already in print. My first feeling was one of gratitude for this proof of his sympathy toward me, which honored me as an artist. On closer acquaintance with the composition, I regretted that the great composer had not shown it to me before committing it to print. Much unpleasantness might then have been spared us both….”
Paganini concerto no. 1 is not dedicated to a violinist, but he was a violinist himself. But later on, there was doubt about the tuning of the violin concerto. Or it was in D-flat or it was in E-flat major. But the thing is that the orchestration is in E-flat major and the violinist in D-flat with the note that the tuning must be in the scordatura tuning sounding as E-flat for the violinist.
When you rank classical music, you should not only listen to the difficulty of the violinist, but also to the orchestration and when you’re more familiar with playing that particular instrument, you also should look to what the violinist should achieve to play this kind of piece and the way — and in which circumstance and for whom — the composer composed the music.
This story has been published earlier on Quora.
Agnes Laurens is a writer. She writes for the local newspaper. Agnes lives in Bunnik, The Netherlands, with her husband and three daughters. Writing is — aside from playing the violin — one of her passions since childhood. She is on Twitter and Instagram.
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