Samuel Barber
Violin Concerto
The lasting popularity of Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings, Op. 11 (1936) may make one assume he was always considered an accomplished composer for strings. Yet when he came to write his only violin concerto this ability was questioned by his sponsor, who refused to pay for the work.
The story runs thus: in 1939 soap tycoon Samuel Fels offered Barber a commission to write a piece for his adopted son, violinist Iso Briselli, a fellow student with Barber at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia (both graduated in 1934). Barber took an advance on the commission and traveled to Switzerland to compose, finishing the first two movements. He continued to Paris but found the Nazi threat required all Americans to leave the country, so he returned to the U.S. and showed the unfinished work to his sponsor.
There are varying stories of what happened next. Briselli said that he liked the first two movements, but felt the third was not related to the first two thematically, lacking any recapitulation or references to the previous movements. A different story appeared in Nathan Broder’s 1954 biography of Barber, in which Briselli is said to have found the finale too difficult to play. This story may have been a face-saving move on the composer’s part. In any case, another student at the Curtis Institute, Herbert Baumel, was asked to study the piece and play it for the school’s founder, Mrs. Curtis Bok, its director, Josef Hofmann, and composer Gian Carlo Menotti, along with Barber. Baumel played the movement and a deal was struck: Barber kept his half of the commission, Fels and Briselli kept the other half and relinquished all performance rights. Baumel performed it with the Curtis Institute orchestra and conductor Fritz Reiner in 1939; the official public premiere was given by Albert Spalding with the Philadelphia Orchestra under the baton of Eugene Ormandy on February 7, 1941. Barber himself provided the program notes for the latter concert:
The first movement – allegro molto moderato – begins with a lyrical first subject announced at once by the solo violin, without any orchestral introduction. This movement as a whole has perhaps more the character of a sonata than concerto form. The second movement – andante sostenuto – is introduced by an extended oboe solo. The violin enters with a contrasting and rhapsodic theme, after which it repeats the oboe melody of the beginning. The last movement, a perpetual motion, exploits the more brilliant and virtuosic character of the violin.
Barber’s music is said to look both backward to the lush imagery of the Romantic period and forward to the music of the 20th century, with its jarring dissonance and jangling rhythmic energy. This concerto’s first movement may best exemplify the theory, juxtaposing a soaring lyrical theme first stated by the solo violin, a jumping, slightly edgy second theme introduced by the clarinet, and the straining clashes of the movement’s climactic points, when the violin leaps upward and the full orchestra rushes in with a torrent of unexpected, anguished sound. Though the tension subsides in a tender coda, it reappears in the longing, pensive theme of the second movement. Harsh brass or ominous lower strings interject at times, now loudly, now softly, and the climax comes with a great, dark chord accented by rolling timpani. The movement is brought to a solemn conclusion – then the drum sounds again and the violin launches into the brief, breathless, and brilliant final movement. One must admit Barber made good on his promise to deliver a virtuoso showpiece.
April 1, 2001
Amended April 2010 at the request of the Briselli family. See
www.isobriselli.com