Igor Stravinsky's Violin Concerto in D is a neoclassical violin concerto in four movements, composed in the summer of 1931 and premiered on October 23, 1931. It lasts approximately twenty minutes.
It was used by George Balanchine as music for two ballets.
The Violin Concerto was commissioned by Blair Fairchild, an American composer, diplomat, and the patron of the young Polish violinist Samuel Dushkin.[1]
Willy Strecker of B. Schotts Söhne, Stravinsky's music publisher at the time (and also a friend of Dushkin's), asked Stravinsky to compose a concerto for Dushkin. Though Stravinsky was reluctant, citing unfamiliarity with the instrument, Strecker assured the composer that Dushkin would consult about technical matters.[2] Stravinsky noted in his autobiography that Dushkin's availability for such advice was a factor in his undertaking the Violin Concerto.[3] He also sought the opinion of composer and violist Paul Hindemith, who allayed Stravinsky's fears, suggesting that his unfamiliarity with the instrument might help him come up with new possibilities. Stravinsky met with Dushkin at Strecker's residence in Wiesbaden and decided to go ahead.
Early in the compositional process, Stravinsky devised a chord which stretches from D4 to E5 to A6. One day while he and Dushkin were having lunch in a Paris restaurant, he sketched the chord on a napkin for the violinist, who thought the chord unplayable, to Stravinsky's disappointment. On returning home, however, Dushkin tried it out on his violin and was surprised to discover it was actually quite easy to play. He immediately telephoned Stravinsky to say that it could be played after all. The composer later referred to this chord as his "passport to the Concerto".[4]
Stravinsky began sketching the Concerto in Paris early in 1931, with composition beginning in earnest in Nice, where the first two movements were completed and the third begun. In the summer, Stravinsky moved to the Château de la Véronnière in Voreppe in Isère, where he completed the third movement and wrote all of the fourth.[5]
The manuscripts are dated May 20, 1931, for the first two movements and June 10, 1931, for the third, all in Nice, with no date given for the fourth. The full orchestral score is signed and dated "Voreppe (Isère) la Vironnière, 13/25. Sept. 1931".[2]
Though Stravinsky told his publisher he wanted to write "a true virtuoso concerto", "the texture is always more characteristic of chamber music than orchestral music".[6] He also observed "I did not compose a cadenza, not because I did not care about exploiting violin virtuosity, but because the violin in combination was my real interest. But virtuosity for its own sake has only a small role in my Concerto, and the technical demands of the piece are relatively tame."[7]
The work was premiered on October 23, 1931, in Berlin, being broadcast, with Dushkin playing the violin and the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Stravinsky himself. Dushkin also gave the work's first US performance in January 1932, with Serge Koussevitzky conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra. He also made the first recording of the piece in 1935, with Stravinsky conducting the Orchestre Lamoureux.
The Violin Concerto contains four movements:
A typical performance of the concerto will last approximately 20 minutes.
In addition to the solo violin, the score calls for: piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, cor anglais, 2 clarinets in A/B♭, E-flat clarinet (doubling 3rd clarinet in A), 3 bassoons (third doubling contrabassoon), 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, and strings.
The concerto was choreographed by George Balanchine as Balustrade in 1941. It premiered on January 22, 1941, with Colonel de Basil's company Original Ballet Russe. In 1972 Balanchine created a new ballet to the music, entitled Violin Concerto and had since been retitled Stravinsky Violin Concerto. It was premiered in 1972 by the New York City Ballet at the New York State Theatre as part of the Stravinsky Festival.[8]
