VIOLIN CONCERTO (THE LEEDS) op.441 (July 1992) Listen to this Work

Commissioned by: The City of Leeds to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the granting of its charter as a city
Instrumentation: 2(=picc+afl).2(II=ca).2(II=bcl).2.cbsn - 4400 - timp - perc(1): tam-t/cyms/susp.cym/tgl/glsp - harp - strings
[Key to Abbreviations]
Duration: 35 mins
First Performance: Christiane Edinger The Northern Philharmonia conducted by Paul Daniel at Leeds Town Hall 6th February 1993.
Full score for hire
Study score for hire
Orchestral parts for hire

Christiane Edinger (solo violin), The Northern Philharmonia conducted by Paul Daniel. ASV CD DCA905 1994

Revelations ASV compilation CD 1997

Movements

• 1: Allegro Assai 19 minutes 54 seconds
  
• 2: Adagio 7 minutes 09 seconds
  
• 3: Allegro con Brio 5 minutes 33 seconds
  

Notes

Composer's note: In 1991 I composed and recorded a  'cantata' overnight as a challenge for the BBC TV programme 'Challenge Anneka'. It was done for a good cause, to help promote 'The Paralympics' and a large crowd of participants and fundraisers joined us at ITV in London to watch the first broadcast of it at 11.15pm that night April 17th. I found myself talking to Bernard Atha who ran the Arts in Leeds. He was amazed by it and wondered, since I could write a cantata overnight, whether I could compose a full-scale violin concerto for Nigel Kennedy in time for the centenary of Leeds in early 1993. I said that I had always longed to write such a work and would be delighted. Arrangements began but although I knew Nigel I couldn't get any response from either him or his agent at that time. Years later his manager wrote and said that when he moved offices he found my letter behind the radiator! That September I was visiting a music festival in a castle near Steyr in Austria and heard some terrific violin practise coming from the next room. I was so excited by the sound that I sat down and sketched out the opening theme of the concerto, taking it to the terrace where the violinist Christiana Edinger was having coffee. She said 'Let's try it' and our host Ilona von Ronay suggested that we go to Bruckner's house in the village where there was a good piano.  On playing it Christiane declared she would love to give the premiere. I began work and finished the orchestration the following July. Christiane then began rehearsing it, giving the first performance in February 1993.

My inner, personal motivation for composing the concerto was quite different. My mother, who had played and taught me the violin, had died in 1990 to my most heartfelt grief. On the title page of the concerto I placed a dedication 'To the memory of a most true and saintly soul'.

In 1995/6 I created a 3-act ballet with choreographer Robert North for The Gothenburg Opera House and Robert decided to use the first 2 movements of the violin concerto as scored. The 1st movement accompanied the young Eva's trials and tribulations in love affairs making a substantial part of Act 2. But the third act shows Eva as an old woman who dies and in an extraordinary coup de theatre all the other living characters freeze and Eva continues to move- now in the world of her 'after-life'.   Somehow sensing the nature of my slow movement he choreographed a dance this which proved memorably moving.

Performances

4th December 1997	Katerina Andreasson, The Philharmonia, Royal Festival Hall
December 1996	Lorraine McAslan, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Marble Hill Concerts
20th August 1994	Christiane Edinger, Howard Blake conducting The English Sinfonia (first London performance), Kenwood Lakeside Concerts
6th February 1993	English Northern Philharmonia / Christiane Edinger / Paul Daniel, Town Hall, Leeds

Reviews

---

Inspired, intense, yet infused with spontaneous feeling. The first movement.. is very appealing. The performance brings a moment of utter magic when, after the solist's hauntingly introspective (written) cadenza, the alto flute floats the main theme exquisitely over gently violin arpeggios. The slow movement again brings a hushed opening, unforgettable when the violinist, following a big tutti, takes up the main theme on a thread of tone ending with a breathtaking pianissimo. The finale is in the best 'dancing' tradition of the great concertos from Mozart and Beethoven onwards.

Ivan March, Gramophone, 12/1994

---

Not only has Blake created one of the most radiantly beautiful concertos ever written, wirth a slow movement of unsurpassed loveliness, he has shown that 'Modern' Music can be immediately enjoyable.

Classical Music, 12/1994

---

This is unequivocally great music, accessible, expressive and often ravishingly beautiful.

The Strad,

Related Works

---