The winds then present a winding, flowing line, which is taken up by violins and violas. This line turns to minor. There follows a variant of Theme 2 in the minor key, with its elements split between winds and strings. It becomes hushed before a bridging bass descent. The strings suddenly erupt into a powerful, martial idea with prominent dotted long-short rhythms.

Violin Concerto (Brahms)

The violins break into faster, arching notes under punctuating chords. This merges into a series of churning descents from the upper strings against heavy syncopation in the low strings and winds. These propel the music into the dramatic first entry of the soloist. Amid detached runs and arpeggios with double-stops are fragments of Theme 1. The orchestral strings provide isolated interjections of the martial Closing Theme.

After incorporating several rhythms, the soloist then strives upward with shorter gestures. The music quiets down, and the soloist widens the arpeggios to two beats in irregular groups of five notes. At this point, the oboe enters with a descending line, which is taken over by the clarinet and bassoon. The drum roll continues, but the horns now hold a third instead of an octave. The flute enters with a line reminiscent of Theme 1. This is taken over by the bassoon as the solo violin arpeggios become smooth again.

There is a turn back to the major key. The solo violin finally abandons its arpeggios in favor of an oscillating motion that gradually moves downward with the orchestral strings. It eventually slows down to winding triplets groups of three as the timpani roll finally ends. The low strings, then the orchestral violins, slowly arch upward. The solo violin winds downward, moving from triplets to groups of four. It finally begins a steady upward scale that includes many chromatic half-steps. This scale leaps down an octave twice before finally reaching its high point. Brahms indicates a slowing here rit.

The soloist lingers on an arpeggio before leading into a sustained trill. This trill marks the end of the improvisatory introductory section of the solo exposition.


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The soloist presents it with light accompaniment, including arching viola arpeggios. After the initial phrase, the soloist delays the continuation of the theme with another indulgence in leisurely scales and trills, including passages in triplet rhythm, over a soft string background. The orchestral strings, first the violins, then the cellos and violas, play the phrase initially presented by the oboes at the beginning of the orchestral exposition.

The solo violin continues its decorations over this. They are quite high and angular, again including scales arpeggios, and some triplet rhythm. In a passage similar in character to the unison at 0: The top note of these chords E remains constant until the final ascent.

Below this, the low strings play the leaping octaves of the earlier unison idea. The strings continue the unison leaps of the transition. They break off after a loud chord, leaving the soloist to gradually reach back up. The triumphant statement of Theme 1 previously heard after this music is omitted. As the soloist continues the pattern of arpeggios, the flutes surreptitiously enter with the second theme. The orchestral violins take over Theme 2 from the flutes.

This follows the pattern of 1: The winding, flowing line from the winds is taken over by the soloist instead of the orchestral strings and without the turn to minor. The minor-key variant of Theme 2 is skipped. This beautifully emerges out of the winding, flowing line. It features languid dotted rhythms and gently descending leaps, along with winding arpeggios.

It breaks into a series of wide leaps as great as a tenth, supported by double stops. It is supported by slow-moving wind chords and plucked pizzicato arpeggios from the orchestral strings. These again become mildly syncopated and are now significantly extended as the winds drop out and the plucked string background is reduced to isolated notes.

The soloist then breaks into even wider, higher leaps as the winds re-enter and the music turns to the minor key A minor. Finally, the soloist is isolated in a chromatic descent that is closed by a slow, turning gesture. The soloist joins in presenting the elements of that variant with double stops. All of Theme 3 can now be seen as a wholesale insertion. There is the same hushed, bridging bass descent. The orchestral strings provide light, but syncopated accompaniment.

The soloist then reaches very high for a final rapid descending scale as the winds enter with an unstable, sustained chord. The soloist turns around and rushes upward, leaping down once before continuing, demanding a response from the orchestra. The orchestra, complete with a timpani roll, responds to the previous passage with two emphatic chords and a passionate minor-key outburst of Theme 1 the key is still A minor. It is developed with syncopation, arching arpeggios and triplet rhythms. The winds, joined by strings, provide punctuations based on the Closing Theme.

The punctuations based on the Closing Theme are heard again, and are extremely emphatic. They alternate with the winds, who play the variant of Theme 2 initially heard before the closing Theme, now in major. Both ideas are heard twice in alternation. The second statement of Theme 3 is an octave lower and quieter.

It continues the minor-key variant of Theme 2 in C minor. It breaks into double stops as the orchestral strings provide a syncopated background with slow-moving and repeated notes. The passage is filled with quiet intensity. The soloist begins a continuous rhythm of short-short-long figures beginning on upbeats. These move mostly by step, but there are shifts in register.

The short notes often turn under the preceding long note and back. A brief downward leap happens before the violin line jumps high again and gradually works down, all in the same continuous rhythm. It then works its way up twice more. The descending line derived from the Theme 2 variant is now in the orchestral strings. These strings die away, leaving the soloist to continue the short-short-long groups alone for two bars, culminating in a descending arpeggio.

The orchestral strings incorporate the short-short-long rhythm under this. Fast arching arpeggios in groups of six begin after the ascending trill.

The strings reach a large cadence in C minor. Finally, the music moves away from C minor. The short-short-long figures become more static, and the music seems to have slid up to C-sharp minor, but a loud chord of A minor from the winds diverts this as the short-short-long figures finally end.

The soloist begins a series of wide two-note leaps slurred and bowed across bar lines. These work down and back up five times. They vaguely suggest Theme 3. There is light accompaniment from strings and bassoons. The violins, low strings, and bassoons play leaps resembling the transition. The violas play pulsating triplets.

The entire passage works from A minor back to the home key of D. After the fifth descent and ascent from the soloist reaching the highest notes , there is a final descent anticipating the arrival on D, which is delayed. The strings all play in thick tremolo. The alternation of these two elements happens a second time.

This time, the Theme 1 music intensifies in preparation for the re-transition. The strings, timpani, and most winds drop out as the soloist begins a wide sweeping descent and ascent culminating in a high sustained note. At that point, the winds begin a winding line that slows slightly over a powerful crescendo and timpani roll. The solo violin slowly descends. The orchestra enters suddenly after the preceding crescendo. The winds and brass mainly present the theme, the strings remaining in tremolo with arching motion from the violins.

After the initial phrase, there is a brief pause, then an echo with plucked strings and winds. The following violin bridge is much abbreviated from the scales and trills before 5: The phrase initially presented by the oboes is presented a fourth higher than in either exposition, partly as a result of the previous shorter bridge. This allows Brahms to continue the music in the pattern of the solo exposition at 5: There are some changes.

The high solo violin presents the first part of the phrase with clarinet and orchestral violins. The horns now play the continuation that had been played by violas and cellos.

Opus 77 Listening Guide - Violin Concerto in D Major

Over this, the flute takes the first part of the original decorations, which the soloist takes over after two bars. The top note of the triple stops is A instead of E. The register has shifted, so the music is now a fifth lower rather than a fourth higher than the solo exposition. This time, the oboes play it instead of the flutes as the soloist continues the arpeggios and breaks into triplets. After the orchestral violins take over, the flute and oboe enter, doubling them. They hold a note with the oboe and horns over the descent of quiet, winding harmonies.

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Creative Commons Attribution 4. Creative Commons Attribution 3. Work Title Violin Concerto Alt ernative. Duration 39 minutes Composer Time Period Comp. Retrieved from " http: Concertos ; For violin, orchestra ; Scores featuring the violin ; Scores featuring the orchestra ; For orchestra with soloists ; For violin, piano arr ; For 2 players ; Scores featuring the piano ; For piano arr ; For 1 player ; For recorder, keyboard arr ; Scores featuring the recorder ; Scores featuring keyboard soloists.

Contents 1 Performances 1. Radio Suisse Romande , Recorded December 9, Victoria Hall , Geneva. Javascript is required for this feature. This section again finishes with a small cadenza by the solo violin in measure The coda begins at measure with a faster tempo marking.

In the coda, the melody from the A section is rhythmically reshaped with a quarter note and a triplet. The coda finishes with subito forte chords. The work was premiered in Leipzig on January 1, , by Joachim, who insisted on opening the concert with the Beethoven Violin Concerto , written in the same key, and closing with the Brahms. For instance, Brahms has the violin enter with the timpani after the orchestral introduction: Brahms conducted the premiere. Various modifications were made between then and the work's publication by Fritz Simrock later in the year.

Critical reaction to the work was mixed: Against these critics, modern listeners often feel that Brahms was not really trying to produce a conventional vehicle for virtuoso display; he had higher musical aims. Similar criticisms have been voiced against the string concerti of other great composers, such as Beethoven 's Violin Concerto [ citation needed ] and Hector Berlioz 's Harold in Italy , for making the soloist "almost part of the orchestra.

The technical demands on the soloist are formidable, with generous use of multiple stopping , broken chords, rapid scale passages, and rhythmic variation. The difficulty may to some extent be attributed to the composer's being chiefly a pianist. Nevertheless, Brahms chose the violin-friendly key of D major for his concerto.

Since the violin is tuned G—D—A—E, the open strings, resonating sympathetically, add brilliance to the sound. For the same reason, composers of many eras e.

More by Johannes Brahms

The violin entrance in the first movement is sampled extensively in Alicia Keys 's song, Karma. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.


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