Robert Schumann’s Violin Concerto in D minor, was his only violin concerto and one of his last significant compositions, and one that remained unknown to all but a very small circle for more than 80 years after it was written.

Composition

Schumann wrote it in Düsseldorf between 11 September and 3 October 1853 for the violinist Joseph Joachim. He had just previously completed another work for Joachim, the Fantasie in C major op.131, and then later in October composed for Joachim the 'F-A-E' Sonata for violin and piano, jointly with his pupil Albert Dietrich and the young Johannes Brahms, who had entered the Schumanns’ life on 1 October. It appears that Schumann composed the finale of the Concerto in three days: 1-3 October, after making Brahms’s acquaintance. The title of this article contains the character ü. Where it is unavailable or not desired, the name may be represented as Duesseldorf. ... 1853 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... Joseph Joachim Joseph Joachim (June 28, 1831 – August 15, 1907) (pronounced YO-a-chim) was a violinist, conductor, composer and teacher. ... The ‘F-A-E Sonata, a four-movement work for violin and piano, is an interesting example of a collaborative effort by three composers. ... Albert Hermann Dietrich (born 28 August 1829 at Golk, near Meissen; died 20 November 1908 in Berlin) was a German composer and conductor, remembered less for his own achievements than for his friendship with Johannes Brahms. ... Johannes Brahms Johannes Brahms (May 7, 1833 – April 3, 1897) was a German composer of the Romantic period. ...

Subsequent history and conflicting opinions

Though Joachim performed Schumann’s Fantaisie, he never performed the Violin Concerto, whose manuscript he retained throughout his life, after playing it through with piano accompaniment for Schumann in October 1853. After Schumann’s attempted suicide in February 1854 and subsequent decline and death in a sanatorium in Endenich, Joachim evidently suspected the Concerto was a product of Schumann’s madness and thought of the music as morbid. Joachim’s biographer Andreas Moser reproduced a letter in which Joachim discussed Schumann’s concerto as showing ‘a certain exhaustion, which attempts to wring out the last resources of spiritual energy’, though ‘certain individual passages bear witness to the deep feelings of the creative artist’.^[1] 1854 (MDCCCLIV) was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... Endenich is a quarter of Bonn since 1904 in Germany. ...

Joachim’s opinion prevailed on the composer’s widow Clara and on Brahms, and the work was not published in the Complete Edition of Schumann’s works and was in effect kept secret throughout the 19th century. Brahms did however publish, in a supplementary volume of the Schumann Edition, ‘Schumann’s last musical thought’, a theme on which Schumann had begun to compose variations in early 1854. Schumann had thought the theme had been dictated to him by the spirits of Mendelssohn and Schubert, no longer recognizing that it was a melody he had used in the slow movement of the Violin Concerto. Brahms also wrote a set of piano-duet variations on this theme, his opus 23.

Clara Schumann Clara Josephine Wieck Schumann (September 13, 1819 – May 20, 1896) was a German musician, one of the leading pianists of the Romantic era, as well as a composer, and wife of composer Robert Schumann. ... Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, born and known generally as Felix Mendelssohn (February 3, 1809 – November 4, 1847) was a German composer and conductor of the early Romantic period. ... Franz Schubert Franz Peter Schubert (January 31, 1797 – November 19, 1828) was an Austrian composer. ...

Spirit voices
Joachim deposited the manuscript of the concerto with the Prussian State Library in Berlin, and deposed in his will (he died in 1907) that the work should be not played nor published until 100 years after the composer's death, i.e. until 1953. However in March 1933, during a spiritualist séance in London attended by Joachim's two grand-nieces, the sister violinists Jelly d'Arányi and Adila Fachiri, a spirit-voice identifying himself as Robert Schumann requested Miss d'Aranyi to recover an unpublished work of his (of which she claimed to have no knowledge) and to perform it. In a second message, this time from the spirit of Joachim, they were directed to the Prussian State Library.

Menuhin's involvement
Yet no more was heard for four years, until in 1937 Schott, the music-publisher in Mainz, sent a copy of the score to Yehudi Menuhin asking for an opinion. He played it through with Hephzibah Menuhin, and reported to the conductor Vladimir Golschmann in July 1937 that it was the historically missing link of the violin literature. Menuhin planned to deliver the world premiere at San Francisco, and announced it for October 3rd, but was interrupted by the appearance of Jelly d'Aranyi, who claimed the right of first performance for herself on the basis of the spiritualist messages.

First performances and recording
However all of this was to no avail, for the world copyright to the concerto was held in Germany, and the German government insisted on giving the world premiere. Georg Kulenkampff had worked on the score in some detail to render it playable, with Paul Hindemith (who, though his own works were now prohibited from performance in Germany, prepared the violin-piano reduction) and with George Schunemann, and it was Kulenkampff who gave the first performance, on November 26th 1937, with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. Menuhin gave the second performance, in the piano version, accompanied by Ferguson Webster, at the Carnegie Hall on 6 December 1937, and repeated this with the St Louis Symphony Orchestra under Golschmann on 23 December. Jelly d'Aranyi gave the first London performance, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Kulenkampff recorded it soon after the first performance.^[2] Berlin State Library – Prussian Cultural Heritage (German: Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz) is a library in Berlin, Germany. ... This article is about the capital of Germany. ... This article is about the capital of England and the United Kingdom. ... Jelly dAranyi (Hungarian: Aranyi Jelly) (born in Budapest, May 30, 1893, died in Florence, March 30, 1966) was a Hungarian violinist. ... Schott may refer to Heinrich Wilhelm Schott, a 19th century botanist Schott Glass, a German glass products manufacturer ... Mainz is a city in Germany and the capital of the German federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate. ... Yehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin, OM, KBE (April 22, 1916 – March 12, 1999) was an American violinist and conductor who spent most of his performing career in the United Kingdom. ... Hephzibah Menuhin was the sister of famed violinist Yehudi Menuhin. ... Vladimir Golschmann (born 16 December 1893 in Paris, France, died 1 March 1972, New York City) was a French conductor. ... This page is a candidate for speedy deletion. ... Georg Kulenkampff (23 January 1898 - 4 October 1948) was a German violinist. ... Paul Hindemith aged 28. ... The Berlin Philharmonic rehearsing in the Berliner Philharmonie. ... Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street. ... The Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO) was founded in 1880, making it the second oldest symphony in the United States after the New York Philharmonic. ... This article is about the capital of England and the United Kingdom. ... The BBC Symphony Orchestra is the principal orchestra of the British Broadcasting Corporation and one of the leading orchestras in Britain. ...

The Concerto has only slowly made its way into the concert repertoire, partly due to the authority of Joachim’s judgement of it and a general critical perception that the first movement was too heavily scored; but it is now recognized as an important work of the composer. For a recording made in 1988 the German violinist Thomas Zehetmair went back to Schumann’s original manuscript, correcting many errors in the published edition.

The Music

The Concerto is in the traditional three-movement form, fast-slow-fast. It belongs less to the poetic and passionate style of Schumann's early masterpieces than to the more objective, classical manner of his later music, as ushered in by the 'Rhenish' Symphony of 1850. Certainly the opening movement in D minor is conceived more on symphonic than concertante lines. Its powerful opening subject dominates the proceedings, and although the violin’s role is extremely taxing its subordination to a ‘symphonic’ scheme is emphasized by the fact that there is no cadenza. The slow movement, in B flat, has the character of an intensely lyrical intermezzo, and passes without a break into a vigorous and dance-like sonata-rondo finale in D major. An unusual feature of the movement is its strong polonaise rhythm. Robert Schumanns Symphony No. ... In music, a cadenza (Italian for cadence) is, generically, an improvised or written-out ornamental passage played or sung by a soloist or soloists, usually in a free rhythmic style, and often allowing for virtuosic display. ... Typical rhythm of a Polonaise For a robe à la polonaise, see Polonaise (clothing). ...

Dietrich's concerto

Albert Dietrich, who must certainly have seen Schumann’s Violin Concerto in the month of its completion, composed a Violin Concerto of his own in 1874, intended for Joachim, which is in the same key (D minor) and also has a finale in Polonaise rhythm. It is possible that he was influenced by his private knowledge of the unperformed work. Albert Hermann Dietrich (born 28 August 1829 at Golk, near Meissen; died 20 November 1908 in Berlin) was a German composer and conductor, remembered less for his own achievements than for his friendship with Johannes Brahms. ... Year 1874 (MDCCCLXXIV) was a common year starting on Thursday (link with display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Saturday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). ...

References

Sources

• Hans Gál, Schumann Orchestral Music (London: BBC Music Guides, 1979), 59-62.
• R. Magidoff, Yehudi Menuhin: The story of the Man and the Musician (Robert Hale, London 1956), 182-187.

External links

• Violin Concerto: Free scores at the International Music Score Library Project.