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Concerto for Violin & Strings

(2014)
duration 23 minutes
instrumentation violin solo, strings (minimum 4.4.2.2.1)
premiere 9th March 2014 by Vera Panitch and string players from the Royal Danish Academy of Music, conducted by Jean Thorel, at the Concert Hall of the Royal Danish Academy of Music, Copenhagen

composer's notes
A lyrical theme in the solo violin surrounded by echoing undulations in the strings opens this three-movement concerto without pause. Functioning as a thematic frame for the concerto, this melody takes centre stage in both the opening and closing movements, with vastly different guises in each.

The first movement is made up of three contrasting sections. Moving on from the gentle melodic flow of the opening, the strings interrupt the soloist’s reverie with a series of waves that, with insistent rhythm, move up through the ensemble’s registers. The soloist joins in and pushes the music forward more aggressively, sending short flourishes darting off into the ensemble. Rounding off the elements of the first movement is a section of glissandi, set off by the soloist. Like a ball bouncing faster and faster as it comes to a standstill, the glissandi accelerate in their expansions and contractions until finally colliding into a single mass of sound, played by very heavily-bowed strings. From the final such collision a sort of primordial ooze forms, a floating undefined soundscape out of which harmonic structures start to take shape.

These harmonic structures eventually reveal a whisper-quiet chorale, signalling our arrival in the dreamlike second movement. The re-entrance of the now-muted soloist wakes the music up again, the ensemble shimmering like a wall of glass above the main theme before the soloist brings everything back down to earth with an intimate moment of introverted solitude. The strings re-enter, building to a climactic flowing rendition of the chorale above which the solo violin soars in its upper reaches.
The soloist breaks off with a head-start in the final movement, the strings supporting it as it rushes on, stabbing out its wholly different take on the first movement’s theme. Pounding energy and wild rhythms subside in a short middle section that gives a moment of respite before the soloist’s cadenza unleashes the final flourish.