Rochberg: Violin Concerto

Another big American violin concerto. George Rochberg wrote this gargantuan work (around 52 minutes long) in the early 1970s. It was premiered in 1974 by Isaac Stern, who had also initiated the commission by the Pittsburgh SO. However, Stern requested Rochberg to cut about 15 minutes of music from the score. It was in this edited version that Stern recorded it in 1977 with the Pittsburgh led by André Previn.
Ten years ago, sanctioned by Rochberg, conductor and composer Christopher Lyndon-Gee took the initiative to restore the piece back to its 'original' shape (here is an article on the process). It is the full version which has been recorded by Naxos and which is henceforth the only version that should be performed.

I am not very familiar with Rochberg's work. I listened to his Second Symphony a while ago and on the strength of that work I invested in all the recordings made by Naxos over the last decade (symphonic work and piano music). But almost all of that remains unexplored. So now the Violin Concerto.

I've heard the piece about four times now and I'm starting to really warm to it. Its chief challenge to the listener is structural. It's just not easy to make sense of this concerto's exotic form. It falls into two parts. Part One consists of an Introduction (6:53), Intermezzo A (8:07) and a Fantasia (7:39). Part Two starts with Intermezzo B (18:35!) and ends with a long Epilogue (10:26). I have yet to detect the coherence that, according to the soloist Peter Sheppard Skaerved, is certainly there.

Rochberg's musical language is archtypically late-romantic. He started out as a serial composer but reverted to a more tonal idiom in the 1960s. The Violin Concerto reminds me, very strongly, of early Bartok, notably the composer of The Wooden Prince and Bluebeard's Castle. The lush and extatic orchestration, the dense chromatic textures, the lumbering rhythms and the characteristically terse motives are all there. There is also always something tough in Bartok's music, a steely core that we also find back in this concerto. Only the nocturnal, devotional intensity of the slow passages in Intermezzo B (a kind of night music) made me think of Dutilleux or Messiaen. But then the 'night music' is also a very typical Bartokian topos.

There is an awful lot of very good music in this concerto. It's definitely symphonic in feel. The soloist voice and orchestra are blended into a seamless, epic canvas. But again, it requires patience to get a grip on the overal line. I would definitely want to hear the Stern version of this concerto as I have a suspicion that he may have been right after all ...

Naxos are not in the habit of producing demonstration class recordings and this one is no exception. It's serviceable. Realistic dynamics set in a suitably warm but not overly resonant acoustics. The playing of the Saarbrücken orchestra under Lyndon-Gee is committed. Also Skaerved's performance is to be commended (he is also leader of the Kreutzer Quartet, unbeknownst to me).

All in all this seems to be a must-hear for those interested in big, challenging but ultimately very approachable 20th century modernist pieces. To be further explored.