MONO HI-FI MG 50419
London Symphony Orchestra/AERBERT MENGESSTRAVINSKY
Violin Concerto No. lin D, Opus 19
PROKOFIEV
JOSEPH
Duo Concertant (1932)
MERCURY LIVING PRESENCE
JOSEPH SZIGETI
SERGE PROKOFIEV (1891-1953)
Violin Concerto No. 1 in D
LONDON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA conducted hy HERBERT MENGES
IGOR STRAVINSKY (b. 1882)
Duo Concertant
ROY BOGAS, pianist
“IN THE SUMMER OF 1924,’ wrote Prokofiev in
his autobiography, “Szigeti played my Violin Concerto
at a festival of modern music in Prague, and afterwards
he toured all the main cities of Europe with it. When he
came to Paris and I expressed a desire to attend the re-
hearsal, his face fell. ‘You see, he said, ‘I love that con-
certo, and I know the score so well that I sometimes give
pointers to the conductor as if it were my own composi-
tion. But you must admit that in the circumstances the
presence of the composer would be embarrassing for me.’
I agreed, and went to the concert instead. Szigeti played
superbly.”
That Prague performance in 1924 was not the
premiere of the First Violin Concerto (completed 1916-
17), but it was the beginning of its celebrity. The first
performance had been given in Paris in October 1923,
with Koussevitzky conducting his own orchestra. Huber-
man and other eminent virtuoso violinists had refused
to play it, and so the solo part had been undertaken on
that occasion by the orchestra’s concertmaster, Marcel
Darrieux. But just as, years earlier, Anton Rubinstein had
been wrong about Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto, so
Prokofiev's work confounded its denigrators.
Joseph Szigeti created an international sensation with
it, “thereby establishing himself,’ Roland Gelatt has
written, “as the almost predestined interpreter of this
sprightly, bittersweet composition.”
In another passage in his autobiography Prokofiev
gives a perceptive analysis of the main lines along which
his music developed. He enumerates the classical line,
which he traces back to early childhood and the Beethoven
sonatas he heard his mother play; the modern trend,
mainly covering harmonic language but also including
new departures in melody, orchestration, and drama; the
toccata or “motor” line, traceable back to the strong im-
pression Schumann’s Toccata made on him when he first
heard it; the lyrical line, for which he was at first given
no credit, but which he gradually came to regard as more
and more important in his work; and the grotesque line,
which he regards not as a genuine line but simply as a
deviation from the other lines, preferring to describe his
COVER PHOTO: HENRY RIES
music as “Scherzoish,” “or else by three words describing
the various degrees of the Scherzo—whimsicality, laugh-
ter, mockery.” 3
As is clear at once from the principal theme of this
concerto, a theme originally conceived in 1915 for a
concertino Prokofiev was planning, it is the lyrical line
that predominates here. Paris in the twenties may have
felt the lack of fashionable bizarreries in the work; but it
is precisely this lyricism, candid and serene yet totally
unsentimental, that has given it its enduring character.
THE WINTER OF 1930 found Stravinsky engaged in
an extensive concert tour throughout central Europe, and
it was in the course of his travels, while spending some
time in Wiesbaden, that the Polish violinist Samuel Dush-
kin was introduced to him. In his Autobiography, Stra-
vinsky confessed that at first he was “afraid of Dushkin
as a virtuoso,” but the violinist’s artistry and good taste
impressed him, and he agreed to compose a violin con-
certo. He began the Duo Concertant at the end of 1931
and finished it on July 15, 1932.
Stravinsky's fondness for the pastoral poetry of
ancient Greece and Rome determined the spirit and shape
of the Duo, and his explorations led him to a variety of
destinations, ranging from passages of almost mechanistic
figuration to sections which are warmly lyrical. And in
spite of the fact that there is very little that is actually
traditional in this piece, the balance and self-containment
of each movement and a certain asceticism in the work
as a whole strike one as peculiarly classical.
There are five movements, all fairly short:
Cantiléne: in simple song form, with a somewhat lyric
middle section opposing the brittle figuration of the be-
ginning and end.
Eglogue I: A moto perpetuo piano part underlines the
folk-song declamation of the violin, which gives way to
a vigorous dance in double stops.
Eglogue II; Serene and pastoral in mood, this movement
perhaps the warmest of the five, is the still, quiet center
of the work.
SIDE «A
VIOLIN CONCERTO NO. 1
Gigue: A skittish jig-rhythm shifts unexpectedly to lilting
double stops; after the jig’s return the piano comes into
the foreground with some subtle melodic suggestions of
its own.
Dithyrambe: Although the title implies a lyric poem in
honor of Dionysus, the movement is surprisingly con-
tained. It builds up to a compressed and impassioned
climax, however, just before the close.
STRAVINSKY NOTES BY SHIRLEY FLEMING
ABOUT JOSEPH SZIGETI
One of the most honored and respected musicians
in the history of music, Joseph Szigeti celebrates in 1965
his sixth decade of public performance. He made his
European debut at the age of 13 and, after an extensive
career in Europe and England, arrived in America in 1925
to play with Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia
Orchestra. Since that time he has played with every major
orchestra and on nearly every concert stage in the world.
Throughout his career, he has been instrumental in
bringing to public attention the music of twentieth-
century composers. Many of the greatest have written for
and dedicated to him outstanding works for violin—
among them Prokofiev, Barték, Stravinsky and Bloch.
His musical courage and conviction are without par-
allel. As Paul Hume has written: “It was Szigeti, as much
as any single artist, who helped form what we must call
the intellectual audience, the kind of audience that has
always listened with understanding and deep apprecia-
tion.”
PRINTED IN U.S.A.
STEREO SR90419/MONO MG5§
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