Time and again, I return here because of some happenstance by which I make unexpected connections between two works. We've had:
- Stravinsky and Copland
- Copland and Mendelssohn
- Beethoven and Strauss
- Shostakovich and Vaughan Williams
- Britten and Ives
- Jackson and Menken
In the last few weeks, I've been doing a lot of accompanying of young string players, and it's provided opportunity for a couple of unexpected new discoveries. The first connection came up two weeks ago when I had back-to-back rehearsals for a concerto competition with a violinist playing the first movement of Prokofiev's first concerto and a violist playing the first movement of the Walton Concerto. I adore the former, but do not know the latter well, having only played it once years ago on short rehearsal - although I did once make this [warning: viola joke] "director's cut" video.
Anyway, after some rehearsing of both, I started to notice a strange kinship between the two concerti. Each first movement begins with a quiet, lyrical, flowing melody for soloist in compound meter. Each progresses to increasingly busy passagework with relentless sixteenth notes, and each ends with the opening melody in solo winds while the soloist decorates with graceful, perpetual motion flourishes. [Worth noting it's pretty unusual for a concerto first movement to begin and end softly/slowly.] I mentioned this to a couple of musician friends, and one (a violist) sent me a link to this remarkable article by the violist Atar Arad who makes a compelling case that Prokofiev's 1923 concerto served as a sort of hidden model for Walton's 1929 work.
I'll leave it to you to read the article (which has some very detailed analysis) and follow up on these connections, but again, what was most interesting to me is that the dots connected naturally for me simply by playing the two pieces within the same hour. In addition to the openings, you could compare the violin passagework at 3:46 with viola passagework at 4:00 and the ending sections which begin at 8:05 [Prokofiev] and 7:10 [Walton]. If you backtrack from the endings, you'll see that each composer links to the closing section with slow, intense, dissonant double-stops for the soloist. But there are many other likenesses to be found.
Then, Friday night I accompanied a series of student recitals which included a not well-known concerto by the 18th century's Pietro Nardini. This turns out to be one of those works of somewhat dubious origin which was most likely assembled in the 19th century or later and thus has more Romantic stylistic features. There's an interesting and somewhat entertaining discussion of this concerto as a pedagogical work (apparently unpopular with many students?) here.
Honestly, as a student concerto I was not finding it that interesting to play, but there is a striking, heartfelt passage towards the end of the first movement that caught my ear. The violinist plays a soaring sequential idea (same two bars repeated several times with each repetition a step lower) over a "circle progression." Circle progressions (in which chords roots move up by 4th or down by 5th in a way that recalls the "Circle of Fifths") are very common, but there was something about this one that just felt...emotionally right.
Of course, both works go their own directions after starting these phrases with that identical progression, but each composer leverages the logical structure of a Classical progression (movement by descending fifths has a particularly strong sense of forward motion) to strengthen and stabilize their more Romantic melodic/dramatic components. I don't know if anyone else has noticed this or if I would have noticed if not for fortuitous happenchance.
I then realized it was reminding me a similar progression in Kreisler's Praeludium and Allegro, an all-time favorite "meant to sound old" piece - which I had rehearsed about twenty minutes before! Lo and behold, both works are in E Minor and the progressions basically use the exact same chords except Kreisler indulges in a few more major sevenths, a sonority not super common in Common Practice Period Harmony, but which adds an extra layer of pathos to both sequences.
Here they are played one after the other (by Pinchas Zukerman and Tasmin Little) and then - of course! - played simultaneously. Kreisler's work is one of the original pieces he originally credited to an "ancient" composer (Pugnani), but I would guess Kreisler would have known the already Romanticized Nardini concerto and might very well have borrowed these chords, whether purposefully or accidentally.
Of course, both works go their own directions after starting these phrases with that identical progression, but each composer leverages the logical structure of a Classical progression (movement by descending fifths has a particularly strong sense of forward motion) to strengthen and stabilize their more Romantic melodic/dramatic components. I don't know if anyone else has noticed this or if I would have noticed if not for fortuitous happenchance.
Just a couple more observations about these works. The Nardini is a good example of a work which I think is partly undone by a not-great primary theme. Nothing wrong with the opening idea, but it's just generic, even though it seems to aim for drama. This is a topic I'd like to return to as there are some great works which I believe overcome subpar themes, and other works with fantastic tunes that don't lead anywhere satisfying. There's no reason the primary theme must be first-rate, but for lesser known works like Nardini's, it's more of an uphill battle to overcome a blah first impression.
As for Kreisler's Praeludium and Allegro, I really do love everything about this bit of pastiche and the only music of his I love as much is his first-movement cadenza for the Beethoven concerto - another case in which he's intentionally working within a more Classical aesthetic which I find merges well with his sentimental tendencies. (The first part of Kreisler's Sicilienne and Rigaudon is almost as good, but maybe leans a little too sentimental, although if we're talking Kreisler, I'll admit that I do unreservedly love this tune.)
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P.S. This post includes further reflections on my affections for Romantic/Modern works intentionally meant to evoke Classical style. I should've added Prokofiev's 1st and Shostakovich's 9th to that list of lovably neo-classical symphonies.
As for Kreisler's Praeludium and Allegro, I really do love everything about this bit of pastiche and the only music of his I love as much is his first-movement cadenza for the Beethoven concerto - another case in which he's intentionally working within a more Classical aesthetic which I find merges well with his sentimental tendencies. (The first part of Kreisler's Sicilienne and Rigaudon is almost as good, but maybe leans a little too sentimental, although if we're talking Kreisler, I'll admit that I do unreservedly love this tune.)
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P.S. This post includes further reflections on my affections for Romantic/Modern works intentionally meant to evoke Classical style. I should've added Prokofiev's 1st and Shostakovich's 9th to that list of lovably neo-classical symphonies.
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