Krasner on Violin Concerto

Berg’s Violin Concerto was originally scheduled for first performance at the ISCM Festival in Paris in 1937. But on the composer’s death, in December 1935, Anton Webern was moved to request the ISCM committee that, as a memorial tribute to his friend and colleague, the performance should be brought forward to the 1936 festival in Barcelona and that he should conduct it. The committee agreed. Louis Krasner duly rearranged his schedule and travelled from New York to Vienna to rehearse the work with Webern for a few days before setting off for Barcelona - only to find that Webern, doubting his ability to go through with it, was now refusing to undertake the performance. It was only when Krasner himself threatened to withdraw from the engagement that Webern was persuaded to change his mind.

This was not the end of the problems however. Webern’s rehearsal technique proved to be so unsuitable for the Pablo Casals Orchestra and so unproductive that, on the day before the performance, he fled from the hall in despair and locked himself (and the score) in his hotel room. This time it was Berg’s widow Helene who had to plead with him and, falling on her knees in tears before him, she finally prevailed upon him to release the score to Hermann Scherchen. After spending half an hour with the Concerto in a rehearsal scheduled for a concert of his own, Scherchen conducted a performance which, according to Krasner, was “flowing with miraculous smoothness and almost bursting with concentration…As the final tender, eerie tones faded into nothingness, there was an awed and breathless silence in the entire auditorium.”

Webern redeemed himself a few days later by collaborating with Krasner in an authoritative second performance of the work with the BBC Orchestra in London. A recording of that performance, taken off air at Krasner’s request, is available on CD.