Concerto in D (1946)

The Concerto in D - commissioned by the munificent Paul Sacher for the 20th anniversary of the Basle Chamber Orchestra in 1947 - was conceived in the image of the baroque concerto grosso. At the same time it is a vivid and remarkably consistent illustration of how, as in the Violin Concerto, Stravinsky could derive a whole work from the inspiration of one sound or harmony. In this case it is harmonic clash of two notes a semitone apart - F sharp on the violins, F natural on the lower strings - in the opening bars. It shapes the melodic line above it, tempts the violas to run up and touch it, and gives rise to the main theme of the Vivace on first violins against an urgent triplet accompaniment in the inner parts. The restless spiccato articulation gives way to legato waltz-time allusions in the moderato middle section but a renewal of the initial harmonic stimulus provokes a shortened reprise of the opening section.

As in Apollo - a close relation of the Concerto in D even though it was written nearly twenty years earlier - a neo-baroque posture does not exclude lyrical sweetness. Even so, the elegant main theme of the Arioso, shared to begin with by violins and cellos in contrary motion, derives from the same harmonic stimulus, expressed this time in major sevenths and minor ninths in the melodic line. The movement nearest to the concerto grosso in form and texture is the final Rondo, which has a kind of ritornello in its moto perpetuo main theme, impelled by the minor ninths sustained by the cellos in the opening bars, and which offers concertino contrasts on solo instruments in the intervening episodes.

Although the concerto grosso was never totally submerged, even under the heroic weight of the romantic concerto - someone somewhere was writing concertos for two or three instruments or even a whole string quartet - it resurfaced very prominently in the neo-classical or (more accurately) neo-baroque revival in the 1920s and has remained visible ever since. Stravinsky’s Concerto in D, which was commissioned by Paul Sacher to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Basle Chamber Orchestra in 1947, makes several allusions to concerto grosso conventions.

The basic impulse behind the Concerto in D is something quite different, however: it derives from the semitonal clash - F sharp in the violins, F natural in the violas, cellos and basses - in the opening bars. It shapes the melodic line above it, tempts the violas to run up and touch it, and gives rise to the main theme of the Vivace on first violins against an urgent triplet accompaniment in the inner parts. The restless spiccato articulation gives way to legato waltz-time allusions in the moderato middle section but a renewal of the initial harmonic stimulus provokes a shortened reprise of the opening section.

As in Apollo - a close relation of the Concerto in D though it was written nearly twenty years earlier - a neo-baroque posture does not exclude lyrical sweetness. Even so, the elegant main theme of the Arioso, shared to begin with by violins and cellos in contrary motion, derives from the same semitonal stimulus, expressed this time in major sevenths and minor ninths in the melodic line. The nearest the work gets to the concerto grosso in the final Rondo, which has a kind of ritornello in its moto perpetuo main theme (impelled by the minor ninths sustained by the cellos in the opening bars) and which offers concertino contrasts in the intervening episodes.

After the most influential composers themselves – Debussy, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Bartók, Messiaen – one of the most significant figures in the development of 20th-century music was the Swiss conductor, collector and philanthropist Paul Sacher (1906–1999). As founder and director of the Basle Chamber Orchestra and the Collegium Musicum Zurich, he commissioned over 200 scores by major composers, often conducting the first performances himself. The fact that his activities were funded largely by his wife – heiress to the pharmaceutical company Hoffmann-La Roche – in no way diminishes the achievement of this, as Benjamin Britten described him, “model patron and performer.”

The 20th-century composer Sacher admired most, it seems, was Igor Stravinsky. Although he was able to commission only two works from him, the Concerto in D (1946) and A Sermon, a Narrative and a Prayer (1960–1), he included more than 40 Stravinsky works in his concerts between 1930 and 1984, many of them more than once or twice. In 1983, at a cost of well over $5M, the Paul Sacher Foundation acquired the whole of the Stravinsky archive – more than 100 boxes of letters, photographs and memorabilia of all kinds and more than two hundred drawers of musical manuscripts and sketches. The subject of a beautifully presented exhibition at the Basle Kunstmuseum in 1984, the archive now resides in a specially converted house on the Münsterplatz.

Written for the 20th anniversary of the Basle Chamber Orchestra and first performed under Sacher’s direction in 1947, the Concerto in D is more a celebration of the sound of a small string orchestra – written in the image of the baroque concerto grosso – than a work of emotional committment or intellectual rigour. Even so, lightly scored entertainment though it is, it sustains a tingling harmonic tension through much of its duration.

The small but vital charge is generated in the opening bars by the dissonant contact between the F sharp held by violins and the F natural quietly pushed underneath it by lower strings. It is immediately incorporated in an anticipation of the Vivace main theme on violins and violas and energetically tested by a solo viola over cellos and basses. The main theme is introduced in its definitive form in D major by staccato first violins over a briskly spiccato accompaniment in the inner and lower parts. Approached by way of a passage for solo strings, an initially more relaxed Moderato episode in D flat features ingenious allusions to waltz rhythms in a variety of metres. Reminders of the semitonal dissonance provoke further and more intense examination of its implications before a shortened reprise of both the Vivace and the Moderato material.

Following with scarcely a break, the centra B-flat-major Arioso luxuriaties in more waltz-time allusions in a paradoxical but fairly consistent 4/4. The elegant main theme, shared to begin with by violins and cellos in contrary motion, derives from the harmonic stimulus basic to the work, except that this time the minor second is expressed as major sevenths and minor ninths in the legato melodic line. While there are a few short passages for solo strings here, the movement nearest to the concerto grosso in form and texture is the final Rondo. Between the recurrence of a moto perpetuo main theme impelled by the minor ninths held by the cellos in the opening bars, it offers comparatively extended concertino contrasts in a variety of solo and duet episodes.