Violin Concerto No.5 in A minor Op.37 (“Grétry”)

Henri Vieuxtemps, a pupil of Bériot and a teacher of Ysaÿe, was one of the most influential violinists of his day. While few of his compositions hold a place in the repertoire of our day, two of his seven Violin Concertos - No.4 in D minor, his own favourite, and No.5 in A minor, which the equally influential Wieniawski adopted as a regular concert item - are still of considerable interest. Written as a competition piece for the Brussels Conservatoire in 1861, the A minor Concerto is less ambitious than its four-movement predecessor but no less original in construction.

Most of the weight of the work rests on the first movement, which is three times as long as the other two put together. Its main theme is an assertive statement made by orchestral violins in the exposition but largely ignored by the solo violin, which prefers more lyrical material, until the soloist is emphatically reminded of it in the central orchestral episode. Even so, the extended cadenza takes little interest in it and it has no opportunity to make a comeback after that since a short transition passage leads directly into the slow movement. The primary attraction in the Adagio, and a major factor in the popularity of the work in its day, is its lovely second theme which, anticipated by the soloist in the first movement, is a tribute to the composer’s compatriot Grétry in the form of a direct quotation of an aria from his opera Lucile, “Où peut-on être mieux qu’au sein de sa famille?” (Where can you be better off than in the bosom of your family?). There is apparently no answer to that or at least no time for it in a finale which, following without a break, amounts to no more than a brilliantly scored coda.

Gerald Larner ©2004

There must have been an uncommonly talented and brilliantly    accomplished generation of violin students at the Brussels Conservatoire in the early 1860s. Certainly, the score commissioned from Henry Vieuxtemps, one of the greatest violinist-composers of the day, as a competition piece for final-year pupils in 1861 is a formidably difficult test for the soloist. The Concerto in A minor Op.37 makes extraordinary demands not only in terms of technique but also, because of its boldly unconventional construction, in terms of interpretative stamina. The first of the three movements lasts three times as long as the other two put together and is extended even further by having no clear ending and being connected, by way of a cadenza but no real break, to the Adagio. There is no break before the Allegro con fuoco either.

The opening Allegro non troppo begins much as the composer’s contemporaries would have expected with an orchestral exposition which introduces a variety of thematic material in A minor. It insists above all, however, on an emphatically assertive declaration in F major, marked con forza, which is twice repeated in different harmonies but with no less emphasis. The solo violin, on the other hand, is not in an assertive mood.    On its first entry, far from adopting material presented earlier by the orchestra, it takes off as though in an improvisation, indulging in flights of virtuoso fantasy while offering several melodic ideas, one of which proves to be so attractive that the orchestra takes it up in C major against an accompaniment of violin arpeggios. Although it is more or less forced into acknowledging the con forza theme in the development, the violin still goes its own way, alternating linear lyricism with bravura figuration that recalls Paganini and Mendelssohn while anticipating Brahms and Tchaikovsky. As if that were not enough to make a brilliant impression, the soloist is also awarded an elaborate cadenza (Vieuxtemps actually provided two, gving the violinist ta choice between them).

At this point there would conventionally have been a recapitulation. But instead of that there is a short pause and then an Adagio in C major which changes the subject completely by paying tribute to the composer’s Belgian compatriot André Grétry – an event so extraordinary that it has earned the work its “Grétry” nickname. The tribute takes the form of a direct quotation, first in C major then high on the E-string in A major, of a lovely melody from Grétry’s opera Lucile, which was first performed in Paris nearly 100 years earlier. “Où peut-on être mieux qu’au sein de sa famille?” (Where can you be better off than in the bosom of your family?) asks Grétry’s aria. There is apparently no answer to that, or at least no time for it, since after a dramatic change of mood to A minor, all such considerations are swept aside by the Allegro con fuoco finale. Actually, it is not so much a finale as an impulsive coda, woodwind recalling the C major violin melody from the first movement while the soloist indulges in yet more bravura above and around it.

Gerald Larner © 2010