Wieniawski :Concerto for Violin No. 2 in D Minor: First Movement, Allegro Moderato

Concerto for Violin No. 2 in D Minor: First Movement, Allegro Moderato

Henryk Wieniawski (1835-1880)

The Polish violinist Henryk Wieniawski was born into a family of musicians, and showing a great musical talent at an early age, entered the Paris Conservatoire, studying the violin, and soon gaining notice as one of the most brilliant performers of his generation. Much of his career was spent as a travelling virtuoso throughout Europe, as well as spending two years giving concerts in North America. For twelve years Wieniawski taught at the conservatory in Saint Petersburg (in that period Poland was a province of the Russian Empire), where he had a close association with the great pianist, Anton Rubinstein, and became a close friend of Tchaikovsky. Always in frail health, the composer became dangerously ill in 1880, and was taken to live in the palational home of Madame von Meck, Tchaikovksy’s patroness, where he died a few months later. Tchaikovsky wrote of his death, “in him we shall lose an incomparable violinist and gifted composer…the D Minor Concerto shows a true creative gift.”

Composer of many concert works for violin, the Second Concerto is his outstanding creation, a work of fire, lyrical power and great color.

The concerto opens with an introduction featuring a gentle theme in the violins, shared with the winds, and setting the stage for the entry of the solo violin, who is first heard taking up the initial melodic element, now adding some virtuoso touches. A richly lyrical secondary theme follows, which leads to an episode of increasingly brilliant technical display, all the resources of the violin given full rein.