Prokofiev Violin Concerto No. 2 by Heifetz
Note: The album I first heard looked like this. The later release pictured on my desk is the version I've got now. My brother still has the original.
Note Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto has been inexplicably replaced by Sibelius's. "Prokofiev" seems to have superceded "Prokofieff" as the preferred transliteration from the Cyrillic alphabet.
I don't know if Prokofiev had it in mind when he penned his Second Violin Concerto, but, in retrospect, the music has within it the whole of the Twentieth Century; what it had been, and what it would become.
1935, the year it was written, was not far from events which shook the globe. World War One evinced brutality which shook many gilded truisms from their pedestals. The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Sergei Prokofiev's homeland of Russia set forth a struggle between the Soviet State and most of the West.
The three movements of this Concerto are starkly different one from the other. Each sheds light upon an emotional subset of the spirit of the day. The fact they work together as a whole is a testament to Prokofiev's genius. It also demands a violinist of the highest order. Jascha Heifetz is certainly of the highest order.
When my father assembled a home stereo from components, this is one of the records we had been given. As a four-year-old, my nightly music request was "the Heifetz record," and my sweet folks were happy to comply. The stereo was in the living room and my bedroom was furthest down the hall, but somehow, I was able to hear the orchestra's sound in its full-throated richness. As a kid, I responded to this Concerto with a kind of visceral grasp. I remember "constructing" a many-roomed house in my mind to the music, as it led from one feeling to the next. The architecture, that is, the mathematic constructions of this piece, could fill a book. But I mostly dwelt with the emotive power I could hear. In some way, I think it prepared me for the next four decades of my life.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1B0joh0OLg&list=UUgsJmYq6_7p...
The first movement opens so darkly you feel as if you are being ushered into a room where a death has occurred, or snakes and scorpions await your heel. Soon, what could be resignation gives way to resistance and resilience. A winning back of the territory allows for some positively benign moments. Minor changes to major on a dime and back again. The color of the orchestra strays back and forth between the ominous and incredibly beautiful. In true Romantic fashion, there is treasure espied in seeming chaos. The Grail is in sight. Orpheus might yet be made whole.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NuLasQQSRc&list=UUgsJmYq6_7p...
The second movement is a glance back to childhood memories. Summer houses and lilacs, the smell of good things baking in the oven. Present dangers are momentarily forgotten. Only a few gray notes intervene, but the body of this is goodness and light. It's a respite from the wars and rumors of war hinted at in the previous movement. Toward the end of this reverie, with the prodding of hints of present angst, a new resolve develops. Wisdom steels the protagonist for the lively joust to come.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NuLasQQSRc&list=UUgsJmYq6_7p...
The third movement plunges us into a kind of future shock. Dissonant "double stops" (where the violinist bows two strings at once) open on to a landscape of jagged waltz. Odd accents give it the feel of Balkan folkdance. Occasionally alarms sound, marshal trumpet blares away. But the quicksilver violin melody picks nimbly around the snares and -- finally -- gets through the maze. I envision this movement as symbolic of what was to come: World War Two, The Cold War, technological innovation, world trade, and hosts of unknowns. The individual can feel swallowed up, the globe could gasp its last, but, as revealed at the very last instance, humanity perseveres.
www.scpr.org/blogs/offramp/2011/06/02/3026/peter-stenshoe...
Prokofiev Violin Concerto No. 2 by Heifetz
Note: The album I first heard looked like this. The later release pictured on my desk is the version I've got now. My brother still has the original.
Note Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto has been inexplicably replaced by Sibelius's. "Prokofiev" seems to have superceded "Prokofieff" as the preferred transliteration from the Cyrillic alphabet.
I don't know if Prokofiev had it in mind when he penned his Second Violin Concerto, but, in retrospect, the music has within it the whole of the Twentieth Century; what it had been, and what it would become.
1935, the year it was written, was not far from events which shook the globe. World War One evinced brutality which shook many gilded truisms from their pedestals. The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Sergei Prokofiev's homeland of Russia set forth a struggle between the Soviet State and most of the West.
The three movements of this Concerto are starkly different one from the other. Each sheds light upon an emotional subset of the spirit of the day. The fact they work together as a whole is a testament to Prokofiev's genius. It also demands a violinist of the highest order. Jascha Heifetz is certainly of the highest order.
When my father assembled a home stereo from components, this is one of the records we had been given. As a four-year-old, my nightly music request was "the Heifetz record," and my sweet folks were happy to comply. The stereo was in the living room and my bedroom was furthest down the hall, but somehow, I was able to hear the orchestra's sound in its full-throated richness. As a kid, I responded to this Concerto with a kind of visceral grasp. I remember "constructing" a many-roomed house in my mind to the music, as it led from one feeling to the next. The architecture, that is, the mathematic constructions of this piece, could fill a book. But I mostly dwelt with the emotive power I could hear. In some way, I think it prepared me for the next four decades of my life.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1B0joh0OLg&list=UUgsJmYq6_7p...
The first movement opens so darkly you feel as if you are being ushered into a room where a death has occurred, or snakes and scorpions await your heel. Soon, what could be resignation gives way to resistance and resilience. A winning back of the territory allows for some positively benign moments. Minor changes to major on a dime and back again. The color of the orchestra strays back and forth between the ominous and incredibly beautiful. In true Romantic fashion, there is treasure espied in seeming chaos. The Grail is in sight. Orpheus might yet be made whole.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NuLasQQSRc&list=UUgsJmYq6_7p...
The second movement is a glance back to childhood memories. Summer houses and lilacs, the smell of good things baking in the oven. Present dangers are momentarily forgotten. Only a few gray notes intervene, but the body of this is goodness and light. It's a respite from the wars and rumors of war hinted at in the previous movement. Toward the end of this reverie, with the prodding of hints of present angst, a new resolve develops. Wisdom steels the protagonist for the lively joust to come.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NuLasQQSRc&list=UUgsJmYq6_7p...
The third movement plunges us into a kind of future shock. Dissonant "double stops" (where the violinist bows two strings at once) open on to a landscape of jagged waltz. Odd accents give it the feel of Balkan folkdance. Occasionally alarms sound, marshal trumpet blares away. But the quicksilver violin melody picks nimbly around the snares and -- finally -- gets through the maze. I envision this movement as symbolic of what was to come: World War Two, The Cold War, technological innovation, world trade, and hosts of unknowns. The individual can feel swallowed up, the globe could gasp its last, but, as revealed at the very last instance, humanity perseveres.
www.scpr.org/blogs/offramp/2011/06/02/3026/peter-stenshoe...