Salvatore Accardo, Orchestra Giovanile Italiana, Orechstra da Camera Italiana - Works for Violin of Bernstein, Penderecki (2014) [DSD64]

The Serenade for Solo Violin, Strings, Harp and Percussion (after Plato’s “Symposium”) is a five-movement concerto written by Leonard Bernstein in 1954 and first performed at La Fenice in Venice by Isaac Stern and Igor Stravinski.
PENDERECKI: CONCERTO FOR VIOLIN
Krzysztof Penderecki composed his Concerto for Violin and orchestra between 1974 and 1976; the work was first performed on 27th April 1977 by the violinist Isaac Stern, accompanied by the Basle Symphony Orchestra conducted by Moshe Atzmon. This is Penderecki’s second composition for Violin and orchestra. The Capriccio, composed in 1966 both in its spirit and in the demands, it makes on marked virtuosity in performance calls to mind models in Paganini’s style.
LEONARD BERNSTEIN
The Serenade for Solo Violin, Strings, Harp and Percussion (after Plato’s “Sympo-sium”) is a five-movement concerto written by Leonard Bernstein in 1954 and first performed at La Fenice in Venice by Isaac Stern and Igor Stravinskij.
The Serenade is highly unusual in that the composer was inspired by Plato’s Sym-posium, a dialogue of related statements in praise of love, each statement made by a distinguished Athenian speaker.
The speakers who inspired Bernstein’s five movements are as follows, together with the relative musical markings:
I. Phaedrus: Pausanias - Lento and allegro
II. Aristophanes - allegretto
III. Eryximachus - presto
IV. Agathon - adagio
V. Socrates - molto tenuto and allegro molto vivac
Although the Serenade is for violin, strings, harp and percussion, the violin is the most prominent solo instrument. The work can therefore be considered essentially a violin concerto.
KRZYSZTOF PENDERECKI
Krzysztof Penderecki composed his Concerto for Violin and orchestra between 1974 and 1976; the work was first performed on 27th April 1977 by the violin-ist Isaac Stern, accompanied by the Basle Symphony Orchestra conducted by Moshe Atzmon. This is Penderecki’s second composition for Violin and orches-tra. The Capriccio, composed in 1966 both in its spirit and in the demands, it makes on marked virtuosity in performance calls to mind models in Paganini’s style. The Concerto in contrast is a far more introspective work, caracterised by an essentially lirical and expressive use of the solo instrument. The Concerto was originally to have consisted of five movements. Working on the first movement, however, Penderecki finally found himself concentrating esclusively on it, continu-ally extending its structure, so that today the work may be seen as a sort of long meditation in a single movement lasting almost 40 minutes. The composition, which is almost consistently sad and introverted, lacks those experimental traits which distinguish Penderecki’s earlier production (except for the use of quarter tones). The work progresses calmly, giving long melodic passages to the soloist, who is almost alwais present in the concerto. Two runs are also entrusted to the soloist, both of them scored completely by the composer. The whole concerto is based, in essence, on three basic themes, whose various musical implications are developed in turn: the first theme, which will take up again in the Finale, with its grand solemn tones, is immediately announced by the orchestra at the beginning of the work; the second theme has a more lyrical, cantabile nature, whilst the third possesses grotesque inflections and marching rhythm and, ideally, occupies the place that had been delegated to the Scherzo in the original project. As a sort of unyfing element for the whole concerto we find a guiding motif which, although it has no explicit thematic function, reappears at various moment during the work: it is a short, gloomy, melodic statement, underlined by dull interventions of the percussion instruments, all of which, in accordance with the explicit intention of the composer, serves to remind us of the basically tragic motivation of this com-position.