Schumann's violin concerto

 

A clip from the third movement polonaise (which is in D major), showing the five note leitmotiv which occurs in all three movements. I mean it's the general shape that recurs, not the exact intervals. (It also occurs near the start of the Op 131 Fantasy in C for Violin and Orchestra.) In the first movement it's the basis of the second subject, so we hear a lot of it. In the second movement it's less central but nonetheless occurs in several passages. Here in the third movement it's the main rondo theme (but now preceded by a couple of other ascending semiquavers, not shown in the image above).

Both those works were written in 1853. Schumann's mental breakdown came not long afterwards. In my opinion there's no sign of it in the utterly lovely violin concerto, but maybe Clara and Joachim thought differently; at any rate it was effectively suppressed and its first performance wasn't until 83 years later.

There's maybe something melancholy about compositions that were basically lost until long after the time they would affect the main course of musical history. I feel it listening to Berwald's powerfully unusual symphonies, and again with Schumann's powerfully unusual violin concerto. They take us off to new places, but no-one else knew, so what does it matter?

Not that I feel the same about Haydn's trumpet concerto, now one of the most familiar and beloved cornerstones of trumpet repertoire. If 19th century listeners didn't hear it (basically because the keyed trumpet never took off), that was just their loss. 

It takes a while to feel certain the violin concerto doesn't have something wrong with it. That first movement, simply alternating its two themes (ABABABABA) -- is that a permissible way to build a first movement? Of course they are not just repetitions, there's magical transformation, but it isn't of the usual sonata kind. The word development doesn't seem right when some of the most striking ideas are more about stripping down the music than elaborating it. 

We worry. Schumann's orchestral music has a long history of being viewed patronizingly. Was the madness affecting him? And then the absence of virtuoso writing or high register passages, and what about the tempi? 

But I have an idea that Schumann's violin concerto did have one pretty significant influence: on Brahms' second piano concerto. (Another very unusual concerto.) There's the general subsuming of solo instrument to an equal partnership in the music, and the cello duet with the solo instrument in the slow movement, but where I really see the influence is in those elegantly relaxed finales. There's even a moment (the music pauses and rustling strings signal a key change), when it feels like Brahms is quoting.