Welcome to Music for Life, enhancing the Armstrong concert experience. I'm your host, Ryan Malone. In today's episode, we will discuss Sarah Dragan, the virtuoso violinist coming to Armstrong Auditorium on March 2nd, as well as the concerto she will be featured in alongside the Polish Wyniewski Philharmonic. Sarah will be performing the incredibly athletic Violin Concerto in D by Peter Tchaikovsky. We'll also hear a fantastic solo recording of Sarah's and talk about some of her great accolades.
So stick around as we spotlight this virtuoso violinist and the virtuoso violin concerto she'll be showcasing today on Music for Life. Last week, we discussed the Polish Wieniewski Philharmonic Orchestra coming to Armstrong Auditorium on Wednesday, March 2nd. I noted that the namesake of the institution is the famous 19th century Polish composer Henrik Wieniewski, considered one of the greatest violinists in history. He is definitely a national hero of Poland. His portrait appeared on Polish postage stamps in 1952 and 1957, and his image even appeared on a commonly used Polish coin in 1979. And it's fitting that the violin soloist being featured with this orchestra recently won...
one of the most prestigious violin contests in the world, this contest also named after Venevsky. The first international Henrik Wenevski violin competition was held in 1935 in Warsaw, Poland, and it has been held every five years since 1952. It's kind of like the Olympic gold for violinists. So we have this gold medalist coming to Armstrong, violinist Sarah Dragan. Sarah started playing the violin at age seven under the tutelage of her parents, then moved on to become the protege of one of the legendary violin masters of our time, Zakhar Bron. She made her Carnegie Hall debut in the United States at the young age of 15.
She has performed all over the world with various orchestras and at various festivals. For her featured work here at Armstrong, Sarah will be playing the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, the debut performance of this particular work in our hall. We're very excited to have that here, and I'm very excited to explore it more in depth in this episode. And since we don't have a recording of her playing the Tchaikovsky, I'll play a recording at the end of today's episode of Sarah playing solo on another work to give you an idea of her virtuosity. About the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in D, though, we did talk about this concerto several seasons ago in an episode titled Music for Virtuosity. As discussed in that episode, this is one of the hardest violin concertos ever written, or at least it was until that point in history. Tchaikovsky wrote the piece in less than a month, and when he showed it to violinist Leopold Auer, Auer declared that the piece was too long and that some passages in the first and third movements were unplayable. Three years later, violinist Adolf Brodsky mastered the entire work.
and premiered it in Vienna. Even then, a music critic wondered, quote, whether it is at all possible to extract a pure sound out of these hair-raising acrobatics, I do not know, unquote. But nowadays, this work is considered one of the great pieces of the standard violin repertoire, and despite its technical demands, it's quite playable, it's commonly performed by the world's best violinists, and even prodigy high school students wanting a good college scholarship will try out with this piece. And there have certainly been much harder concerti written ever since. It is nonetheless a force to be reckoned with. For one, it is relatively long, and any violinist hoping to perform the Tchaikovsky would be expected to memorize the entire thing. While not any one particular passage is technically impossible, the vast amount of demanding passages makes the concerto a challenge to both learn, master, and memorize. Add onto this a good amount of awkward motion, large leaps, fast double stops, and a highly exposed second movement, and then you end up with one of the most famously difficult violin concerti of all time.
It is in the standard format of three movements, a moderately fast opening movement, a slow movement, and a furiously fast third movement. In the first movement, after a short orchestral introduction, and after the solo violin comes in with a short cadenza-like passage, the soloist plays the concerto's main theme. Then, the violinist plays the same theme an octave higher, and with some triple and double stops, meaning that he or she has to play multiple strings at once, which is obviously harder than playing one pitch at a time. Eventually, we get to this luscious B theme.
Things pick back up until the orchestra takes over the main theme in a stunning climax, which would be the end of what we call the exposition of the first movement, where all the main themes are unveiled or exposed. Usually we'd get to a recapitulation soon, then a showy soloist-only section known as the cadenza. This large cadenza usually happens at the end of first movements of concerti, but Tchaikovsky puts it in the middle of this movement, before the recapitulation. Here's a little portion of how the cadenza will be signaled after this back-and-forth between the orchestra and soloist. Another typical thing about cadenzas is that the end of the cadenza, the point where the orchestra comes back in, is usually signaled by the soloist doing a long trill, a quick back-and-forth oscillation between two pitches. But Tchaikovsky writes a lot of trills to taunt us, thinking the cadenza might be over sooner than it is. These trills are insanely difficult to execute because Tchaikovsky has the violinist jumping up and down the fingerboard at incredible speeds before landing on the final trill that signals the orchestra's return.
The end of the cadenza signals the recapitulation, where we hear the original melody stated much like it was at the very beginning, which in this case was quite tranquil. But this all continues to build to an intense and high-velocity finish. So let's hear this first movement of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto uninterrupted. This is a recording of Jascha Heifetz' violin with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Fritz Reiner. You are listening to Music for Life. I'm your host, Ryan Malone. This is KPCG. In today's episode, we are exploring the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto to be performed at Armstrong Auditorium on March 2nd, and the rising star, who will be featured as soloist in this work alongside the Polish-Winiewski Philharmonic, Sarah Dragan.
We just heard the first movement of this Tchaikovsky concerto. We're hearing a classic recording of Jascha Heifetz playing with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Fritz Reiner. Before moving to the mournful second movement, it's good to remember what makes difficult music so difficult. As you might expect, playing very fast passages with a lot of skips and jumps, like what we heard in the first movement, is very difficult. It's additionally difficult if you play multiple notes at the same time, what with both coordinating the different notes and making sure they're all in tune. Violinists call these double stops or triple stops. Now, the second movement of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto has no fast runs. There's not a single double stop in the entire movement.
what makes it so difficult is how exposed it is. Here's what I mean by that. If you're playing fast scales over and over and over again, while it looks very impressive, if you happen to miss just one note or play slightly out of tune, it's too fast for the listener's ears to pick it out easily. What's more, it looks impressive. So we forgive the soloist just a little because of the amount of skill they're already showcasing. But in the second movement, there is none of this. The violin is dominant the entire time, and it's very hard to make sure that every note is perfectly tuned and tastefully phrased. So while it may not look or sound as flashy as the first movement, it is by no means easy.
We're going to hear the second movement and third movement together because one flows right into the next. Toward the end of the second movement, the violin drops out, and the orchestra transitions us into the third movement. As the final section of the second movement begins, the strings introduce a new four-note motive. Pay attention to this because these four notes will form the opening notes for the finale's main theme.
At any rate, the second movement ends with only the horns and low strings ending somewhat with a question mark before the orchestra punches us into the final movement. In addition to the lightning-fast main melody, there are a couple other themes to point out. There's a folk-like B melody in this third movement. This B theme slowly grows with intensity and, you guessed it, speed. Then this movement slows down for a C theme.
After this is played by the oboe, clarinet, and bassoon, and then developed by the solo violin, the movement returns to restate the themes with even more virtuosic material from the violinist, even including a whistling sound produced by false harmonics, which are incredibly exposed and have very little margin for error. The concerto then increases intensity with fast-flying scales from the violinist before finishing with a final flourish from the musicians. So let's hear the second and third movements, the two contiguous movements without interruption. Again, this is a recording of Fritz Reiner conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra with violin soloist Jascha Heifetz. That was Music for Life, and you are listening to Music for Life. I'm your host, Ryan Malone. This is KPCG. In today's episode, we have explored the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto to be performed at Armstrong Auditorium on March 2nd, as well as the rising star who will be featured as soloist in this work alongside the Polish Wieniewski Philharmonic, Sarah Dragan. More information about this event and all Armstrong events can be found at armstrongauditorium.org. If you missed last week's episode about the other repertoire being performed on this concert, you can always find that in our archives on iTunes or SoundCloud or directly at kpcg.fm.
Both last week's and today's episodes were produced with research assistance from my son Seth Malone, so thanks to him for all his contributions to these episodes. We just heard the slow second movement, which led right into the fiery third and final movement of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto. We heard a recording of Fritz Reiner conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Jascha Heifetz as violin soloist. To end today's episode, since we don't have a recording of Sarah Dragan playing the Tchaikovsky Concerto, I want to play this solo recording of hers. This will give you an idea of her virtuosity.
This is Yenu Huboy's Carmen Fantasy Brillante, adapted from Bizet's opera Carmen. I hope you enjoy, and I hope to see you soon at Armstrong. I've been listening to Music for Life, a production of KPCG 101.3 on the FM Dial in Edmond, Oklahoma. From the Herbert W. Armstrong College campus, I'm Ryan Malone. Thanks for joining me.