double concerto

for Violin and Viola

Duration ca. 25' (2007)
2.2.2.2/4.2.2.1/timp.perc/hp.pf/str/solo vl, vla

 
 

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Commissioned by the IRIS Orchestra, Duluth- Superior Symphony Orchestra, National Gallery of Art Orchestra, Curtis Institute Orchestra, Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University and Mr. Jeremiah German.

Premiered by IRIS Orchestra conducted by Michael Stern, soloists Charles Wetherbee and Roberto Díaz, Germantown, TN, March 29, 2008.

Other performances: Duluth-Superior Symphony Orchestra conducted by Markand Thakar, soloists Charles Wetherbee and Victoria Chiang, May 3, 2008; Curtis Institute Orchestra conducted by Jose-Luis Novo, soloists Jose- Maria Blumenschein, Misha Amory, December 5-6, 2008; Columbus Symphony Orchestra conducted by Delta David Gier, soloists Charles Wetherbee and Roberto Diaz, April 16-17, 2010; National Gallery of Art Orchestra conducted by Markand Thakar, soloists Charles Wetherbee and Victoria Chiang, November 13, 2011. Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra conducted by Stuart Malina, soloists Alexander Kerr, violin, Michael Strauss, viola, November 14-15, 2015.

Leshnoff is a prolific composer whose music is being performed widely. He thinks big, and with its twin virtues of accessibility and architectural coherence, you come away from the concerto feeling that you’ve heard something pleasantly significant.

—Joan Reinthaler, The Washington Post, November 2011


This luscious concerto ended far too soon, with its haunting four-note theme still expanding within my brain... Leshnoff’s concerto was complexly layered, though never dull. The interplay between brass and strings was colorful, even as the two soloists kept attention focused on their technical wizardry.

In the power of the conclusion, that memorable four-note theme emerged victorious, assuring us that at least some new symphonic music will have a confident future.

—Samuel Black, Duluth News Tribune, May 2008

Saturday night, however, a new concerto from the exceptional composer Jonathan Leshnoff found a deservedly warm welcome at the Germantown Performing Arts Centre... His ‘Double Concerto for Violin, Viola and Orchestra’, composed last year, is an elegant creation, beautifully rendered by the orchestra and the two outstanding soloists... Leshnoff’s full embrace of harmony grants accessibility without sacrificing depth or musicality. It is complex but not complicated, exploring a range of emotions...IRIS is one of five organizations that commissioned the work and the orchestra plans more performances from this terrific composer.

—Jon W. Sparks, The Commercial Appeal, March 2008

 

PROGRAM NOTE

Leshnoff’s Double Concerto for Violin, Viola and Orchestra of 2007, commissioned by a consortium including the IRIS Chamber Orchestra, Duluth Symphony, Curtis Institute Orchestra, National Gallery of Art Orchestra and Mr. Jeremiah German, comprises four movements that are varied in mood and musical idiom. The first movement (Slow) is pensive and brooding; a unifying motive that is threaded throughout the Concerto is introduced by the solo viola at its initial entrance and then taken up by the violin. The Scherzo, energetic and syncopated, is structured around a returning refrain separated by contrasting episodes: A–B–A–B–A; the viola motive from the first movement is superimposed upon the final “A” section. Mysterious is a descendant of the haunting and sometimes unsettling “night music” that Béla Bartók often favored for his slow movements. Like several of Bartók’s pieces, this one follows an “arch form,” starting softly and then rising to an expressive high point with a songful strain at its center (which contains the viola motive) before receding into its closing measures. The Finale is virtuosic and rambunctious, and completes the formal cycle of the Concerto not just by recalling the viola motive but also by returning the music that closed the opening movement at the end, there given a somber character but here transformed into a positive and uplifting finish for the work.