Violin Concerto

by Todd Mason

January, 2023

Download Score Violin Concerto

During the pandemic, I finally set myself to writing a violin concerto, something I'd been wanting to do for years but never seemed to have enough time to focus on such an ambitious project. Plus, I felt that I was still learning about the myriad complexities of a large-scale work for orchestra and soloist, not to mention the intimidating fact of so many epic concertos already in the literature. I knew this new piece had to be something very special! I asked myself the most fundamental question: “What is a violin concerto?” It obviously has to be a piece that features the instrument, and presumably with full orchestra to enhance and color it. But it has to be more than merely pretty, for example, or just fast; it should take the listener on an exciting and engaging journey to interesting and unique places, and of course give the soloist opportunities to showcase what the violin is capable of. So I studied many of the famous scores, and some not so famous, and ultimately came up with something that I felt had my own compositional voice and a compelling musical story.

I've always been as much drawn to single-movement as to multi-movement structures, and what emerged was a continuous 24-minute work with sharp contrasts in emotion and harmonic language, but also with a steady and driving element that involves a recurring motif, of four rising notes, which becomes a kind of glue, in many forms, for the whole piece. The rapid but pianissimo opening, complete with a quiet gong, is largely atonal with thick washes of 16th notes in the strings and clarion brass accents creating a high intensity of energy. When this simmers down, the soloist enters and the mood gives way to a slower, richer, melodic polyphonic texture above which the violin sings. A pensive, soul-searching meditation follows, with ever-building tension, which gives way to a mini-cadenza that leads suddenly into a faster, playful, and rhythmically contrasting section with short off-kilter chords, the orchestra battling against the soloist.

Then another big change comes: a very emotional and slower, almost hymn-like section reveals an entirely new sonic world, embracing more traditional tonalities in which the soloist engages in a very agreeable dialog with the orchestra. But the violinist decides when that's over too, and a new, somewhat eerie, section leads to a grand, designedly virtuosic cadenza and an even grander finish. My view of a “good concerto” is that it's largely about the interesting struggle for dominance between soloist and orchestra, and that in the good concertos the soloist always has the last word!

All was feeling good. I was very happy with the concerto. But how to bring it to the concert hall? I tried not to keep in mind that, after a very unsuccessful premiere it took almost 40 years before Beethoven's Violin Concerto finally had a good performance with the famed 12-year old prodigy, Joseph Joachim. Unfortunately for Beethoven, he never saw (or heard!) that celebrated performance.

Needless to say, for the composer, getting a trio or string quartet performed is quite a bit of an easier proposition than a new full-length concerto with full orchestra.

The next step involved some luck and serendipity. I needed a top violinist. As it turned out, two dear music friends, both fellow Juilliard alums, in different countries, were the first people I asked for recommendations, and although they didn't know each other personally, both suggested the same violinist, the young Dutch soloist, Tosca Opdam, another Juilliard alum. And, equally fortunately, after I sent her the score and a rough computer realization (which never sound particularly great), she said she was interested in the project. However it's one thing - and perhaps the comparatively easy thing - for a composer to write a technically demanding piece such as a concerto, but it's quite another for a soloist to actually find it compelling, and a good concerto, and be interested enough to help find ways to make it technically playable and then want to perform it.

A whole year went by and, partly because of the pandemic continuing, it was still difficult to move forward with this project. Few orchestras were performing publicly, and from its outset early this year the Russia/Ukraine war was causing considerable worry across Europe, where any recording would be made. But then things began to look more promising.

PLAYABILITY

Using Zoom calls and numerous emails, Tosca and I slowly went through the entire piece to make the violin part as idiomatic as possible. The wonderful thing about a top soloist is that they have suggestions that the most experienced composers simply would not know about. Is this double stop actually playable after this double stop? Can you play these non-intuitive semi-chromatic arpeggios at this tempo? Will these high notes work as harmonics? Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto, for example, was turned down by two violinists who thought it unplayable, which certainly didn't help the composer's famously moody outlook. He struggled to rewrite certain passages, but when it was finally premiered, the review was savage: “The Russian composer Tchaikovsky is an inflated talent, without discrimination or taste. Such is also his long and pretentious Violin Concerto - vulgarity gains the upper hand. The violin is no longer played; it is pulled, torn, shredded.” -Vienna Free Press.

I had a bit of a similar worry about the playability and listenability of my concerto because the very fast tempo made certain passages extremely difficult; the soloist, rightly so, suggested reducing the pace slightly in places so all the notes could be heard. But then, if it had to go more slowly, I feared it would lose some of its personality and energy.

REALIZATION

Nonetheless, a year after finishing the work, a window of availability opened up to make a recording in July of 2022. Such a recording session is extremely useful to field test a new piece before live concerts. So I went ahead and lined up the Hungarian orchestra that had done such a marvelous job on my Chamber Suite for String Orchestra, and we went ahead and set out for Budapest.

Then, very quickly came the news of massive flight cancellations, which caused additional worry! But we somehow got our flights without losing our suitcases, scores, or violins, and then suddenly realized we were flying into one of the worst heatwaves ever to hit Europe. I guess we lucked out a bit because on the day of the recording it was “only” 103F in Budapest!

The classical music tradition in Hungary is strong and as a result it has an illustrious record of producing some of history's greatest classical musicians, conductors, and composers: names like Franz Liszt, Béla Bartok, and Eugene Ormandy, to mention just a few, and also Zoltan Kodaly, who in fact designed the very studio where our recording was made. Despite the heat - the studio A/C was only partly able to keep up - over the next five hours, Tosca Opdam and the orchestra under its superb Hungarian conductor, Peter Illényi, made this new and challenging concerto come alive in marvelous ways I didn't even think possible. It was like drinking out of a fire hose: extremely intense but enormously exciting to hear the work for the very first time.

And then even better news, Tosca somehow did the impossible and navigated all the difficult passages at full tempo on her rare Matteo Goffriller violin (below). The result was utterly thrilling. While Illényi was fluent in English, the musicians mostly spoke only Hungarian, so there were rapid-fire discussions back and forth in both languages (which sound worlds apart) but all negotiated deftly by Illényi. Where we all communicated in excatly the same language was through the music, perhaps partly because I've always had an echo of Bartok in my music, and they understood that perfectly. Fast, semi-chromatic runs and tricky rhythms, no problem. Stacked polyphonic divisi sliding chords, fine! But, more importantly, the very spirit of the music was intuitively embraced by these skilled musicians.

After the session, Peter Illenyi said “I hear a kind of Bartk in your music.” to which I replied “Well, that's not surprising because he is one of my heroes.” I think he was very happy to hear that. In the lobby of the recording studio is a giant portrait of Bartok. Hearing my new Violin Concerto come to life, we all felt that it has a very good chance of being received well by audiences in the US and Europe alike. Tosca Opdam wants to perform it on tour and of course I very much hope that happens! Next up is the process of promoting the concerto to various orchestras and conductors. But after being born of fire in Budapest, I feel this is a challenge I can handle. Fingers crossed, next stop, the concert hall! Stay tuned!

YouTube excerpts of the studio recording.

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Todd Mason, a Los Angeles native, received his master's in Composition from The Juilliard School, studying with David Diamond, Peter Mennin, Roger Sessions, and Elliott Carter. Mason received the Rodgers & Hammerstein Juilliard Scholarship, Juilliard's Marion Freschl Award for a composition for voice and orchestra, first place in the National Federation of Music Clubs composition contest, First Place in the Lancaster Summer Arts Festival, and the ASCAP Young Composers award, presented by Aaron Copland.

Mason's compositions have been played by the Juilliard Orchestra, The Sofia Philharmonic, the Budapest Scoring Orchestra, the Azusa Pacific Symphony, The Lyris Quartet, The Angeles Quartet, The Argus Quartet, The Debussy Trio, The Los Angeles Wind Quintet, the SAKURA cello quintet, The Alex Iles Brass Quintet, The Saguaro Piano Trio, The Vieness Piano Duo, and many leading members of the LA Opera Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Mason’s music has been performed at the Lancaster Summer Arts Festival, the Astoria Music Festival (where he was Composer in Residence for 2 years), the Laguna Beach Arts Festival, Carlsbad Music Festival, Piano Spheres, Mount Wilson Concerts in the Dome, Chamber Music Palisades, Sunset ChamberFest (Mason was Composer in Residence 2019), at USC, UCLA, and by many other prominent chamber groups.

Mason offers a popular chamber music series in his West L.A. home, showcasing leading ensembles and premiering new works..