Violin Concerto (2020)

Composer Note
Written especially for the violinist Augustin Hadelich, this is actually my first multi-movement concerto. People have referred to my Elastic Harmonic of 2005 as a violin concerto, but actually I have thought of that always as a one-movement piece for violin and orchestra where the solo violin is suspended above consistently. This on the other hand, plays on the dialogue between the solo and the mass constantly, and the mass of the orchestra itself splinters into smaller shards. The first movement especially zooms in and out of various perspectives. I think of this aerial zooming as being essential to its nature. The second movement feels redolent of the sea to me. The sea always emerges in my music it seems. Maybe it has to do with growing up in Ireland, surrounded by water on all sides. There is a real feeling of yearning to this movement. It was written during the first lockdown of the pandemic, and I feel that a kind of desire to transcend the conditions of everyday life permeates this movement. The final movement is more earthy and cheeky. A strange, splintered, fierce jig eventually appears and then abstractions of that start to eat away at the very fabric of the music, when the violin threatens to spiral everything out of control leading to a fierce conclusion on the very edge of what is possible!

— Donnacha Dennehy