Concerto for Violin and String Orchestra (1925)

Hugo Kauder’s concerto for violin and string orchestra has a nostalgic lyricism. It captures both folk-like tonality and improvisation-like language. The dialogue between the solo violin line and the string orchestra imitates the echoing sound of nature and songs. The simplicity as well as the freedom make the concerto pure yet luring.

The violin concerto falls into the period in which Kauder finds his own “inner voice” departing from the post-Romantic style of his First Symphony and the First String Quartet. This work, one can say, is part of a middle period of Kauder’s enhancement of tonality which goes beyond the post Romantic, richly chromatic period. Later, Kauder will explore more structured modes. And yet, the characteristics of the respective periods always merge and enrich the musical experience.

In this concerto we can appreciate Kauder’s deepening embrace of the purest tonality employing the modalities of the ancient West and the pentatonic scales of the East. However, it is not a museum piece but an invigoration; it is a virile, masterly work for the violin solo accompanied by a string orchestra whose role varies from introducing key themes, participating in a dialogue with the solo violin as well as punctuating rhythms. One is struck by the shifting rhythmic energy and patterns (Kauder would later reject using barlines). His melodies, seemingly improvisational, are tightly composed using traditional contrapuntal techniques (i.e. inversion, retrograde, diminution) which become the hallmark of Kauder’s works. Though a tightly written work, we hear an entertaining, if not joyful virtuosity exploiting the violin’s capabilities.

About the Exilarte Edition
G. Schirmer/Wise Music’s Exilarte Edition exclusively publishes works by composers who were persecuted, forced into exile, or murdered by the Nazi regime. All original manuscripts of these works are archived in the Exilarte Center at the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna in Austria.