Prokofiev and the Violin Concerti

In early 1918, with the First Violin Concerto in hand, Prokofiev left Russia,

virtually ignoring the violent consolidation of power following the Revolution.

When he returned to Stalin’s Soviet Union in 1935(-6), having just completed

his Second Violin Concerto, he had quite finished with Western concert life,

and was looking (in an slightly socialistic way) to write with “new simplicity” in

Russia. That Prokofiev’s violin concertos so perfectly frame his departure from

and return to the Soviet Union is coincidental, but the significance and clear

opposition of these biographical events may serve to clarify how and why

he set out to make the two concertos – both extraordinarily beautiful –

“completely different.”

Prokofiev wrote the First Violin Concerto (along with the “Classical Symphony”)

on the eve of the Bolshevik Revolution, when he was a rising enfant terrible at

the cutting edge of Russian music. The concerto’s decorative early modern

effects and cut-glass clarity are nothing short of magical. The floating lyricism

of its main theme, which makes a wafting chromatic reappearance at the end

of the first movement and a shimmering reappearance at the end of the last

(as that movement’s first theme disappears into the orchestra), is as crystalline

as could be imagined. Moreover, the acrobatics of the First Concerto are

quite stunning – especially in the second movement, which shifts and

inverts its center of gravity at precarious velocity, using a circus’ worth of

violin techniques.

Gerard Schwarz conductor

Gerard Schwarz, Music Director of Seattle Symphony

since 1985 and Music Director of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic

Orchestra since 2001, is also Conductor Emeritus of New York’s

Mostly Mozart Festival, having served there as Music Director from

1984 to 2001. He stepped down as Music Director of the New York

Chamber Symphony in 2002, taking the orchestra he founded in

1977 through its 25th anniversary. A graduate of the Juilliard School,

Gerard Schwarz began his conducting career in 1966. Within ten

years, he was appointed Music Director of the Erick Hawkins Dance Company, the Eliot Feld

Dance Company, the Waterloo Festival and the New York Chamber Symphony as well as the

Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. In 1981 he established the Music Today contemporary

music series in New York City and served as its Music Director through 1989. Gerard Schwarz

has led the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra in débuts at the Tanglewood and Ravinia

Festivals, and from 1991 to 1999 he conducted the Mostly Mozart Festival in Tokyo. From

1994 to 1999, he served as Artistic Advisor to Tokyu Bunkamura’s Orchard Hall, conducting

six programmes annually with the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra. He has guest-conducted

major orchestras throughout North America and Europe. In 1994 Gerard Schwarz was named

Conductor of the Year by Musical America International Directory of the Performing Arts. He

also has received the Ditson Conductor’s Award from Columbia University, an honorary

Doctorate of Music from the Juilliard School, and honorary doctorates from Fairleigh Dickinson

University, University of Puget Sound and Seattle University. In May 2002, the American

Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers awarded special recognition to Maestro

Schwarz for his efforts in championing the works of American composers and the music of

our time. In April 2003 the Pacific Northwest Branch of the National Arts & Sciences gave

Maestro Schwarz its first “IMPACT” lifetime achievement award. He was also named an

Honorary Fellow at John Moores University, Liverpool, honorary Doctorate of Music from the

Juilliard School, as well as honorary degrees from Farleigh Dickinson University, the University

of Puget Sound and Seattle University. In January 2004, President Bush nominated Maestro

Schwarz to serve on the National Council on the Arts, the advisory board of the National

Endowment for the Arts.

Gardner Museum in Boston, Imperial Garden series in Beijing, Monnaie Opera in

Brussels, La Chaux des Fonds in Switzerland, and San Miguel de Allende Festival

in Mexico. Ms. Frautschi was a member of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln

Center Two, and regularly appears at music festivals around the world. An

exceptionally adventurous artist, she recorded the Schoenberg Concerto for

String Quartet and Orchestra and works of Webern with conductor Robert Craft,

premiered Oliver Knussen's Secret Song for solo violin at Carnegie’s Weill Recital

Hall and London’s Wigmore Hall, and gave the New York premiere of Penderecki’s

Sextet in Weill Hall.

Born in Pasadena, California, Ms. Frautschi was a student of Robert Lipsett at

the Colburn School for the Performing Arts in Los Angeles and the University

of Southern California School of Music. She also attended Harvard, the New

England Conservatory of Music, and The Juilliard School, where she studied

with Robert Mann.

Jennifer Frautschi performs on a 1722 Antonio Stradivarius violin known as the

"ex-Cadiz," on generous loan to her from a private American foundation.

I'd like to express my deepest gratitude to Robert Levin of Performing Arts

Consultants for all of his hard work and dedication which made this recording

project possible. Thank you also to Maestro Schwarz for giving me the opportunity

to make this CD; the Seattle Symphony for their fantastic musicianship; Larry Tucker

for all of his tremendous help; and Elmar Oliveira, for his constant support. Special

thanks to Tim Summers for his insightful liner notes, Elizabeth Dworkin for her input

and patience, Jill Bader for her generosity and hospitality, Louise Owen for her moral,

musical, and culinary support, and to the Clarks, Paulings, and Carr Trust.

–JF

The First Violin Concerto premiered in Paris in 1923. The word from the

progressives was that it was “Mendelssohnian” – which was not a nice thing

to say to an enfant terrible. As the years in Paris passed, however, Prokofiev

proved himself to be rather more progressively Modern, especially in working

with Diaghilev on the industrial ballet Le Pas d’acier, and he enjoyed

considerable success both as a pianist and as a composer. But by the early

1930’s he had decided to return to Russia, where perhaps he thought he

would achieve musical preeminence (beyond the simple eminence he knew in

the West), and where he sought to explore a simpler, more direct musical style.

Before he moved back with his family in 1936, he received a commission

from Robert Soutens for a new violin concerto. It was to be his last

Western commission.

By this time, Prokofiev’s lyricism, which he had sometimes tended to

understate or truncate in his work, had broadened and deepened, and he

allowed it to come strongly back to the fore. The Second Violin Concerto, like

the contemporaneous Romeo and Juliet, often moves in long phrases hinged

by instantaneous changes of mood; its warmth was warmly received. Of the

premiere in Madrid, Prokofiev wrote, “It seems as though the concerto was a

success…. Somehow the music immediately reached the audience.” As the

first concerto is one of the most ethereal and brilliant in the violin repertoire, the

second, for all its characteristic wrong-note dissonance and rhythmic force, is

one of the most singing and direct. It seems to have given just the sort of

success for which he had hoped.

The “new simplicity” of the Second Violin Concerto was in part a reflection of

his (rather naïve) new Soviet aspirations. Communist artists had been working

feverishly to figure out what music ‘for the masses’ must properly include, and a

healthy (though often very bizarre) debate had been running since the revolution

on how socialist music should serve socialist progress. Prokofiev seems to have

chosen lyricism (still alloyed with his characteristic sarcasms, but nonetheless

clear) as a method for ‘reaching the people’ in a way that might serve the

cause. It seems to have shown some promise. All health was drained from the

debate, though, when an article appeared in Pravda (“Muddle Instead of Music”

– January 28, 1936) condemning Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtensk and

giving notice to all Soviet artists that the state was watching (and listening)

closely. Almost instantly, Prokofiev’s bid for making a rich musical life in Soviet

Russia, which the Second Violin Concerto and Romeo and Juliet made to seem

so promising, was made secondary to navigating Stalinist reality. His real

qualifications as a Socialist were extremely dubious (not least because he had

avoided both revolution and reconstruction), and in the coming years he would

often have to do more for Stalinism than write in a clear lyric style.

Most importantly, the failure of the First Violin Concerto to satisfy progressives

in Paris and the failure of the Second Violin Concerto to satisfy propagandists

in Russia doesn’t make either of them any less beautiful. That he was a

second-tier revolutionary only serves to highlight that he was a first-tier

musician, who left two violin concertos of magical lyricism for East and West alike.

-Timothy Summers. 2004

Jennifer Frautschi violin

Avery Fisher Career Grant winner violinist

Jennifer Frautschi is capturing the attention

of audiences and critics round the world,

with edge-of-the-seat performances of an

adventuresome, wide-ranging repertoire

from Bach and Schumann to Stravinsky

and Davidovsky. Selected by Carnegie Hall

for its Distinctive Debuts series, she made

her New York recital debut at Weill Hall in

April 2004. As part of the European

Concert Hall Organization’s Rising Stars

recital series, Ms. Frautschi made debuts

at ten of Europe’s most celebrated concert

venues, including the Amsterdam

Concertgebouw, Salzburg Mozarteum,

Vienna Konzerthaus, London’s Wigmore

Hall, and La Cité de la Musique in Paris.

Her diverse activities include performances

with the Chicago Symphony and Christoph

Eschenbach at the Ravinia Festival, the Los

Angeles Philharmonic with Pierre Boulez, at

the opening concerts of Lincoln Center's

Mostly Mozart Festival, and the Caramoor

International Music Festival with the

Orchestra of St. Luke’s. Recitals include the

Ravinia Festival, La Jolla Chamber Music

Society, Phillips Collection in Washington,

Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953)

Violin Concerto No.1 in D major, Op.19

1 I. Andantino 9:16

2 II. Scherzo 4:09

3 III. Moderato 8:40

Violin Concerto No.2 in G minor, Op.63

4 I. Allegro moderato 11:14

5 II. Andante assai 9:45

6 III. Allegro, ben marcato 6:28

total time: 49:45

This album is dedicated to the memory of my

grandparents, Grace and Lowell Frautschi. AR-0020-2

ARTEK

P.O. Box 283

Croton-on-Hudson, NY 10520

(914) 271-4910

admin@artekrecordings.com

www.artekrecordings.com322004 ARTEK. All rights reserved. Unauthorizedduplication is a violation of applicable laws.

Producers:

Laura Harth Rodriguez,

Al Swanson

Session Engineer:

Al Swanson, SMI Recording

Digital Mastering and Editing:

Digital Dynamics Audio Inc.,

Laura Harth Rodriguez,

Francisco Rodriguez

Graphic Design:

Jim Manly, Carrie Singer

Recorded at:

Benaroya Hall, Seattle, WA

June 24 & 25, 2003

Cover Photo:

Richard Bowditch

Gown courtesy of:

Joanna Mastroianni

Recorded using Lavry Engineering

AD122 Gold Series convertors