Sinding, Christian

Sinding, Christian

Violin Concerto No. 2 in D Op. 60 (Piano Reduction/Solo)

In spring 1901, inspired by the success of his First Violin Concerto (op. 45), and especially by its many performances with Marteau in the solo part, Sinding embarked on his Second Concerto while staying in Paris. The autograph score, preserved today in the Oslo National Library and available online, reveals very few corrections and evidently represents a fair copy that later served as a production master for the engraving. A note on the title page reads “Paris autograph,” implying that the full score was already completed in France.

The Second Concerto, at thirty-five minutes’ duration, is considerably longer than the first, signifying that Sinding proceeded from a different conception. Instead of a through-composed fabric it has three separate and distinct movements and a far broader overall design. As in its predecessor, the opening Allegro does without a lengthy orchestral exposition, but the themes are presented and developed largely along the lines of conventional sonata form. Unusually, even in the exposition the relatively uniform themes and transitions exploit the tonal space of the circle of fifths almost in the manner of a development (D major, F-sharp major, F major, D-flat major). The second movement, an F-sharp major Andante, and the D major Allegro finale likewise revert to time-honored formal models (arch form and sonata-rondo) and relate thematically to the opening movement.

On 20 October 1901, roughly half a year after its completion, the concerto was premièred in Berlin, with Josef Řebíček as conductor and its dedicatee Henri Marteau as soloist. Though the audience valued the successful performance, voices of disapproval were heard. Two days later the critic Leopold Schmidt sized up the situation in the Berliner Tageblatt: “Op. 60 is laid out on a broader scale than the First Concerto (op. 45), and is very ingratiatingly written for the soloist, but its musical contents are not especially distinctive and sometimes less than elegant. The success was great, and the composer was made to appear on the concert platform.” Although the piece was issued in score and piano reduction by Peters of Leipzig a short while later, the Second Concerto did not achieve the popularity of its predecessor, evidently being the victim of its own homogeneity. It was presumably these experiences that prevented Sinding from finding a publisher fifteen years later for his similarly designed Third Violin Concerto, which has remained in manuscript to the present day.

Principal source: G. Rugstad: Christian Sinding, 1856-1941, en biografisk og stilistik studie (Oslo, 1979).

For more information on the piece:

Read the preface to the full score / das Vorwort zur Partitur lesen > HERE