Ignatz Waghalter’s Violin Concerto
Notes by TŌN violinist Mingyue Xia
In 1949, three years after the end of World War II, Theodor Adorno released his Philosophy of New Music. Adorno stated that truly modern music should express the conflicts and suffering of modern society rather than giving listeners easy pleasure. The same year, Polish-German composer and conductor Ignatz Waghalter died in New York, leaving behind a large body of undiscovered compositions and an uncompromising melodicism.
Waghalter’s musical talent started showing up at an early age; he was born in a poor, musical Jewish family in Warsaw. At the age of 17, he went to Berlin to pursue his musical dreams. There, he studied composition and conducting with Friedrich Gernsheim. He had a successful conducting career; it was he who conducted German premieres of Puccini’s Tosca and La bohème. This fascination with Puccini likely explains the importance of melody in his own compositions.
Waghalter’s Violin Concerto is particularly interesting because we can sense something between Brahmsian Romanticism and a more individual harmonic language of the early 20th century. In the first movement, the orchestra starts the glorious first theme before the soloist enters. The second theme is more lyrical and Romantic. Later on, the cadenza shows Waghalter’s brilliant idea of combining the first and second themes with thicker sounds and flashy passages. With a sudden tempo change, the first movement ends in a pleasant mood.
Right after the ending of the first movement, the horns turn the atmosphere into a Brahmsian reminiscence. The second movement starts with a beautiful string cantilena with a touching solo violin melody—the core of the whole concerto. The second theme is pastoral and organic.
The third movement is relatively short and has more playful energy, highlighting the soloist’s virtuosity and displaying the whole range of the violin’s sound with rapid modulating arpeggios and lyrical melodies. The orchestra plays the same musical material, but Waghalter makes the violin appear as a sparkling spirit dancing among the orchestra.
In the development of musical history, there have been differing views about how music should express the world and life. Walghalter’s Violin Concerto speaks directly to the listener, with the most sincerity and captivating melodic beauty.