# Can a violin concerto consist of one piece?



## vincentfernandes (Jan 8, 2013)

I'd like to hear your opinion on this.

Scottish film composer Patrick Doyle has composed a lovely violin piece called Corarsik, and several websites state that the 'concerto' was written for Emma Thompson's birthday, but to the best of my knowledge, it's just a (wonderful) seven minute piece. Am I missing parts or is a concerto of one piece perfectly acceptable?


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

These days music got so avant-garde that you can have violin concerto without violin and nobody will be surprised. One-movement concertos aren't anything new, so yes, it can consist of one piece.


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## vincentfernandes (Jan 8, 2013)

That's just... strange.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

What's weird about it? One movement symphonies and concertos are nothing new (for the latter, see e.g. Ravel's piano concerto for the left hand).


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## vincentfernandes (Jan 8, 2013)

Ah, right. To me it sounded a bit strange because I only listen to baroque music and film music. Composers like Ravel never impressed me that much.


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## pluhagr (Jan 2, 2012)

A concerto just means a piece of music written for one or more instruments. The designation of movements is just up to the period and the composer.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

I've always assumed a concerto showcases one or more instruments in dialog with the orchestra or continuo. It shouldn't matter whether there are three movements or not. Even Bach's Brandenburg No. 3 is only two fast movements with a noodling solo recitative connecting them. 

I do miss the fast-slow-fast or loud-soft-loud format when it is missing though. 

(Note: a few months or years ago I complained about too many modern symphonies of less than or more than four movements. I didn't state my thoughts clearly then. Yes it is good to deviate from the norm, but when it becomes the norm there is nothing to deviate from any more. To paraphrase Aramis, lately composers are writing aleatoric 12 movement miniatures for laptop and virtuoso bong water gurgles and calling it a symphony, making the term nearly meaningless.)


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## vincentfernandes (Jan 8, 2013)

Oh yes, I completely forgot Bach's third Brandenburg Concerto. You're absolutely right and just made me turn on Harnoncourt's performance of this masterpiece again.


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

Janacek's Violin Concerto is one movement of only about 12 minutes.


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

vincentfernandes said:


> Composers like Ravel never impressed me that much.


Maybe it's because you...



> ...only listen to baroque music and film music.


Try actually listening to Ravel. If you haven't got to learn such obvious things as common existence of one-movement concertos, it's clear that you haven't given music outside your comfortable niche any serious chance to impress you.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Aramis said:


> Maybe it's because you...
> 
> Try actually listening to Ravel. If you haven't got to learn such obvious things as common existence of one-movement concertos, it's clear that you haven't given music outside your comfortable niche any serious chance to impress you.


Although the Ravel is on one movement, there are highly contrasting sections.


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## vincentfernandes (Jan 8, 2013)

I hardly have time to experiment with new musical genres these days... Ravel's Bolero - yes, I know it's 'main stream' - scared me off a bit, but I am starting to appreciate Wagner lately.


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## Llyranor (Dec 20, 2010)

2 other single-movement violin concerti I can think of are Vasks' and Ifukube's 2nd.



vincentfernandes said:


> I hardly have time to experiment with new musical genres these days... Ravel's Bolero - yes, I know it's 'main stream' - scared me off a bit, but I am starting to appreciate Wagner lately.


That's not really fair. Would you write off the Baroque era because of Pachelbel's canon in D?


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## Ravndal (Jun 8, 2012)

vincentfernandes said:


> Ah, right. To me it sounded a bit strange because I only listen to baroque music and film music. Composers like Ravel never impressed me that much.


You get impressed by film music and not by Ravel?

Okay.


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## quack (Oct 13, 2011)

Jean-Baptiste Accolay, Anton Arensky, Édith Canat de Chizy, Yuly Konyus, Marc-André Dalbavie, Frederick Delius, Fartein Valen, Reinhold Glière, Sergei Lyapunov, Toshio Hosokawa, Tigran Mansurian, Alfred Schnittke, Karol Szymanowski, Boris Tchaikovsky all seem to have produced 1 movement violin concertos. Both of Sofia Gubaidulina's works _In Tempus Praesens_ and _Offertorium_ seem to be 1 movement as well. But I may be misinterpreting some of these, Szymanowski's first is supposedly 1 movement but it is split into 3 on a lot of CDs. Not all household names, probably due to their perverse rejection of the 3 movement rule. Why are movements anyway?

Don't ask me why I bothered to find this out.


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## Forte (Jul 26, 2013)

Aramis said:


> These days music got so avant-garde that you can have violin concerto without violin


Also known as a concerto for nonexistent violin.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

quack said:


> Not all household names, probably due to their perverse rejection of the 3 movement rule. Why are movements anyway?


I've read a novel by Colin Wilson with no chapters and it kind of bugged me. With few exceptions I think longer pieces need to be at least a little episodic.


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## pluhagr (Jan 2, 2012)

Or take Elliott Carter's Cello Concerto. It has 7 movements but it's played without a break.


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## waldvogel (Jul 10, 2011)

Ernest Chausson's _Poeme_ for violin and orchestra is a gorgeous one-movement violin concerto.


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## pjang23 (Oct 8, 2009)

Dvorak's Romance for Violin and Orchestra


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Vivaldi: _The four seasons_ = four separate three-movement violin concerti...
The timings on one Youtube link with all four of them.
Spring: 10:30
Summer;10:30 - 20:59
Autumn: 20:59 - 32:58
Winter:32:58 - 42.00

In John Williams' score to Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Axkaban, the underscoring to Harry's flight on Buckbeat the Hippogriff lasts 02:09 minutes. 
Ergo ~ in about the same amount of time that Wagner takes as the introduction / opening of Der Ring des Nibelungen; Das Rheingold, a sustained and resounding orchestral E-flat major chord, Harry and Buckbeat could have made two complete take-offs, landings, and round trips about Hogwort's and back to the woods.

Listening to the shorter and zippier of the Baroque, and film scores in general, is not going to develop a longer listening attention span 

The slo-mo stream of glib jokes re: avant-gardists naming pieces one way or the other belies massive ignorance about current art, some notion of the more valid (i.e. not sophomoric) play of conceptualism. -- That vs. the completely ignorant youtube autodidact piece called "Sonata" or "Concerto" -- often having nothing to do with either, except the composers thought naming it that would automatically "make it classical," or give their ditty some weight of legitimacy or credibility.

I am less and less surprised and more and more expect TC users to feel they can just stab at definitions rather than just look them up (but where would the personal, "To Me, a Concerto is" babble then go?) 

If anyone who does not know would care to know, here is the link to the Dolmetsch online dictionary page.... have a read about Concerto, Concerto Grosso, Concertante.
http://www.dolmetsch.com/defsc2.htm
Those still interested may also want to look up the eye-opening entries on "Sonata" "Sinfonia," etc.


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## Kopachris (May 31, 2010)

Weston said:


> Note: [...] To paraphrase Aramis, lately composers are writing aleatoric 12 movement miniatures for laptop and virtuoso bong water gurgles and calling it a symphony, making the term nearly meaningless.


Come to think of it, I think I actually have an example of this genre... Ah, here it is:


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## Winterreisender (Jul 13, 2013)

_The Lark Ascending_ by Vaughan Williams can be classed as a violin concerto but also has many of the characteristics of a single movement tone poem.


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## Jos (Oct 14, 2013)

Isn't Glazunovs concerto a one piece work.
I'm browsing through the forum so this is from the top of my head. I'll dig into the crates to check, but I believe it is, be it that it is somewhat "constructed" . 

Cheers
Jos


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