Program notes for Aaron Moffatt's concerts: "Great Works for the Violin"

Ralph Vaughan Williams

Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote The Lark Ascending during WW1, in which he served and lost his friend, composer George Butterworth. "I sometimes dread coming back to life with so many gaps." Before the war Vaughan Williams had walked the British countryside notating folk songs and carols for the future. Lark Ascending was inspired by a poem by George Meredith.

Nicholo Paganini

Nicolo Paganini was violins foremost virtuoso, a master player by age 11. He composed in pursuit of more difficult pieces to play. He was a circus act of sorts. Legends abound: he wrote a concerto for one violin string; supposedly played on strings made from a dead mistresses gut; was thrown out of london for charging too much for concerts; once gambled his violin away.

Pablo Sarasate

Pablo Sarasate received a Stradivarius violin from the Queen of Spain when he was 10. He was a child prodigy who never practiced much, especially in summer. Playing other people?s compositions, one critic said he had a fixed gaze over the heads of the audience. He despised the concerto, in which the soloist was not the dominant force. Playing his own pieces, he was suave, elegant and brilliant in a very personal way.

Sarasate had pieces of music written for him to debut by many great composers of his day. His own compositions showed his liking for Spanish dance and gypsy music. He said Brahms Violin Concerto was, "pretty good music, but do you really think I'll be so insipid as to stand on stage, violin in hand, while the oboe plays the only melody in the adagio?"

Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms was a landscape artist of music even though he criticized other musicians of the time for making musical descriptions of nature. He didn't like their superficiality. His concerto is a rich and authentic wilderness showing the desperate longing of the composer to become closer to the beauty he sees. It was received moderately when first performed but is now considered one of the greatest musical achievements of all time.

Antonin Dvorak

Antonin Dvorak's father was an innkeeper and butcher in a Bohemian village and Antonin grew up to be a modest man of simple tastes, a loyal czech nationalist. He mostly occupied himself with music teaching and composition. Romance depicts a relationship with disagreements, compromises and most of all, stedfast loyalty.

Antonio Vivaldi

Antonio Vivaldi, also known as the Red Priest, wrote much of his music for a Venetian Conservatory. Concerts at this Ospedale della Pieta were notable social events. A famous Guardi painting shows us an enthusiastic and happy audience. In Vivaldi's music, even winter is festive.

Felix Mendelssohn

Felix Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto includes diverse emotions. Here a huge, playful mind navigates the world with many moods and surprises. While Vivaldi is trying to enthuse an audience during a dismal time of year, Mendelssohn is writing a memoir to reassure us that all will be well, that the sun will return.

Aram Khachaturian

Maurice Ravel

Jean Sibelius

These composers were all strikingly different; unique musicians who probably had little in common other than their impressive ability to tell the world who they were through their music.