Violin Concerto No. 2 (Shostakovich)

The Violin Concerto No. 2 in C-sharp minor, Op. 129, was Dmitri Shostakovich's last concerto. He wrote it in the spring of 1967 and intended it to serve as a 60th birthday present for its dedicatee, David Oistrakh, in September. However, Shostakovich had mistaken Oistrakh's age; he actually turned 59 that year.[lower-alpha 1] It was premiered unofficially in Bolshevo, near Moscow, on 13 September 1967, and officially on 26 September by Oistrakh and the Moscow Philharmonic under Kirill Kondrashin in Moscow.[1]

Scoring and structure

The concerto is scored for solo violin, piccolo, flute, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, timpani, tom-tom drum and strings.[1]

A performance of the piece lasts approximately 33 minutes.[1] It has three movements:

Analysis

The key of C-sharp minor is a difficult one for the violin.[1]

The first movement is in sonata form[1] and concludes with a contrapuntal cadenza. The Adagio is in three parts, with a central accompanied cadenza. The final movement is a complex rondo. It has a slow introduction, three episodes between the refrains, and a further long cadenza before the third episode reprising material from earlier in the work.[2]

Notes
  1. Shostakovich wrote his only Violin Sonata for Oistrakh the following year to make up for this error.

References
  1. Robinson, Harlow. "Violin Concerto No. 2". Boston Symphony Orchestra. Retrieved 5 February 2024.
  2. MacDonald, Malcolm (2008). "Shostakovich's string concertos and sonatas". In Fairclough, Pauline; Fanning, David (eds.). The Cambridge Companion to Shostakovich. Cambridge University Press. pp. 134–135. ISBN 978-0-521-84220-4.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
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