Music at Emory University 2015-2016 Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, op. 14, Samuel Barber

Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, op. 14 (1940) Samuel Barber (1910-1981)
1. Allegro

Michael Crawford, violin
Winner of the 2015 Concerto and Aria Competition

(I am taking liberty here and dedicating this video to our dear friend and most amazing violin teacher: Laura Nadine. Your many families and students are grateful and have found terrific joy watching Michael and your other students grow from your guidance and caring in their childhoods into amazing musicians).

Michael Crawford, violin.
Michael Crawford is a junior studying violin performance and composition at Emory University. Born in Lawrenceville, Georgia, he began playing violin at age seven, studying first with Victor DeLisa and later with Laura Nadine. Before attending Emory, he was a member of the Gwinnett Symphony Orchestra and participated in the 2011 Georgia Governor's Honors Program. He currently studies violin with Shawn Pagliarini and composition with Richard Prior. Crawford is an active member of Emory's Chamber Music program, and as Edward Goodwin Scruggs Principal Second Violin, plays the 1870 Scarampella. During the past two summers, he has attended the Franklin Pond Chamber Music College Festival and the National Symphony Orchestra Summer Music Institute.

Notes from the Program:

Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, op. 14
The Concerto for Violin and Orchestra was the first major commission for American composer Samuel Barber. Samuel Fels, a wealthy American businessman who served on the board of trustees of Barber's alma mater, the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, offered the commission in spring 1939. Fels intended the Concerto to serve as a vehicle for his protégé, the young Odessa-born violinist Iso Briselli.

Artistic disagreements arose between Barber and Briselli. And so, Briselli did not perform the premiere of the Barber Violin Concerto. That honor went to the renowned American violinist, Albert Spalding. On February 7, 1941, Spalding, accompanied by Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra, gave the first performance at the Academy of Music.

Barber was dissatisfied with what he viewed as "an unsatisfactory climax in the (second movement) and some muddy orchestration in the finale." In 1948, Barber penned revisions to the Concerto, which, in the composer's view, made the work "much improved." The final version was published in 1949.

The soaring lyricism of opening movements, coupled with the virtuoso fireworks of the finale, have made the Barber Violin Concerto one of his most popular works, for violinists and audiences alike.

Tonight's concert features the first movement, Allegro. It opens with the soloist's immediate presentation of the lengthy and flowing principal theme. The jaunty second theme, introduced by the solo clarinet, has a decidedly Scottish flavor. A vivacious sequence for the soloist concludes the exposition portion of the opening movement. The development section begins in agitated fashion, but soon returns to the generally lyrical character of the Allegro. The tension mounts once again, leading to the orchestra's fortissimo launch of the recapitulation. After a brief cadenza for the soloist, the opening movement concludes with hushed variants of the "Scottish and opening themes.