On 14 and 15 February Leila Josefowicz returns to Oliver Knussen’s Violin Concerto with the Münchner Philharmoniker, conducted by Brad Lubman. One of Knussen’s most celebrated works, it has received well over 100 performances internationally since its 2002 debut with Pinchas Zukerman. Josefowicz, the work’s most ardent champion, has given nearly fifty of these, presenting the 17-minute work with the Concertgebouw, BBC Symphony, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Chicago Symphony, and Cleveland and Tonhalle orchestras.
The concerto begins and ends with the same arresting sonority – a clangourous tubular-bell chord and a stratospheric high E on the violin. “At times”, observed Knussen, “the soloist resembles a tightrope walker progressing along a (decidedly unstable) high wire strung across the span that separates the opening and closing sounds.”
Its three movements are played without a pause, with titles (Recitative, Aria, and Gigue) suggesting a certain theatricality – Zukerman had previously conducted the US premiere of Knussen’s opera Where the Wild Things Are at the Minnesota Opera in 1985; the composer had also mooted the idea of subtitling the piece “in three scenes”. “It is beautifully direct”, wrote Andrew Clements in the Guardian, “the scoring is full of sleights of hand and brilliantly imagined moments, while the harmonic world is sure and never for a moment predictable.”
Since its debut with Zukerman and the Pittsburgh Symphony, it has since found exponents in Isabelle van Keulen, Clio Gould, James Ehnes, and Daniel Pioro. Josefowicz recorded the piece with the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group – a live recording from the BBC Proms conducted by the composer; in 2019 she performed it with Susanna Mälkki and the LA Philharmonic as part of a tribute to Knussen.