Exclusive: Henze & Bach - Julia Fischer, Iván Fischer, Konzerthausorchester Berlin
Henze’s "Il Vitalino raddoppiato" and the "Sarabande" from Bach’s Partita for Solo Violin no. 2 with Julia Fischer, Iván Fischer and Konzerthausorchester Berlin - exclusively on IDAGIO.
Read more…Hans Werner Henze’s ‘Il Vitalino raddoppiato’ refers to a famous virtuoso piece of violin literature: a Chaconne for Violin and Continuo, which is attributed to the Italian Baroque composer Tomaso Vitali (1663 – 1745). The original survives only as a manuscript in a library in Dresden, with the title ‘Chaconne’ and ‘Parte di Tomaso Vitalino’. Ferdinand David - one of the great violinists of the nineteenth century, who had premiered Mendelssohn's violin concerto - used this manuscript as the basis for a c. 1860 violin and piano arrangement, which reflected the spirit of the time. The continuo voice was developed into a fully fledged piano movement and the violin part was also heavily modified. The piece became famous in this version.
Vitali’s authorship was later called into question and even now raises some doubts, although most consider it probably his own work. Nevertheless, it is surprising that this otherwise unremarkable Baroque composer penned such a work, which commands attention not only for its violinistic merits, but above all for the very daring harmonies, which broke with conventions.
In the preface to the score, Hans Werner Henze described what fascinated him the most about this music: “Tomaso Vitali’s Ciacona is a strangely beautify memory of my youth. It seemed to me at the time as though this music could illuminate my dreams, as if it recognised and represented all that I myself could not articulate, neither figuratively nor with the help of words or tones. There was a comfort in this music, a longing which had come to rest and which had become permanent. A lingering, a consolation. Something which is remote, distanced in time and space and that was foreign to me, strange and inviting.”
In the original manuscript, the solo parts of the violin and a figured bass voice are notated: from these figures, a musician accompanying on a keyboard instrument, for example, can read which harmonies should be played along with the individual bass tones. However, the details of how these chords are structured and how the voices are arranged is a matter for the interpreter, which offers a lot of creative freedom. This is exactly where Henze steps in. He retains the predefined bass and solo voices, but completely reinvents the network of countermelodies and orchestrates the work for a small but very specific orchestral ensemble. Henze succeeds in developing a very individual, unusual sound - especially through the strong presence of low wind instruments (cor anglais, bass clarinet, bassoon), often supplemented by the virtuosic horn, the shimmering of flute figurations and the glitter of the harp. As if that were not enough: Henze augments the 58 Variations of the original, which is based on a basic tone sequence consisting of four descending tones from the tonic note, with his own variations, each of which alternates with those of Vitalis, so that the original work is almost doubled - hence the title, which translates as “The Doubled Vitalino”. In addition, Henze added new opening and closing sections and a long solo cadenza.
Vitali had already undermined the very strong tonal gravitation which is characteristic of the bass formula with modulations that were quite unusual for a Chaconne. Henze reinforced this tendency. At first, only occasional non-harmonic tones are added to the harmonic body of the work. They develop towards the end of the work and come to fruition in the cadence with such power that the music tears itself free from tonal gravity and is set loose into free-tonal space. Thus it becomes apparent that the perspective from which Henze approaches this early music is that of the twentieth century: “Now we sing together, in one language, about the same things.” (H.W. Henze)
Text: Jens Schubbe / Konzerthaus Berlin
Translation: IDAGIO