Violin Concerto (Khachaturian)

In 1940, Khachaturian was enjoying tremendous professional success and personal joy.[2] He worked on the concerto in the tranquility of a wood composer's retreat west of Moscow; he said of the composition that he "worked without effort ... Themes came to me in such abundance that I had a hard time putting them in order."[3] Many sections of the concerto are reminiscent of the folk music of Khachaturian's native Armenia—while he never directly quotes a specific folk melody, "the exotic Oriental flavor of Armenian scales and melodies and the captivating rhythmic diversity of dances" are throughout the work.[4] The work has been charactered by "an exhilarating rhythmic drive and vitality, and a penchant for intoxicating, highly flavored, languorous melody owning much to the inflections of his native Armenian folk music."[5] Having won the Stalin prize in 1941, it has since become one of Khachaturian's famous pieces, in spite of considerable criticism.[6]

Violin concerto in D minor (1940)

• First movement: Allegro con fermezza (about 14 minutes)
• Second movement: Andante sostenuto (about 12 minutes)
• Third movement: Allegro vivace (about 9 minutes)

A movement in sonata form, the Allegro con fermezza opens with a melody that has been described as "energetic"[7] a "rollicking dance-like theme,"[8] and this yields to a "more lyrical"[9] secondary melody.

The Andante sostenuto has been described as "a rhapsodic slow movement that sweeps one into a brooding wintry landscape." [10] Geoffrey Norris wrote, "The ease and spontaneity, pungency and flexibility of Khachaturian's melodic inventions are most clearly laid out in the Andante sostenuto of the central movement, cast in a free-flowing, quasi-improvisatory manner redolent of the art of Armenian folk music."[11] The second movement is a free-flowing rondo.[12]

The concluding Allegro vivace has been called "a whirlwind of motion and virtuosity."[13] In this movement, "the folks element is specially pronounced in the dance-like vigor of the main melody and in the repetitive, insistent, wild virtuosity of the solo instrument."[14]