Stuart Hancock (b.1975) Violin Concerto (2005)

[Alan Howe]

The point is this: today anything goes. The question isn't: is it retro? but rather: is it any good?

The other point I'd make is this: film music by its very nature is primarily illustrative; a proper concerto (in the 'film music' style) would have to be more than that. It shouldn't be impossible to achieve this; after all, if Korngold could do it, why not Hancock?

And so now I'll nail my colours to the mast: I think Hancock's VC of 2005 is every bit as good as Korngold's of 1945. If you haven't tried it, you should!

[TerraEpon]

Did anyone else buy this?

I did, and it's really enjoyable! Maybe not the deepest music in the world no but *shrug*

Incidently I was wondering how I even found it, and I guess it was this thead? Heh.

[Alan Howe]

Maybe not the deepest music in the world

Nor's the Korngold!

[Alan Howe]

Did anyone else buy this?

[John Boyer]

No, I didn't buy it yet.  But should we even be discussing it?  Stuart Hancock is not a forgotten or neglected composer of the Romantic era.  If we discuss Hancock (and Boulez), it's like the old "anything goes" days when we debated the merits of Bruckner (not a neglected composer) and mature Schoenberg (neither neglected nor Romantic).

The Romantic era in music begins (approximately) with the Eroica and ends (approximately) with Der Rosenkavalier.  Let's approximate that even more to say roughly 1800 to 1910.  Things get fuzzy with composers raised in the late Classical era (as Beethoven was) and those raised in the late Romantic era (those born from 1880 to 1900).  I sometime think we should set some hard boundaries on this.

But before we close this thread (hint), I wonder if Mr. Hancock's concerto is really more pastiche?   John Williams has been mentioned in this thread, but if you listen to his Violin Concerto (completed a few months before his score to Star Wars), you quickly realize there are two sides to Mr. Williams, one romantic (his film scores) and the other modernist (his concert music), just as there were two sides to Bernstein (Broadway vs. modernist).  That is, the music they wrote without any Hollywood or Broadway limits was not grand romantic stuff.

That Hancock's concerto exists at all is a result of the death of Modernism (with a capital M).  I only just picked up a book on this subject, Arthur C. Danto's After the End of Art: Contemporary Art and the Pale of History, which asserts that the linear progression of art movements ended in the 1960s, leaving a vacuum in which anything could be called art.  And just as the world that Clement Greenberg had come to rule vanished as a result of these artistic upheavals, so too did Pierre Boulez's realm come crashing down, leaving an "anything goes" vacuum that made Hancock's concerto possible, a work that would have been impossible to conceive 50 years ago, not because it was so advanced, but because it was so intentionally backward-looking.

But I digress.  Regardless of his merits, Mr. Hancock is not a neglected composer of the Romantic era.

[Alan Howe]

The Romantic era in music begins (approximately) with the Eroica and ends (approximately) with Der Rosenkavalier.

I respectfully disagree. Romantic-style music has been composed right up to the present-day by a certain disparate group of composers and we have regularly discussed their music at UC.

Stuart Hancock is not a forgotten or neglected composer of the Romantic era

He doesn't have to be. It's style, not date that we're interested in here. Our remit clearly states:

<<Some composers did not actively compose until well after the traditional period and yet wrote, and still write, in a recognisably romantic idiom: examples being Marx, Korngold, Atterberg, Furtwängler, many composers of film music and, until his death in 2013, Schmidt-Kowalski.>>

This is why Hancock's VC is a perfect fit for UC. He is virtually unknown, therefore unsung, and his VC is written in the great Romantic tradition of Korngold and John Williams (in his film music).

[Mark Thomas]

I have scant interest in Hancock's Concerto, but I do agree with Alan's interpretation of its suitability for discussion here.

[Alan Howe]

Here's the review at MusicWeb:

The Violin Concerto is a substantial, attractively memorable and superbly orchestrated work that has given me a great deal of pleasure in recent days. Once again, the influence of John Williams is apparent, but since this means melodic interest and orchestral virtuosity, it is fine by me. Probably the best movement is the 15-minute first, which begins with a declamatory orchestral introduction that calms for the entrance of the soloist, singing the melancholy principal theme. It morphs over the following bars until the powerful theme from the introduction returns, whilst the violin indulges in florid virtuosity leading to a major climax. The orchestra is silent during the cadenza and creeps back in, leading to a quiet close.

The slow movement is equipped with all the facets necessary to create an enjoyable romantic concerto, and a good tune is one of them. The soloist and orchestra rhapsodise with the melody, the whole forming a dreamy yet passionate movement. The finale has an exuberant theme as its basis, and sounds like a sprightly jig. The theme of the slow movement returns, as does that of the first movement on the violin.

If you enjoy the concertos of Barber, Korngold and Rózsa, I feel sure that you will like this piece. I really cannot praise it too highly. It is such a pleasure to be able to thoroughly enjoy a modern work, to be able to believe that the orchestra are thoroughly enjoying themselves, and that the soloist has the opportunity to make his instrument sing as well as dance.
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2019/dec/Hancock_raptures_ORC100111.htm

This is definitely not mere film music. It's a spectacular modern-day Romantic-style violin concerto. It's the VC I wish John Williams had written.

[Mark Thomas]

Here's a five minute video on Hancock's web site about the making of the album which features the concerto.

[Alan Howe]

Thanks, Mark.

[chriss]

How about Andre Previn's Violin Concerto?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cbu2P5qWPN0

[Alan Howe]

Lovely (IMHO), but the sweetness is more acidic than in Hancock's piece: it's far more dissonant overall. In line with David Hurwitz, I'd put it somewhere between Prokofiev and Korngold.

[chriss]

Yes, my first thought was that Previn's Concerto is Korngold-esque but there's Prokofiev, too!

[eschiss1]

How does Rochberg's 1974 concerto sound/fit here?

[Mark Thomas]

Judging by the Introduction, I'd say it doesn't - fit here, that is.