So beautiful! I am going to get the music so I can play this. I can't believe I've been playing over 50 years and never discovered this wonderful concerto before!
Nice to see a picture of her smiling (barely) for a change. Price (who I'd never even heard of until about 2 yrs ago) is now one of my absolute all-time favorite composers.💖💖💖💖 And this is not just because I'm Black. Because I'm not, I'm White.
Yes, it does come off as a bit of a pastiche, not only of Tchaikovsky but Brahms, Dvorak, and Bruch. I think she was trying out her hand at writing for solo violin, and a lot of the virtuosic passagework mimicked that of her models.
Windstorm... I actually just wrote a blog on how the First Violin concerto has a heavy Tchaikovsky violin concerto influence. The opening bars of the solo violin are directly lifted from that work. I think I sense the Elgar influence too. I looked up some articles on her work and these obvious references are well known. Her work is very sophisticated and I suspect she was paying tribute and having a bit of fun. I actually think she was deliberately going for variations on themes and she does that in a very interesting way. I am glad she has been rediscovered.
That seems improbable. Price's big break was her Symphony #1 premiered by the Chicago Symphony in 1933. Gershwin's world was New York City and sometimes Hollywood and he died in 1937.
It's true that it isn't strikingly original, but the tunes are her own. I look at it as a trial run for the Violin Concerto No. 2; a much more mature and characteristic work.
I like the violinist's tone and technique. The music seems kaleidoscopic. After it starts like the Tchaikovsky concerto (and uses a lot of it later, too) it sounds sort-of half-Chinese...I understand the composer deserves the support and exposure due to her background. Purely musically, though, I do not think I would want to hear this music again. Sorry...
I understand completely, even if I disagree about hearing it again. It is a sort of pastiche, not only of Tchaikovsky but also Brahms and Beethoven. Her 2nd Concerto is much more original.
May not be her most outstanding effort, but Mrs. Price left behind a wealth of excellent music that is just now being rediscovered and reconstructed. Give some of her other works a listen.
