Charles Auguste de Bériot: Violin Concerto No. 4 in D Minor, Op. 46 – full score (NXP001)

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Instrumentation: 2.2.2.2 - 4.2.3.1 - timp. - violin solo - strings
47 pages

Bériot’s Concerto No. 4 in D minor, Op. 46, essentially corresponds to the usual first movement of a three movement concerto – a single fast movement. The movement begins in D minor and is marked Allegro moderato.

The opening tutti begins maestoso with introductory material alternating a quiet descending motif and a more vigorous dotted motif. In modified A-B-A form, the opening introductory material in A is not repeated when A returns. Eventually the main theme in D major arrives, and a chromatic scale returns the key to D minor before the entrance of the soloist.

The soloist repeats the opening introductory material, though embellished with double-stops, ricochet bowing, and a chromatic scale in thirds. The soloist sings the main theme; the following pyrotechnics include double-stops, harmonics and fast chromatic runs.

The alternating B section ends with another long chromatic run in doublestopped thirds before the movement returns to D major with the final return of the main theme (sans the introductory material), whose continuation includes double-stops and harmonics.

Bériot calls for alternating down and up bow ricochet at a fast speed in a series of demisemiquavers (32nd notes), a very difficult bowing to achieve.

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