Something for Thursday

A violin concerto today, and one of my favorites! I love the way this concerto eschews any introductory stuff in favor of jumping right into the melody, and I love the way the Romantic lyricism is tempered with a Classical attention to structure. Pay special attention to what happens at about 2:50 in the first movement: the soloist (Hilary Hahn in this case, one of this generation's finest musicians) soars to a very high note on a dramatic flourish, but as she does, you can hear the tension dropping away, and then she arpeggiates down to a very low note, which she sustains while the woodwinds play the movement's lovely second theme. That is one of my very favorite passages in all classical music.

Here is the Violin Concerto in E minor, by Felix Mendelssohn.