I just received an email from eclassical.com advertising some new recordings by Kalevi Aho.

Among the descriptions I noticed:



Can some kind soul explain what the difference is between a 'Violin Concerto' and 'Symphony for Violin and Orchestra'?

Is it that the concerto must be in Sonata form and the symphony can be more flexible, or some more obscure reason?

Steve

P.S. First visit back to the site since before the holidays! So much to read!

I don't know but I think you are on the right lines with the structure idea

Concertos generally have 3 movements, a sonata form first movement, a slow movement and usually a faster finale. Symphonies traditionally have 4 movements.

Anyone else want to give a proposal.

Interesting one. I don't have any good ideas - the answer about structure seems entirely logical - but what comes to mind is that in a Violin Concerto the violin is the 'main character' whereas in a Symphony for violin and orchestra perhaps its more of a shared thing?

(Sorry about the useless english - I'm knackered today and not sounding very literate!)

From some blurb on the Maw...

"Cast in four movements lasting more than 40 minutes altogether, the concerto is nontraditional in the sense that the soloist and accompanying forces are collaborators rather than antagonists in erecting a large-scale cantilevered structure that functions as a kind of "symphony" for violin and orchestra."

Implies the structure of 4 movements rather than 3 and the violin and orchestra as collaborators, where in a concerto it is violin vs the orchestra (allegedly)

And from blurb on the Beethoven

"The original composition for violin soloist was called “A Symphony for Violin and Orchestra”, a title justified perhaps in the light of the comparative lack of virtuosity required by the solo part."

Implying that a concerto is more virtuosic for the soloist

And from the Schoenberg

"Had Schoenberg called his Violin Concerto a symphony for violin and orchestra (as Britten was to do with his much less symphonic Cello Symphony), it’s unlikely few people, at whatever level of critical appraisal, would have dissented. Completed in the United States in 1936, this is an all-encompassing statement of aesthetic conviction and expressive power, with a violin technique to match - virtuosic but not virtuoso. Part of the work’s fascination is the way in which the soloist carries the melodic substance, with the orchestra an ever-changing context of commentary and elaboration. In the lineage of Beethoven and Brahms then, and it needs playing as such."

Implying again more at one with the orchestra than a virtuosic performance something apart from the 'backing' of the orchestra