Technical Demands
The technical demands on the soloist are formidable, with generous use of multiple stopping, broken chords, rapid scale passages, and rhythmic variation. The difficulty may to some extent be attributed to the composer's being chiefly a pianist.
Nevertheless, Brahms chose the violin-friendly key of D major for his concerto. Since the violin is tuned G'D'A'E, the open strings, resonating sympathetically, add brilliance to the sound. For the same reason, composers of many eras (e.g. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Sibelius, Prokofiev, Korngold and Khachaturian) have written violin concertos in either D major or D minor.
Read more about this topic: Violin Concerto (Brahms)
Famous quotes containing the words technical and/or demands:
“Woman is the future of man. That means that the world which was once formed in man’s image will now be transformed to the image of woman. The more technical and mechanical, cold and metallic it becomes, the more it will need the kind of warmth that only the woman can give it. If we want to save the world, we must adapt to the woman, let ourselves be led by the woman, let ourselves be penetrated by the Ewigweiblich, the eternally feminine!”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)
“The foreground in a picture is always unattractive ... Art demands that the interest of the canvas should be placed in the far distance, where lies take refuge, those dreams which blossom out of fact and are man’s only love.”
—Louis-Ferdinand Céline (1894–1961)