Lazic,Dejan
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra / Spano, Robert - Conductor

Dejan Lazic
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra / Robert Spano - Conductor

Influences and the Process of Arrangement:
From Historical Backgrounds to Composing of an Original Cadenza My source of inspiration was a joint one: the piano versions of the Violin Concertos of Bach and Beethoven, which were made by the composers themselves.
I started working on this project in early 2003 and completed it in 2008. The violin was always a favourite love, and I continue to hold violinists in high esteem, realising just how wonderful their literature is. Thus far, I have been tremendously lucky to have had many an opportunity to perform with some wonderful colleagues. And it is with a degree of pride that I present – after Bach and Beethoven – the third “great B” in the present arrangement.

Subjectivity plays a role of course, and I have always found this particular concerto, along with Beethoven's 4th Piano Concerto, to be amongst the best instrumental concertos ever written. Naturally, I felt the challenge to arrange the Brahms early on. I was intrigued by the idea of rendering it in an idiomatic version for piano and orchestra. The ultimate aim was clear: I wanted to perform it myself!
Perhaps composer and piano virtuoso Muzio Clementi felt the same way after listening to Beethoven's Violin Concerto. Shortly after the performance, he asked Beethoven to arrange it for piano and orchestra, for he had fallen in love with this beautiful piece and wanted to play it himself, to present it to London audiences, and to make it as popular in England as it was on the Continent at the time.
It is also interesting to note how Beethoven treats the first movement's original Cadenza and how that passage holds major significance for him in the new arrangement: there, he composed an entirely new Cadenza and scored it for piano and timpani no less.
Similarly, in my piano version of the Brahms Violin Concerto, I composed a new Cadenza, for the simple reason that there is no extant Brahms Cadenza. Added to which, Cadenzas by Joachim, Kreisler or Heifetz remain 'stubbornly' suited to the violin, and are not really pianistic in their conception of the music; any arrangement of these would detract too much from their very essence. Besides, should not every Cadenza be sort of a “free area”, one in which every soloist ought to be able to improvise on material previously heard?
The desire to arrange a violin concerto as a piano concerto just because one envisages donning the garb of the soloist, is not a good enough motive to take on this challenge. But I also do not feel there is any other romantic violin concerto that would survive the transformation.
At a musicological level, the correspondence between Brahms and his dedicatee Joseph Joachim played a major role for me. After numerous changes, much good advice, and actual corrections by Joachim it remains quite clear that Brahms had always composed as a pianist (at the piano) and therefore felt this music as a pianist, if also as a symphonic composer (originally, Brahms wrote the Violin Concerto in four movements, which was typical for a symphony). It is quite obvious that the Violin Concerto had its roots in both friendship and practicality: his aim was to write a concerto for Joachim, from which we can infer the term concerto took on a greater significance than the violin itself. But we are skating on thin ice here, what I mean to say is that it is quite justified to speculate about what would have happened if Joachim had been a cellist or a clarinettist, or even… a pianist!
What emerges from the text most readily is a liberal dose of difficulty that is simply not in the nature of the violin: Brahms remained first and foremost a pianist and thus on the outside of the world of a violin virtuoso. Maybe this explains why Hans von Bülow once described the concerto as being "against the violin". Sarasate, for his part, simply refused to play it, and Vieniawski commented that it was "simply unplayable". That is as may be, and we now know this not to be the case.
But another – possibly more important – question pops its head above the parapet: is one actually "allowed" to make such an arrangement?
With the benefit of hindsight, we know that Brahms made countless arrangements and transcriptions of his and other composers' works. I am convinced these were more than justified; hence, I hope that Brahms himself would not have anything against my idea. Let us dwell for a moment on Brahms and his contemporaries (not least Franz Liszt), who made a plethora of transcriptions, arrangements, variations, and produced much else besides. Nowadays, we seem to fail to cherish this great tradition. Maybe I am behaving here more as a composer than a performer – the line that divides production and reproduction is obviously an extremely thin one.
Again, turn your thoughts to Brahms's beautiful Violin Sonata in G major, and then, if you will, to his own transcription of the piece for cello: what emerges is the wonderful Cello Sonata in D major, the composer wisely recasting the work in another key. A new tonality, another instrument. Altered and modified, the piece experiences a kind of transmogrification. The musical metamorphosis is complete. The same goes for both masterly written Clarinet Sonatas which Brahms transcribed for Viola, or his version of Bach's famous Chaconne for violin solo in D minor - for piano/left hand! At the end of the day, this is about music and not about the institutionalization of music...

What lingers is the rhetorical question of what is a transcription, what makes an arrangement, what may be defined as a new version. The key to this conundrum is that I sought to construct anew the violin part, recomposing the voice in a thorough-going Brahmsian style and adding my own Cadenza. Throughout the piece that was my thought: to imagine what Brahms would do. Of great import is that the orchestral score remains entirely unchanged! With this arrangement - done solely out of respect and admiration for the composer - my main goal was to translate Brahms's unique musical language into a new setting without losing any of its original musical value and, in addition, to give pianists an equal chance to perform and enjoy this wonderful music the same way violinists do for exactly 130 years now.

Performing Practice: Aesthetics, Tempo, Rhythm and Rubato
Joachim's understanding of Brahms's notation and expectations can be explored through a range of sources: from his correspondence with Brahms and the famous Joachim-Moser "Violinschule" to his five recordings from 1903, which allow us to understand much that would otherwise remain unclear. Furthermore, Joachim was seen as putting his extraordinary technical abilities at the service of "high artistic ideal" and his "severity and purity of style, which strives to hide the charms of virtuosity rather than accentuate them" was much praised by Hanslick.
Brahms was notoriously unwilling to specify tempo by means of metronome and so he provided no guidance for the Violin Concerto beyond the Italian tempo terms. Joachim's metronome marks of 1905 are probably a reliable guide to the tempo at which he himself performed the concerto. They are, in some respects, surprising; quarter note = 126 for the rich, symphonic and rather rhapsodic first movement and quarter note = 104 for the Hungarian-inspired Rondo are very much faster then the tempo taken by modern violinists. Bernard D. Sherman has observed that they are "far faster than any recording known to me". Joachim himself was well aware of the fact that these metronome marks might make the concerto "too difficult to play". The marking eighth note = 72 for the chorale-like, poetic second movement (originally 'Un poco larghetto', later changed by Brahms to 'Adagio') is also rather brisk in relation to conventional interpretations.
Joachim's approach to rhythm was very different from that of contemporary violinists, who adhere closely to the written text in this respect. His recordings reveal that his performance of the written rhythms is very free, but within a more or less regular pulse. His use of un-notated rubato, in the sense of absolute increase or decrease of tempo, is generally restrained and subtle.
How essential any of these factors may be to a stylistically convincing performance of this concerto remains debatable. But, as Clive Brown states correctly: "Brahms himself was remarkably flexible about how his music should be performed, accepting that there was no single valid approach, though he was perfectly cabaple of walking out of a performance that displeased him..."

JOHANNES BRAHMS: 2 RHAPSODIES, op. 79 & SCHERZO, op. 4
Brahms composed the 2 Rhapsodies, op. 79 in summer 1879 - in the same year his Violin Concerto op. 77 saw its premiere in Leipzig! At first, No. 1 was entitled "Capriccio", obviously because of its agitated character, but later changed to "Presto agitato", and the marking of the passionate and, just like the Violin Concerto's Rondo, Hungarian-inspired No. 2 was "Molto passionato". But when Clara Schumann played the work at a private performance, she took tempi substantially slower, which led Brahms to delete the "Presto" of the former and to qualify the "Molto passionato" of the latter by adding "ma non troppo Allegro" in the engraver's copy. However, the 'Rhapsodies' were dedicated to Elisabeth von Herzogenberg, the wife of Heinrich von Herzogenberg, professor of music in Berlin, and herself an excellent pianist. At her suggestion, Brahms reluctantly renamed the sophisticated compositions from 'Klavierstücke' ('Piano Pieces') to 'Rhapsodies' and already before the publication she wrote to Brahms on May 3, 1880: "The title 'Rhapsodies' is probably the most suitable after all, even though the concise f orm of the pieces appears almost to contradict the meaning of the word 'rhapsodic'."
The earliest surviving original composition of Johannes Brahms, Scherzo, op. 4 was composed in 1851 when Brahms was only 18 years old and already highly active as a pianist. It remains one of Brahms's larger solo piano works in which he was obviously influenced by the same form composed by Beethoven (the main Scherzo part) and Chopin (Trio II). The style of Trio I however reminds very much of Schubert's 'Moments Musicaux'. Especially in this piece, Brahms maintained a Classical sense of form and order, and both, somewhat intimate Trio I and rather passionate and truly romantic Trio II are in huge contrast to the virtuosic, energetic, and highly rhythmical main Scherzo part in exotic and distant key of E-flat minor.

Dejan Lazic

Piano Concerto no. 3 in D major - after Violin Concerto, op. 77
live recording
1 Allegro non troppo (cadenza: Dejan Lazic) 2 Adagio (oboe solo: Elizabeth Koch) 3 Allegro giocoso, ma non troppo vivace 2 Rhapsodies, op. 79
4no. 1 in B minor: Agitato 5 no. 2 in G minor: Molto passionato, ma non troppo allegro Scherzo in E-flat minor, op. 4 6 Allegro molto e con fuoco (Rasch und feurig)

 (…) The result is persuasive for its idiomatic writing for piano, which has a sense of authenticity within the context of the Violin Concerto itself, and also in the style of piano writing Brahms used for his piano concertos. (…)
(…) At bottom, though, it is important to listen for the musicianship that Lazic brings to the performance. The point of the arrangement is the way the music of Brahms’s Violin Concerto moves Lazic to find a way to perform the work. As a pianist, his mode of expression is to take the work to his instrument. This is by no means a new or controversial practice in music, but belongs to a tradition that can be found in a number of pieces by Bach, Liszt, Mahler, Britten and other figures. This is testimony to the deep impression some works make in prompting musicians to respond in a similarly creative manner. (…)
MusicWeb

Wie echter Brahms!
(…) Dejan Lazic hat den Violinpart aber nicht nur ‘brahmisch’ sondern auch pianistisch wunderbar umgesetzt und so Mehrwert produziert. Nirgends hat man die Eindruck, die Musik klinge unnatürlich, und man hört sich die drei Sätse des Werks mit Interesse an. (…)
(…) Excellent sind auch die Solostücke, die Lazic spielt, so dass man die Platte nur empfehlen kan.
Pizzicato

Lazic überzeugt wieder einmal mit farbenreichem, höchts kultiviertem Spiel. Auch in den beiden Rhapsodien, op. 79 und dem Es-Moll-Scherzo.
Frankfurter Neue Presse

(…) Nun haben die zwei Klavierkonzerte, ganz unvermittelt, eine Schwester erhalten. Sie kleidet sich in D-Dur und ist eigentlich und ursprünglich ein Werk für Violine und Orchester. Kein Geringeres als das Opus 77 desselben Komponisten, ein faszinierendes, schillerndes Werk. Brahms selbst aber kann nun nicht mehr widersprechen. Und so hat Dejan Lazić sich anheischig gemacht, eben dieses Opus zu bearbeiten. Ein kühnes Unterfangen, so ungewöhnlich wie gewöhnungsbedürftig. (…)
(…) in einigen Passagen singt das Klavier tatsächlich so schön wie eine Violine (und ebenso ausgreifend und inniglich wie das Atlanta Symphony Orchestra unter Robert Spano es ohnehin die ganze Zeit über tut).
Rondo

(…) The whole work sounds like it was a piano concerto to begin with. (…)
(…) Lazic has done a masterful job of transcription as well as of performance (…)
A unique and recommended recording!"
Audiophile Audition

(...) Het lijkt gekkenwerk. Maar deed Beethoven niet hetzelfde met zijn eigen vioolconcert? Het aardige is dat de bewerking van Lazic volbloed pianistisch klinkt. De liveopname van dit Derde pianoconcert heeft de Kroaat gemaakt met het Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, gedirigeerd door Robert Spano. Dat Lazic een nog betere pianist is dan deze registratie laat horen, bewijzen de drie toegevoegde solowerken van Brahms - twee Rapsodieën en een Scherzo (...)
Telegraaf

Het klinkend resultaat van Lazics inspanningen als componist/bewerker en als pianist mag er zijn. De orkestpartij laat hij onaangetast en aan de vioolpartij voegt hij vele noten toe. Sommige snelle passages worden in oktaven gespeeld, andere in tertsen. De harmonieën van de akkoorden die hij toevoegt zijn typisch Brahms. Begeleidende linkerhandfiguren zijn deels ontleend aan de orkestpartij. Lazic maakte bij het eerste deel een virtuoze en idiomatische cadens.
De bewerker is zorgvuldig met de partituur omgegaan (hij deed vijf jaar over het project) en heeft zich goed ingeleefd in de sfeer van Brahms’ muziek met als doel tot een volledig Brahmsiaans resultaat te komen.
Lazic speelt als solist met verve zijn nieuwe partituur: enthousiast en virtuoos. De nadruk ligt op stevig vitaal pianospel, eerder heroïsch dan lyrisch – een aanpak die het stuk in deze gedaante best kan hebben. Dirigent Robert Spano begeleidt met het Atlanta Symphony Orchestra de solist voortreffelijk.
Ten slotte de vraag: zaten we op deze bewerking te wachten? Misschien niet, misschien wel – maar de kennismaking met deze creatieve en zo goed gelukte realisatie van de droom van een enthousiaste jonge pianist-componist maakt dit soort vragen onbelangrijk.
Opus Klassiek

 (...) Was Dejan auszeichnet, ist ein makellose Technik und eine energische Impulsivität. Beides zeigt er in seiner selbstkomponierten Kadenz (....)
Kulturradio

(…) hier hat sich ein junger, hochbegabter Pianist mit ernsthaften kompositorischen Ambitionen und großem Geschick der schier unlösbaren Herausforderung gestellt und in einem fünf Jahre (!) währenden Arbeitsprozess das unbequeme Violinmonstrum in ein ähnlich symphonisch geprägtes Klavierkonzert umgeschrieben. (…)
Stereoplay

(...) Channel has helped pianist, clarinettist and composer develop his talents (...)
Soundboard

(...) Lazic überzeugt jedoch auch Interpret. Strukturerhellende Klarheit auf der Basis einer hochpräzisen Pianistik verbindet sich in seinem Spiel mit exzellenter Legatokultur und Pianissimo-Sensibilität. (...)
Fono Forum

(...) Mögen Puristen streiten, den Liebhabern vollsatten Romantikklangs kann es recht sein.
Welt Online

(...) Al luisterend krijgen fascinatie en bewondering de overhand: Dejan weet wat hij doet, hij kent z’n Brahms (...)
(...) Helemaal wonderbaarlijk is het hoe Dejan in het Adagio er -bijna- in slaagt om de viool te doen vergeten. (...)
(...) Maar vanwege het uitdagende idee, de kwaliteit van de bewerking en de uitvoering moet iedere Brahmsliefshebber dit eens horen. Met de toegiften laat de pianist horen ook glanzend echte Brahms te kunnen spelen.
Luister

(…) Lazic’s fascination with Brahms’s Violin Concerto resulted in his own reworking of the violin part to become a solo part for piano (…)
(…) The result is persuasive for its idiomatic writing for piano, which has a sense of authenticity within the context of the Violin Concerto itself, and also in the style of piano writing Brahms used for his piano concertos.
(…) it is important to listen for the musicianship that Lazic brings to the performance. The point of the arrangement is the way the music of Brahms’s Violin Concerto moves Lazic to find a way to perform the work. As a pianist, his mode of expression is to take the work to his instrument.
(…) After all Lazic did not change the scoring of the accompaniment, and this affects the texture when the solo instrument shifts from string to keyboard
(…) Robert Spano has provided a solid accompaniment with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. (…)
The recording includes Lazic’s performance of Brahms’s Rhapsodies, which benefits from Lazic’s enthusiasm. The inclusion of these pieces helps to round out the image of Lazic as an Brahms interpreter.
Music Web

Flexibel, speelt, uitdagend, flitsende uitvoeringen. Een en al souplesse en luchtigheid. De concertjes voor een of twee traversos sprankelen van vitaliteit. De musici maken er een dartel feest van en vooral wanneer een solofagot zijn partijtje meeblaast, is vrolijkheid troef. Mooi opgenomen, fraaier kan de akoestiek van de Waalse Kerk in Amsterdan niet tot zijn recht komen.
Klassieke Zaken

(...) Genieten van een substantieel stuk muziek dat het in Lazic bewerking nog altijd goed doet.
Alle respect en bewondering voor het initiatief en de moed!
Pianowereld

(…) Lazic setzte den Solopart aus und erweiterte ihn zu Akkorden, die so Brahmisch klingen, dass man sich an manches aus den beiden Original-Klavierkonzeren erinnert fühlt.
(…) er komponierte jedoch eine eigene Kadenz mit raffinierte Themenverarbeitung und virtuoser Satztechnik. (...)
9...) Hochpräzichen Pianistik verbindet sich in seinem Spiel mit exzellenter Legatokultur und Pianissimo-Sensibilität. Dabei ist das Atlanta Symphony Orchestra ein einfühlsamer musikalischer Partner.
Fono Forum

(…) This is one outstanding recording, and Lazic has done everyone a service by coming up with this very serviceable and idiomatic arrangement (…)
(…) pianists now have access to a work that is transformable and transferable to a new idiom that is able to convey its emotive and pristine core to an audience… And fortunately he includes the two Rhapsodies as well, and these readings are absolutely top-notch in every way, in tempo voicing, and overall arch. In fact, I now rank these with my three previous favourites, by Lupu, Rubinstein, and Klien."
Fanfare

Note for note Dejan Lazic has retained the original orchestral parts, so its purely the solo violin line which has been transferred into a piano part.
This transcription is not a gimmick. Virtually 100 per cent successful and convincing. Well worth hearing, without preconceptions.
Remarkably successful.
International Record Review

(…) Dejan Lazic fügt deren Lineatur so manche harmoniefüllende Begleitstimmen und gedoppelte Instrumentalstimmen aus dem Orchestersatz, akkordische Auffüllungen wie arpeggierende Auflösungen von Intervallsprüngen, nachschlagende Oktavparallelen wie mitlaufende Terz- und Sextparallelen hinzu. Er tut dies in unanfechtbarem, großem Respekt gegenüber Brahms’ originaler Textur und weiß sich mit Robert Spano und dem ihn empfindsam und mit klanglicher Wärme begleitenden Atlanta Symphony Orchestra einig in der Intention eines hoch differenziert gezeichneten Ausdrucksspektrums und einer schlüssigen Balance wie homogenen Einbindung in den Orchestersatz.(…) Man könnte diese klangliche Gestalt des D-Dur-Konzerts ohne Zweifel für einen echten Brahms halten (…)
Wäre da nicht der für einen Klaviersolopart doch recht schweifende Gedankenreichtum, der dem ursprünglichen Violinsolo nun einmal eigen ist und der in der unterschiedlich dicht gearbeiteten Adaption ein wenig von der einheitsstiftenden Verklammerung verliert. Der in der Symphony Hall in Atlanta live mitgeschnittenen Einspielung angefügt und im niederländischen Eindhoven nachproduziert worden sind die beiden Brahms’schen Rhapsodien b-Moll und g-Moll op. 79 und das Scherzo es-Moll op. 4. Hier zeigt sich ein weiteres Mal die ausgeprägte künstlerische Persönlichkeit, die Dejan Lazic auszeichnet, in den Rhapsodien eine gleichsam erzählerisch modellierende Lesart in sensibel und feingeschliffen ausgesteuerter Klang- und Formgebung, im Scherzo eine ungemein detailfreudige, artikulations- und akzentscharfe.
Das Orchester

(...)  l’exercice est pleinement convaincant et parfois même supérieur à l’original (…)
(…) Bref, l’impression est celle d’entendre un troisième concerto pur piano que Brahms aurait pu signer, surtout que les nuances et les dynamiques sont scrupuleusement respectées (…)
La Presse

 (...) Je luistert met de viool in je geheugen en krijgt dan een totaal en tonaal andere klank, maar Dejan heeft het zó gedaan dat je verwarring meteen omslaat in bewondering en zelfs snel gewenning biedt, een groot compliment!
HVT

 (…) Dejan Lazic's 2008 rendering of the work as a piano concerto (here in its first recording) is amazingly effective. It leaves the orchestration untouched and transforms the solo violin part into idiomatic Brahmsian piano figurations with appropriately rich chordal sonorities, sparkling arpeggios, and a fully elaborated first-movement cadenza. Lazic plays with flair, eloquence, and, in the lovely central adagio songful poetry.Recorded 'live in concert' the hybrid SACD conveys full throated weight and a judicious balance between soloist and orchestra, with the multichannel encoding offering extra ambience.
The Absolute Sound