Rakov - Violin Concerto N1 e-moll (1944). You can download the PDF sheet music Rakov - Violin Concerto N1 e-moll (1944) on this page. Rakov devoted special attention to music for children and wrote numerous piano pieces for pedagogical purposes, as well as instructive chamber music. These works won him great popularity in the Soviet Union. His most famous work, however, was his First Violin Concerto, which was brought to vast audiences by the violinist David Oistrakh. Rakov's three movement Violin Concerto No.1 (1944) written at a time when Soviet composers had to carry aloft the banner of heroism. That was when millions of Soviet citizens perished in what was officially termed 'the Great Patriotic War'.
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Nikolai Rakov was a Soviet composer. He was a staunchly conservative composer who exercised a solid grasp of orchestration and melody. Unabashed tonality, late Romantic harmonies, and flowing tunes were the hallmarks of his work, in which the Russian national idiom always took prominence. In his later works, Rakov began to show some interest in Neoclassicism.
The horns begin the first movement, Allegro, without any introduction, playing the powerful and short (four note) flirst motif in E minor; this motif consists of fourths and fifths. The orchestration is strikingly characterised by spicy harmonies in which the wind instruments play a dominant role. At first the violin part is fragile, but becomes increasingly virtuosic, with a dramatic contrast between soloist and orchestra. The tutti sections of the sentimental subsidiary theme (in E major) reminds us that the old Russian Empire produced numerous film composers. After a virtuoso development and a cadenza with obbligato orchestral parts, a brief stretto concludes the movement.
The Andante, in A flat major, begins with a short orchestral prelude, after which the soloist plays a sort of 'unending melody' with many bold harmonic digressions; the harp plays an important role in accompaniment. The violinist hardly pauses, before brass fanfares announce the beginning of the middle section, which is characterised by drama and virtuoso doublestops. An orchestral climax leads us back to the main theme, which is varied by the solo violinist playing double stops here as well. The movement ends with a reflective coda which includes recollections of the fanfares.
The tempo marking of the finale is Allegro molto vivace, but it could equally well have been called 'Rondo', Its main theme, in E Major, is based on the same interval a descending fourth as that of the first movement, and after a brief introduction the violin begins a sort of perpetuum mobile of the greatest virtuosity. The first interlude is cantabile, clearly related to the theme of the second movement; the same applies to the second interlude, which comes after a repetition of the main theme. That theme then returns once again, its character modified by muted brass. In a final interlude the melody is given first to the wind, and then to the solo violin. Finally the various themes are combined contrapuntally, and this brilliant-sounding work ends with an effective stretto.
