Il Vitalino raddoppiato

Program notes

About the Work

Hans Werner Henze (1926–2012) was one of the towering figures of post-war European music, and Il Vitalino raddoppiato, for solo violin and chamber orchestra, written in 1977, is one of his most fascinating works. Its starting point is a famous Baroque relic: the great Chaconne in G minor for violin and continuo long attributed, though not beyond dispute, to the Italian composer-violinist Tomaso Antonio Vitali. Henze takes this haunting old piece and ‘doubles’ it (that is roughly what the punning title means), building from it an elaborate set of variations. It has aptly been called ‘a chaconne on a chaconne.’

The genius of the piece is the way it travels through time. It begins very close to the Baroque original, the solo violin spinning out the chaconne’s grave, descending bass pattern in something like its old style; but as the variations accumulate, Henze gradually pulls the music into the twentieth century, the harmonies clouding and fracturing, the textures growing stranger and more luminous, until, in its final third, it arrives at music of acerbic modernity, including what one writer called a ‘hallucinatory cadenza.’ Critics have praised it as both serious and profound: ‘sometimes acerbic, sometimes achingly beautiful,’ in one description. It is a virtuoso vehicle for the soloist and a remarkable meditation on the past, on what happens when a modern composer takes an old masterpiece and lets it slowly transform under his hands.

What to Listen For

The key to this piece is its sense of journey through musical time, so listen for the gradual transformation. At the start, the solo violin presents the old Vitali chaconne theme, a slow, dignified, descending pattern, unmistakably Baroque, and the early variations stay close to that world: ornate, expressive, almost like a period performance.

Then follow how Henze begins to pull the music away from its origins. The harmonies grow more pungent and ambiguous, the orchestral colours stranger, the violin writing increasingly free and virtuosic, until the Baroque frame has dissolved into something thoroughly modern. The high point is the soloist’s extended cadenza late in the work, where the music turns most hallucinatory and intense. Keep one ear on that steady chaconne bass-pattern underneath it all: even as the surface is transformed almost beyond recognition, the old foundation keeps the piece anchored. It is the sound of three centuries collapsing into a single span.