- Date: 1852
- Composer: Henryk Wieniawski
- Period: Romantic (1820-1869)
Review
In the early 1850s, Henryk Wieniawski was an unknown teenage violinist just starting out on his many years of wandering across Europe, giving concerts wherever there seemed to be anybody to listen. Such a wayfarer's life was more or less a requisite for any nineteenth-century virtuoso seeking fame and fortune. Sometime around 1852 or 1853, he took a pair of popular Russian tunes and molded them into a concert piece for violin and orchestra (or piano), the Souvenir de Moscou, Op. 6. The piece has nothing like the fame of Légende, Op. 17 or the Concerto No. 2, but it is still a charming way to spend a few minutes of the day, and it was well enough liked during Wieniawski's day for him to select it, a quarter century after he composed it, as one of the pieces he played at the 1878 World Exposition in Paris.The two Russian airs adapted for use in the Souvenir de Moscou are "Krasnyj sarafan" and "Osedlaju konia." After an introduction that is half cadenza and half accompanied, the two melodies are treated one at a time as themes for little sets of variations. The former is crafted into a light-footed Andante, during the middle of which the piano takes over the tune and the violin shoots off on some blisteringly fast (but pianissimo and shimmering, not bravura) fingerwork. The second melody is in Allegretto mosso tempo; itt finds room for some majestic, full chords and the usual exercise in false harmonics. ~ Blair Johnston, All Music Guide
