I have finished completing Hummel's unfinished Violin Concerto
, a project I've been working on for several months. The version of Hummel's Violin Concerto I have completed for this program is based on the version restored by conductor and composer Gregory Rose, which completed the autograph score which had many missing parts. I have further added and modified woodwind phrases, made some changes to the string accompaniment, and added trumpets and timpani. The cadenza for the first movement is a simplified one that I created.

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The version based on this one, completed by Gregory Rose, can be heard in a recording he conducted himself, with Alexander Trostyansky as soloist and the Russian Philharmonic Orchestra.
https://youtu.be/XSgkD3jEtfQ?si=an8uHJByWbUF1ikH

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You can also listen to a version performed by Stephen Hodger and Howard Shelley with minimal additions. I prefer this performance.
https://youtu.be/JLaPRiObcYs?si=TRT6FY3vQzym-GGW

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Violin concertos abandoned because of Beethoven

 

The manuscript for the Violin Concerto, along with the Trumpet Concerto from 1803-04, is housed in a scroll at the British Library under the shelf number Add. MS 32 222 (pages 1-42). This scroll is one of 54 volumes of Hummel's music that the British Library purchased from dealer List and Franke on February 9, 1884.

In the preface to the aforementioned Trumpet Concerto, Stefan de Haan states that "the solo section of the Trumpet Concerto is clearly written in the same style as much of the Violin Concerto®," which may indicate that this work was written around the same time as the Trumpet Concerto. He writes,
"Comparing the Mozart arrangement (included in the same volume) with much of the Violin Concerto suggests that the solo section and some passages of the Trumpet Concerto were written by Hummel himself."

It seems Hummel spent a considerable amount of time on trumpet concertos in order to make a good impression as Haydn's successor as Kapellmeister to the Esterházy family. He may have abandoned work on a violin concerto to spend more time composing the trumpet concerto, intending to tackle it later. Later, it was discovered that he composed a magnificent concerto for piano and violin, Op. 17, around 1805, but completely abandoned its completion after Beethoven's violin concerto was published in 1806. The solo parts of Hummel's concertos are highly virtuosic and as interesting as his piano solo and orchestral works, so it is a great pity that they remained unfinished.

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The birth of Gregory Rose's completed and revised version.

 

As mentioned earlier, there are already two completed versions of this unfinished work that can be heard, but Rose's version seems to involve a more active intervention in the orchestration compared to Shelley's completion. Therefore, this time, I will introduce the state of the score of this piece by quoting from Gregory Rose's commentary.

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"There's a slight problem with the score. At first glance, it seems as though the work was never completed, even though all the violin solo parts are still present," the score appears to be an unusual one, a mix of Hummel's handwriting and the copyist's handwriting. Moreover, the prelude sections for the violin and orchestral parts are written in, but it's unclear whether the rest of the orchestration is unfinished or simply a copy that was left unfinished.

I haven't seen the actual score, so I'm continuing to quote from Rose's commentary.

"The copyist transcribed parts of the first movement (measures 129-152, 186-197, 225-284) and parts of the finale rondo (measures 124-221, 264-334, 361-413). In the rondo, there are signs that the quill pen was changed at measures 142 and 185. The rest of the allegro and rondo are in Hummel's own hand. The short adagios, scored only for soloists and strings, were all written by Hummel. Dr. Alain Badley believes that Hummel completed the work but abandoned it during the revision process because the parts transcribed by the copyist or fair copyist are scattered throughout the work and interspersed with Hummel's handwritten score."

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In any case, the only surviving document (score) is incomplete and unplayable. It has been explained that in the outer movements, the solos are fully written, but there are quite extensive sections where the orchestral staff is left blank. Rose says that he "added orchestration (accompaniment material) to the blank sections and composed the cadenzas for the first and third movements." Furthermore, he states that
"in both of these movements, the wind and brass parts have the full orchestral parts written, but in the rondo, for example, it seems that neither Hummel nor the ghostwriter prepared the wind and brass staff between measures 50 to 123 and 264 to 322. I added these instruments to Hummel's string accompaniment where I felt they would add color and diversity to the work throughout the concerto."

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About my revised edition

 

As I mentioned earlier, I based my work on the version restored by conductor and composer Gregory Rose, which completed the autograph score that had many missing parts. I further added and modified woodwind phrases, made some changes to the string accompaniment, and added trumpets and timpani, but I rewrote the cadenza in the first movement and did not use Rose's composition for the third movement, omitting the cadenza section altogether.

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In particular, the second movement in the Rose edition only includes the string accompaniment as it was in Hummel's autograph score, but I have added wind instruments.

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I　also made significant changes to the third movement, completely reworking the way the wind instruments are handled in some parts.