Patricia Kopatchinskaja talks about Schoenberg’s Violin Concerto (13 min.)

The legendary violinist Jascha Heifetz considered Arnold Schoenberg’s only violin concerto unplayable and speculated that the soloist would need a sixth finger to perform it. Patricia Kopatchinskaja, who played the piece with the Berliner Philharmoniker under the baton of Kirill Petrenko in March 2019, also took a while to befriend the technically and musically hugely demanding composition. In this introduction, she tells how, through the characters of Pierrot and commedia dell’arte, she ultimately discovered how exciting the study of this music is, and how strongly Schoenberg’s violin concerto differs from the much more famous one of his pupil Alban Berg.