Concerto for Violin, Harp and Orchestra

“During the rehearsals for my orchestral work "Und müde vom Glück, fingen die an zu tanzen" ("And tired from happiness, they started to dance"), the harpists of the Estonian Festival Orchestra inspired me so much with their joy of music-making and experimentation that I developed the desire to write a concertante work for harp and orchestra. When Franz Welser-Möst asked me if I could imagine writing a double concerto for the Cleveland Orchestra, I quite quickly suggested a double concerto for violin and harp, because I also wanted to devote special attention to the violin. I very quickly thought of Leila Jozefowicz as the soloist because she has so inspired the newer concerto literature for violin with her skill and imagination. Harp and violin are both stringed instruments, but they don't have much more in common than pizzicato. And while the great violin concertos dominate our repertoires, the harp concertos, of which there are not so few, are on the fringe.
The relationship between the closeness and distance of the two solo instruments and the centre and periphery of the solo concertos dedicated to them determined my reflections on this particular double concerto (which is admittedly not a precedent, since Louis Spohr already wrote for this instrumentation). The use of the orchestra follows a special dramaturgy, which only reveals in its overall course why such a large apparatus is needed.” (Jüri Reinvere)