There are four violin concertos, which have gained more popularity than the others and have been performed so many times since they were composed. These are Beethoven’s, Mendelssohn’s, Brahms’s and Tchaikovsky’s.

In our survey on the form, as I’ve decided to pass List’s piano concerto because of file size and upload limitations, we’ve reached Brahms’s Violin Concerto in D major, opus 77.
Brahms, together with Bach and Beethoven are known to be three great Bs in Germany music history.

As you read on post about Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, that concerto introduced a king of nineteenth century violinists, Joseph Joachim. It’s newsworthy that Brahms’ is joint with Joachim, too. In 1848 the fifteen-year-old Johannes, on tour as accompanist to the Hungarian violinist Eduard Reményi, was introduced to Joachim, seventeen at that moment. The two young musicians were instantly drawn to one another, and a lifelong friendship ensued.

It was natural for Brahms to wish to write a concerto for his friend; however, it took thirty years for him to attain enough confidence and experience to write a concerto for an instrument he wasn’t familiar with. In the summer of 1878, while vacationing in an Austrian village of Pörtschach, Brahms began a concerto for Joachim. Being his life-long friend, he knew the impressive extent of his colleague’s talents, but not being a violinist himself, the composer was concerned about practicality of what he was creating. With an eye on solving problems before it was too late, he sent a copy of the score to Joachim with a request that “… you should correct it, not sparing the quality of the composition… I shall be satisfied if you will mark those parts that are difficult, awkward, or impossible to play“. But the violinist replied that “most of the material is playable—some of it, in fact, quite originally violinistic,” although he expressed some reservations about the stamina required to play it “in an overheated concert hall!”

In spite of this, Brahms continued to have doubts about the piece and soon he replaced the middle two of original four movements, into an Adagio movement. Joachim saw through his friend’s self-deprecation and wasted no time in presenting the new work to the public. The concerto’s premiere was in Leipzig on New Year’s Day, 1879. It was not well received at first, despite repeated performances. Even the critic, conductor and pianist, Hans von Bülow, referred to it as “a Concerto against violin” in contrast with Concerto for violin. Brahms and Joachim continued revisions on the work six months later. Even then, not all observers were pleased. The Spanish violinist Pablo de Sarasate flatly refused to play the work, though not because of its difficulty. “Do you think,” he queried rhetorically, “that I would stand there with my violin in my hand and listen while the oboe plays the only melody in the entire piece?” Indeed, the oboe’s second movement solo is exquisite, but the violinist has his own lovely music in abundance, and despite debate amongst the experts, audiences have always delighted in the piece, reveling in its lyrical melodies and rich orchestration.

In spite of all these, Fritz Simrock, Brahms’ publisher, wanted to release it, but had to contend with the composer’s prankish streak: in one letter he said that the work wasn’t worth much, but he nevertheless promised not to incinerate it!

Of course posterity has positioned it as one of the greatest representatives of the virtuoso Romantic traditions. As time progressed and the harmonic language began to become familiar, more and more violinists added it to their repertoire, and by 1900 it had become one of the most frequently played of all violin concerti, a position it continues to hold a century later.

All too often, manuscripts for masterpieces vanish into history, yet the manuscript for Brahms’ Violin Concerto is in safe hands. The virtuoso violinist Fritz Kreisler acquired it and in 1948 presented it to the U.S. Library of Congress where it remains today.

Concerto is comprised of three movements, Allegro non troppo , Adagio and Allegro giocoso, ma non troppo vivace. I’ve chosen the last movement for you, available for download from here. It’s performed by Henrik Szeryng, one of the great violinists of twentieth century as the soloist, and with

Société des Concerts du Conservatoire Orchestra conducted by Paul Paray. It’s ripped from a DVD version, by the greatest Lord of all times, Lord Sharlune!