Brahms, Violin Concerto

Johannes Brahms composed only one concerto for violin, considered now one of the gems of the repertoire. It was not so well received at its 1879 premiere in Leipzig. Only after the turn of the century did it find its place in the standard repertoire.

Brahms wrote the work for his close friend, the conductor and violinist Joseph Joachim. The two men of nearly the same age had met in 1853 and provided mutual support to their respective careers. Joachim provided numerous suggestions concerning the composition, and the original score even contains some revisions in Joachim’s hand.

Brahms begins the concerto with something of an homage to the surprising opening of Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto. The Beethoven concerto begins with the solo piano passage in the home key of G major; the orchestra then enters in the unrelated key of B-flat. The Brahms concerto opens with an unaccompanied melody in the orchestra outlining the home key of D major, but the second phrase introduces the harmony in the surprising key of C.

The 19th-century Age of Individualism had created a demand for dazzling virtuosity, and the solo concerto became for a time something of a showpiece in which the orchestra was relegated to a subsidiary role, merely providing background accompaniment. But the solo concerto had matured by this time, giving the orchestra an equally important role while still requiring considerable virtuosity by the soloist.