Violin Concerto in E Minor

Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, Op. 64 was hailed as the true successor to Beethoven’s following its first performance in 1845, and it breathed new life into the virtuoso concerto form. The soloist at that Leipzig premiere was the Gewandhaus concertmaster Ferdinand David, and the work was soon taken up by the 14-year-old Joseph Joachim (later to be a much-valued friend and colleague of Schumann and Brahms), establishing the fame it has enjoyed ever since. Of course, to create something that sounds so effortless requires a great deal of effort, and the concerto was seven years in the making. The Violin Concerto innovates from its very opening, its anguished, high-lying solo line floating above a turbulent accompaniment before the relative tranquillity of the second theme that is introduced by clarinets. The cadenza lands early, crowning the Allegro’s development rather than heralding its coda. Mendelssohn links the three movements with transition passages—an idea he borrowed from Weber’s 1821 Konzertstück in F Minor, Op. 79—and the central “Andante” is a song-without-words, its unruffled outer sections enfolding a minor-key passage of greater emotional ambiguity. Another transition and trumpet fanfares announce the feather-light finale, the soloist’s acrobatics vaulting over the orchestra and leading the repetitions of the rondo theme along ever more intriguing harmonic byways. Along with the Romantic violin concertos of Beethoven, Brahms and Bruch, Mendelssohn’s Op. 64 is an essential part of the virtuoso violinist’s armoury and a rite of passage for any aspiring soloist.