Violin Concerto in D Major

For many years, Brahms had harboured the desire to compose a violin concerto for his long-standing friend and performance partner, Joseph Joachim. But he only got down to writing such a work in the summer of 1878, with its first performance taking place the following year in Leipzig on New Year’s Day. Since Joachim was also a celebrated composer in his own right, Brahms actively sought his expertise in sketching out the Violin Concerto in D Major, and expressly asked him to supply a solo cadenza in the first movement. Although it’s recognised as one of the greatest and most technically challenging works ever written for the instrument, Brahms’ Violin Concerto differs from other equivalent 19th-century works because its composer avoids conventional virtuosic display in favour of a more symphonically integrated conception. Hence the work opens with an extended orchestral passage that announces all the first movement’s major themes. Even after the violin makes its first dramatic entry over a sustained timpani roll, the ensuing partnership between violin and orchestra is very much one of equals. This process continues in the wonderfully intimate slow movement which begins with one of Brahms’ most beautiful melodies, first heard in the oboe and accompanied by a sonorous group of woodwind instruments. The “Finale” finds Brahms in a much more extroverted mood, with its foot-stomping Hungarian rhythms paying exuberant tribute to the music of Joachim’s native country.