Violin Concerto in D Minor

By April 1939, Benjamin Britten was in North America, a pacifist escaping the spectre of fascism in Europe. Among the first works he conceived during his three-year exile was the Violin Concerto, written for the Spanish violinist Antonio Brosa—with whom Britten had performed in the UK—and completed that summer and autumn. Brosa gave its premiere at Carnegie Hall under John Barbirolli the following March, after having been delayed by being obliged to enter the US via Ellis Island, owing to his nationality. The concerto opens with a pervasive timpani tattoo before the violin launches a rhapsodic theme, which is then contrasted with music whose militaristic character is emphasised by a snare drum. Following the example set by Walton’s Viola Concerto of 1929 (a work he greatly admired), Britten then places the fastest music in the central movement: a demonic scherzo that ultimately dissolves into an unaccompanied cadenza, in which the soloist recalls earlier motifs, notably the timpani rhythm from the opening. The finale is Britten’s first use of a passacaglia—a sequence of variations over a recurring bassline and a form that was to become a hallmark of his music. It gradually builds in intensity before coming to a calm but inconclusive close.