Violin Concerto in D Minor

Schumann’s 1853 Violin Concerto—his last orchestral work—had a decidedly odd history. It was dedicated to Schumann’s great friend, the virtuoso violinist Joseph Joachim, who nevertheless found it unsatisfactory and never played it in public. The manuscript found its way to Berlin’s State Library, where it languished unperformed until, in 1933, the Hungarian violinist Jelly d’Arányi (Joachim’s great-niece) claimed that Schumann, via a spiritualist, had revealed its existence to her and begged her to rescue and perform the work. Ultimately, despite the protests of Schumann’s daughter and Joachim’s son, the concerto was published and received its premiere in Berlin in 1937, with soloist Georg Kulenkampff accompanied by the Berlin Philharmonic under Karl Böhm. The performance belatedly revealed a weighty, brooding opening movement and a sweetly melodious slow intermezzo, leading without a break into the loping polonaise finale—the one section of the work that Joachim thought betrayed Schumann’s declining mental state.