Romance in F major for violin and orchestra Op.50

When Beethoven left his native Bonn for Vienna in 1792 it was, as one of his noble patrons elegantly put it, to “receive the spirit of Mozart from the hand of Haydn.” Although he had direct contact with Haydn, whose pupil he was for a while, Beethoven probably learned even more from Mozart - not, of course, from the composer himself, who was dead by then, but from his example. That much is clear from the Romance in F for violin and orchestra, which could have been written as early as 1795 - several years before its companion piece, the Romance in G. Certainly, in its melodic style and its construction, the Romance in F is nearer to Mozart than mature Beethoven. It is an exquisitely Mozartian soprano aria in rondo form based on the expressive melody introduced by the violin in the opening bars. Plunged into a dramatic episode in the middle, the soloist emerges with added serenity and a still more decorative line on the reprise of the main theme towards the end.

It has long been thought that Beethoven’s two melodious Romances for violin and orchestra were preparations or trial-runs of some kind for the Violin Concerto in D, which was completed and first performed in Vienna in 1806. At least as far as the Romance in G is concerned, it is a not entirely implausible theory. It now seems that the Romance in F, on the other hand, was written as long as eight or even eleven years before the Violin Concerto in D, in which case it is nearer to the unfinished Violin Concerto in C that Beethoven was working on in Bonn between 1790 and 1792. It could well be that it is a revision of the slow movement of that early work rather than a preparation for the Violin Concerto in D.

The argument against that idea is that, of the two Romances, it is the one in F that has more in common with the Violin Concerto in D. Certainly, that is true of the scoring for solo violin, which for much of the time is elegantly poised on the E-string. The melodic style and the construction of the work, however, are both nearer to Mozart than mature Beethoven. It is an exquisitely Mozartian soprano aria in rondo form based on the expressive melody introduced by the violin in the opening bars. Plunged into a dramatic episode in F minor, the soloist emerges with added serenity and a still more decorative line on the reprise of the main theme towards the end.