Two Romances for violin and orchestra

Romance in G major Op.40

Romance in F major Op.50

There is only one Beethoven Violin Concerto, but it does have its antecedents. A violinist himself, Beethoven had started a Violin Concerto in C major before he left Bonn for Vienna in 1792. In 1802 - four years before he completed the Violin Concerto in d major - he applied himself again to the problem of writing for solo violin and orchestra in the two Romances.

Though inspired in much the same lyrical way as the slow movement of the Violin Concerto, the Romances have their own distinctive characteristics. The Romance in G major, for example, opens with the main theme presented by solo violin in double-stopped harmonies - a technical feature almost entirely absent from the Violin Concerto. When the main theme reappears it is again on double-stopped violin, which this time provides its own rhythmic accompaniment to the melody. It is only after a middle section in the relative minor (based on a phrase introduced earlier by the orchestra) that the theme ascends the high decorative line of the kind associated with the Violin Concerto.

In the Romance in F major, on the other hand, the soloist spends most of the time on the E-string - in pursuit of either melody or bravura figuration. What is peculiar about it is that no other example of Beethoven’s solo violin writing betrays the influence of Mozart quite so clearly. Mozart might also have been the inspiration for the construction - a rondo much as Mozart used in some of his finest arias and concerto slow movement - but Beethoven is not unenterprising in the use he makes of it, least of all in the central episode, which begins dramatically in F minor, alludes to the main theme in d flat major, and clarifies itself in bright C major arpeggios.