Violin Concerto in D major, Op.77

When he was nearing the end of his work on the Violin Concerto in 1878 Brahms sent a copy of the solo part to Joseph Joachim, the old friend and master-violinist to whom the score was to be dedicated. “It gives me great pleasure to know that you are preparing a Violin Concerto,” Joachim replied. “I have had a good look at what you sent me…but without the full score cannot say much.” As Joachim well knew, the test of a great concerto is not how brilliant the solo part is but how much more inspired the soloist seems to be than the orchestra behind him.

The first movement of Brahms’s Violin Concerto is, in fact, exemplary in casting the soloist in a visionary role. After an orchestral exposition that is informal and neither complete nor definitive, the solo violin makes its first entry as though to correct the tendency in the orchestra to get carried away and off the point. Gradually it calms the atmosphere and, at the appropriate psychological moment, reintroduces the first subject in a form very much more poetic than on its initial statement at the start of the work. So the soloist goes on, reshaping or recolouring the main themes and, as the finest inspiration of all, contributing a lovely new waltz-like melody to the second subject. Between the cadenza and the animato coda - Brahms’s didn’t write a cadenza, incidentally, but most soloists play Joseph Joachim’s - the soloist offers a last nostalgic echo of his own poetic version of the first subject.

In the Adagio the solo violin occupies a more modest role at first, remaining silent while the oboe introduces the main theme in F major, adding its own unambitious variant and only then extending itself in an elaborately expressive improvisation. The solo violinist makes up for it in the finale - not only as the source of inspiration in the Hungarian dance that is the main theme but in every other way too, running tirelessly up steep hill in double-stopped octaves in the first episode and, after recalling the main theme in D major, introducing an attractive new song in G major in the second episode. It is a brilliant display of energy and imagination culminating in a sort cadenza before the quick-march coda.

Another Hungarian violinist friend of Brahms -who had studied alongside Reményi under the same teacher in Vienna - was Joseph Joachim. He was more than just a virtuoso instrumentalist, however: as a composer, conductor and teacher as well as a uniquely authoritative violinist, Joachim became one of the most respected and most influential figures in German musical life in the second half of the nineteenth century. Any composer with a Violin Concerto to promote would hope that Joachim would take an interest in it. If he did its future, or at least its near future, was secure.

One way of appealing to Joachim - who had himself written a Violin Concerto in the Hungarian Manner in 1861 - was to include a significant Hungarian element in the score. Max Bruch did this in the finale of his Concerto in G minor, the final version of which owes much to Joachim’s advice and encouragement. So did Brahms. Although he originally intended that it would be a concerto in four movements, the second and third of which were later replaced by the present Adagio, the Hungarian-dance finale was always there. The composer and the violinist worked on the violin scoring together and when the work was published a few months after its first performance in January 1879 - with Joachim the soloist and Brahms conducting - it bore a dedication to Joseph Joachim who “was more or less responsible for the violin part.” The published first-movement cadenza - which most soloists choose to play - is entirely Joachim’s work.

Another thing that must have attracted Joachim to the Brahms Concerto, apart from the Hungarian element, was the distinctive role of the solo violin in relation to that of the orchestra. Brahms casts his soloist here not as the conventional virtuoso hero but as a thinker and a poet who is not just busier than the orchestra but also more inspired. So he begins with an informal orchestral exposition that it is neither complete nor defintive. The solo violin makes its first entry as though to correct the tendency in the orchestra to get carried away and off the point. Gradually the soloist calms the atmosphere and, at the right psychological moment, reintroduces the first subject in a form very much more poetic than its initial statement at the start of the work. So the violinist goes on, reshaping or recolouring the main themes and, as the finest solo inspiration, contributing a lovely new waltz-like melody to the second subject.

In the (according to the characteristically self-disparaging composer) “feeble” Adagio the soloist occupies a more modest role at first. It is the principal oboe, accompanied only by fellow woodwind and horns, who introduces the lovely main theme. On its first entry the solo violin is content to add its own variant on the melody. But then, following a hint in the main theme, it extends itself in an elaborately expressive improvisation. The soloist’s is the dominant personality throughout the reprise of the first section too.

The finale is motivated almost entirely by the violin. In the first place it leads the Hungarian dance which is presented as the main rondo theme. But it is active everywhere, running energetically uphill in double-stopped octaves in the first episode, and, after recalling the main theme, introducing a new song-like melody in the second episode. All but the last of these theme are developed, the soloist participating tirelessly and ever more brilliantly in such virtuoso inspirations as a passage of solo counterpoint, a fanciful series of trills and arpeggios and a short cadenza leading into the extended quick-march coda.

The art in writing a concerto is not to make the soloist seem busier than the others but to make him seem more inspired. Naturally, when Brahms sent only the solo part of his new Violin Concerto to his great friend Joseph Joachim, the violinist could greet it with no more than guarded enthusiasm: “It gives me a great pleasure to know that you are preparing a Violin Concerto - in four movements too! I have had a good look at when you sent me and have made a few notes and alterations but without the full score cannot say much.”

After more alterations to the solo part, and after the original Adagio and Scherzo had been replaced by the present Adagio, the Violin Concerto was first performed by Joachim with Brahms conducting in Leipzig on 1 January 1879. Before the end of the year, and after still more alterations, it was published with a dedication to Joseph Joachim who, according to the composer, “was more or less responsible for the solo violin part.” Clearly, what attracted Joachim to the work, apart from the opportunity to influence the scoring of the solo part, was the prophetic role of the soloist in relation to that of the orchestra.

It is true that there is no heroic gesture from the soloist at the beginning, even though that had by now become the romantic convention. Nor is the audience left in suspense for the first solo entry until after a formal exposition, which had been the classical convention. Brahms is more subtle. His orchestral exposition is informal and neither complete nor definitive. The solo violin makes its first entry as though to correct the tendency in the orchestra to get carried away and off the point. Gradually the soloist calms the atmosphere and, at the right psychological moment, reintroduces the first subject in a form very much more poetic than its initial statement at the start of the work. So the violinist goes on, reshaping or recolouring the main themes and, as the finest solo inspiration, contributing a lovely new waltz-like melody to the second subject. Another particularly inspired moment occurs towards the end of the movement, just after the cadenza - Brahms didn’t write one but most soloists play Joachim’s - where the violinist offers a last nostalgic echo of the poetic solo version of the first subject before racing off in the animato coda.

In the (according to the characteristically self-disparaging composer) “feeble” Adagio, which replaces the two central movements originally planned for the work, the soloist occupies a more modest role at first. It is the principal oboe, accompanied only by fellow woodwind and horns, who introduces the main theme in F major. On its first entry the solo violin is content to add its own variant on the melody. But then, following a hint in the main theme, it extends itself in an elaborately expressive improvisation. The soloist’s is the dominant personality throughout the reprise of the first section too.

The finale is motivated almost entirely by the violin. In the first place it leads the Hungarian dance which, in tribute to Joachim’s racial origins, is presented as the main rondo theme. But it is active everywhere, running energetically uphill in double-stopped octaves in the first episode, and, after recalling the main theme, introducing a new song-like melody in the second episode. All but the last of these theme are developed, the soloist participating tirelessly and ever more brilliantly in such virtuoso inspirations as a passage of solo counterpoint, a fanciful series of trills and arpeggios and a short cadenza leading into the extended quick-march coda.

Gerald Larner©