Johannes Brahms
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D major, op. 77

The beguilingly ascending violin line that, near the end of the slow movement of Johannes Brahms’ First Symphony, detaches itself from the ensemble yet remains closely entwined with the orchestral texture, is the only solo ever assigned to a concertmaster in Brahms’ entire orchestral output – and a harbinger. Soon afterwards, he wrote a violin concerto for his lifelong friend, the violinist Joseph Joachim,  which was conceived in a “symphonic spirit” and tailored to Joachim’s abilities. At the time, the difficulties of the solo part were considered nearly insurmountable – precisely because it never seeks to dominate. Instead, the violin merges, more as a primus inter pares, with the solo winds and the orchestra as a whole, duetting in organic interplay between the individual and the collective. Brahms described his vision of an ideal solo concerto to his confidante Clara Schumann, citing Giovanni Battista Viotti’s A-minor concerto: “It is a masterpiece, of a singular freedom of invention; it sounds as if he is fantasising, and yet everything is conceived and executed with mastery.”

Carefully planned yet seemingly improvised – this is the impression his own “specimen” conveys. It is the most substantial violin concerto since Beethoven, a model not only in the key of D major, but also in its movement characteristics and proportions (with an expansive first movement longer than the other two combined). Both works also share a measured tempo in their opening movements: the main theme unfolds unaccompanied and gradually from the D-major triad. Yet Brahms departs astonishingly quickly from the tonic, taking harmonic detours toward a contrasting second theme in the secondary key, now in a tense minor, which leads to the rhapsodic entrance of the solo violin. Here, the violin “fantasises,” gradually guiding the music back to the main theme, while developing the ideas merely suggested by the orchestra. Despite critic Eduard Hanslick’s fears that “some splendid ideas” would “not achieve their full effect because they vanish too quickly or are too densely enmeshed in artistic texture,” Brahms’ constant development and interweaving of motifs reaches a consummation “where orchestra and soloist merge completely” (Clara Schumann).

The second movement opens with the winds alone, the oboe singing the theme; only with the solo violin do the strings join in. The fact that the violin rarely presents the melody in its simple original form, instead ornamenting it, frustrated virtuosos such as Pablo de Sarasate, who considered it an imposition “to listen, violin in hand, as the oboe plays the only melody of the whole piece to the audience.” This folk-song-like Adagio is followed by a finale with folkloric character. Contemporary audiences already perceived the Rondo as “Hungarian,” even if there are no direct quotations of folk tunes. The rhythmic tension arising from the subtle hesitation between the three-note opening motif and the downbeat, the powerful and demanding double stops, the whirling virtuosity, and the sharply articulated secondary theme may all suggest Hungarian elements (and were certainly a friendly nod from the composer to the Hungarian dedicatee, Joseph Joachim). The accelerating triplet transformation of the main theme at the close, in any case, “ignited great applause” at the premiere.