Johannes Brahms, 1833-1897. Concerto No in D Major for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 77. Completed 1878, first performance January 1st, 1879, in Leipzig. Scored for 2 each flutes, oboes, clarinets, and bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, tympani, and strings.
In 1848 the 15-year-old Johannes Brahms, on tour as accompanist to the Hungarian violinist Eduard Reményi, was introduced to Joseph Joachim, a talented fiddler two years his senior. The two young musicians were instantly drawn to one another, and a lifelong friendship ensued.
It was only natural that Brahms should wish to write a concerto for his friend, but 30 years would elapse before he could muster the confidence to do so. When he finally did, he showed that despite his doubts he was well able to write for an instrument with which he was unfamiliar. He sent a copy of the score to Joachim with a request for comments on what was ``difficult, uncomfortable, impossible, etc.,'' but the violinist replied that ``most of the material is playable---some of it, in fact, quite originally violinistic,'' although he expressed some reservations about the stamina required to play it ``in an overheated concert hall!''
But Brahms continued to have doubts, and soon had discarded the middle two of the original four movements, replacing them with what the eternal jokester termed ``a feeble Adagio.'' Joachim saw through his old friend's self-deprecation and wasted no time in presenting the new work to the public. It was not well-received at first, despite repeated performances (one critic referred to it as ``a Concerto versus the violin''), but of course posterity has properly positioned it as one of the greatest representatives of the virtuoso Romantic tradition.
© 1996, Geoff Kuenning
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