“I would like to write you a violin concerto for next winter,” wrote Mendelssohn to his friend Ferdinand David in July of 1838. “One in E minor keeps running through my head, and the opening gives me no peace.”

Mendelssohn and David had known each other since they were teenagers. By a strange coincidence, they were born in the same house in Hamburg. When Mendelssohn was appointed conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, he brought David in as concertmaster. 

David introduced the Concerto with the Gewandhaus Orchestra on March 13, 1845 with Niels Gade conducting. Two weeks later, the soloist wrote to Mendelssohn: “I should have written you earlier of the success that I had with your Violin Concerto. It was unanimously declared to be one of the most beautiful compositions of its kind.”

The Concerto’s popularity sometimes obscures its structural innovations. Indeed, German musicians once devised a sing-along motto for the opening theme: “Schon wieder, schon wieder, das Mendelssohn Konzert” (Yet again, yet again, that Mendelssohn concerto).

The work is in three movements, played without pause. Mendelssohn omits the usual orchestral introduction; the soloist enters in the second bar. The cadenza neatly connects development with recapitulation. A held note by the bassoon leads directly into the slow movement. Rory Guy calls the middle movement “serene, contemplative, and elegant and, at its conclusion, a wistful bridge of 14 bars leads into a spirited, scherzo-like Finale.”

~ Program notes by Charley Samson, copyright 2023