Composed: 1838-44
Premiered: 1845, Leipzig
Duration: 26 minutes

It is sometimes said that Mendelssohn burned himself out at an early age. Certainly, some of his most vivid works are from his teenage years – the Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Octet for Strings come to mind. But among quite a lot of rather lacklustre works from his maturity, some real jewels sparkle. The Violin Concerto in E Minor is one of the brightest of these. Like many of Mendelssohn’s later works, this concerto had a long gestation. As early as 1835, he promised his friend Ferdinand David a concerto, but the first concrete ideas for it did not take shape until 1838.

A little while later, Frederick William IV ascended the throne of Prussia, and persuaded Mendelssohn to take on the position of Director of Music at the newly-created Royal Academy of Arts in Berlin. Mendelssohn moved from Leipzig and took up his post in 1841; after three frustrating, unproductive years, he resigned. And so, it was not until 1844 that the violin concerto was finally completed.

When David played the concerto, Schumann told him, “You have played the concerto you always wanted to compose yourself.” Indeed, this most familiar of all violin concertos is a violinist’s dream: an ideal blend of warm lyricism and elegant virtuoso display. The fact that most of us have heard it dozens of times before should not blind us to its very real originality and freshness. Listen for example to the linking passages between movements. (Mendelssohn disliked the custom, common in his time, of applauding between movements, and he forced his audiences to remain silent by this stratagem.) Notice too the cadenza in the first movement, an integral part of the structure, leading to the recapitulation, instead of being tacked on at the end. This is light music at its very best, a masterpiece of its kind.

Program note by the late Dr. C.W. Helleiner.