Unlike many 20th-century composers steeped in the language of atonality, Samuel Barber moved easily between modern idioms and the tonal rhetoric of Romanticism—and his works most frequently performed today, the Violin Concerto and the Adagio for Strings, are among his most accessible. The Violin Concerto arose from a commission from Samuel Fels, a soap tycoon, who wanted a concerto for violinist Iso Briselli, Fels's protégé and adopted son. Although Barber began work on the piece in Sils-Maria, Switzerland, the political climate in Europe eventually forced him back to the United States. He finally completed the piece at Pocono Lake Preserve in July 1940, and the official premiere took place on February 7, 1941, with violinist Albert Spalding and the Philadelphia Orchestra under the baton of Eugene Ormandy.   

Barber's Violin Concerto possesses a lush romanticism and richness of melody that stands in stark contrast to the composer's own description of the piece:  

The Concerto ... is lyric and rather intimate in character and a moderate-sized orchestra is used. The first movement begins with a lyrical first subject announced at once by the solo violin, without any orchestral introduction. This movement as a whole has perhaps more the character of a sonata than concerto form. 

The second movement is introduced by an extended oboe solo. The violin enters with a contrasting and rhapsodic theme, after which it repeats the oboe melody of the beginning. The last movement, a perpetual motion, exploits the brilliant and virtuoso characteristics of the violin.  

As Barber obliquely explains, part of the concerto's effect lies in the way he plays with formal expectations, capturing listeners' attention by presenting its rapturous tunes through slightly different routes. In the first movement, Barber hands the sweetly meandering opening melody directly to the solo violin, rather than taking the more standard route of presenting it first in the orchestra. In the slow movement, the achingly beautiful theme is presented first in the oboe and is granted to the soloist only at a climactic moment more than halfway through. The brief and dizzyingly fast third movement ends the concerto with a flourish.