Violin Concerto in E minor

A cornerstone of the repertoire, the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto is one of the most beloved symphonic works ever written. 

At age 35, Mendelssohn could already look back on an international career of a decade and a half. He had been able to turn his fortunate personal situation into an advantage and fully enjoy the benefits of a privileged family background (his father was a wealthy banker who was able to provide him with the best education and even put an orchestra at his disposal to play his early works). Since 1837, Mendelssohn was himself happily married and was, by 1844, the father of four. His first name, Felix (Latin for “happy”), appeared to be a good omen for his life. No one could then have predicted Mendelssohn’s tragic death only three years later.

This concerto was a gift of friendship to a musician particularly close to Mendelssohn’s heart. Mendelssohn had known Ferdinand David (1810–73) since boyhood, and shortly after he took over the directorship of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, he invited the violinist to be his concertmaster. David held this position for 37 years, serving long after Mendelssohn’s untimely death.

David shared with Mendelssohn many of the administrative duties at the orchestra. They also frequently performed chamber music together, with Mendelssohn at the piano. Mendelssohn’s fondness for David can be seen in this passage from a letter to the violinist: “I realize that there are not many musicians who pursue such a straight road in art undeviatingly as you do, or in whose active course I could feel the same intense delight that I do in yours.”

This was written in 1838, the year Mendelssohn made his first sketches of the Violin Concerto. Other commitments, however, prevented him from completing the work until 1844. The concerto remained one of his last symphonic compositions, followed only by the oratorio Elijah.

The concerto seems perfectly to reflect the composer’s sunny disposition. In this work, as elsewhere in Mendelssohn’s music, Romantic passion is always tempered by Classical restraint, and tender lyrical feelings are balanced by light, even humorous moments. Virtuosity goes hand in hand with a depth of expression achieved only by the greatest masters.

One of Mendelssohn’s most innovative touches comes at the very beginning of the concerto, where he dispenses with the usual orchestral exposition and introduces the solo instrument, with a soaring melody, immediately at the outset of the first movement. The violin remains the center of attention throughout the entire work, with only a few tutti sections for the entire orchestra where the soloist doesn’t play.

In another striking departure from convention, the movements of the concerto are played without pause. It wasn’t the only time Mendelssohn eliminated breaks between movements in his larger works; he had done the same in the “Scottish” Symphony (composed 1829–42). But in the concerto he inserted short connecting passages between the movements. After the first movement, a single note held by a solo bassoon provides a link to the beautiful Andante, and a brief melodic passage serves as a bridge between the second and third movements. The speed of this latter passage, scored for solo violin and string orchestra, is halfway between the preceding slow and subsequent fast tempos. The various moods and sentiments — those of the passionate first, the lyrical second, and the graceful third movements — all flow directly from one another, instead of presenting them as separate entities. 

The written-out cadenza of the first movement (which may be in part by David), is also more strongly integrated into the movement than was the case in earlier concertos. Mendelssohn moved it from its traditional place at the end of the movement to the middle, making it grow organically out of the development section and resolve just as naturally in the recapitulation. But the cadenza does not end when the orchestra reenters; it continues while the flute, the oboe, and the first violins play the main theme — another example of the kind of seamless transition between sections that was so important to Mendelssohn.

The triumph of this work, may have been best expressed by the great violinisit Joseph Joachim, who was quoted as saying in 1906: “The Germans have four concertos. The greatest — and the one that makes the fewest concessions — is Beethoven’s. Brahms’s is the closest to Beethoven’s in seriousness. Bruch’s is the richest and the most enchanting. But the dearest of all — the heart’s jewel — is Mendelssohn’s.”

—      Peter Laki

Peter Laki is a visiting associate professor at Bard College and a frequent lecturer and writer on music.