Violin Concerto (Brahms) - Structure

Structure

It follows the standard concerto form, with three movements in the pattern quick-slow-quick:

1. Allegro non troppo (D major)
2. Adagio (F major)
3. Allegro giocoso, ma non troppo vivace - Poco più presto (D major)

Originally, the work was planned in four movements like the second piano concerto. The middle movements, one of which was intended to be a scherzo — a mark that Brahms intended a symphonic concerto rather than a virtuoso showpiece — were discarded and replaced with what Brahms called a "feeble Adagio." Some of the discarded material was reworked for the second piano concerto.

Brahms, who was impatient with the minutiae of slurs marking the bowing, rather than phrasing, as his usual practice was, asked Joachim's advice on the writing of the solo violin part. Joachim, who had first been alerted when Brahms informed him in August that "a few violin passages" would be coming in the mail, was eager that the concerto should be playable and idiomatic, and collaborated willingly, not that all his advice was heeded in the final score. The most familiar cadenza, which appears in the first movement, is by Joachim, though a number of people have provided alternatives, including Leopold Auer, Henri Marteau, Max Reger, Fritz Kreisler, Jascha Heifetz, George Enescu, Nigel Kennedy and Rachel Barton Pine. A recording of the concerto released by Ruggiero Ricci has been coupled with Ricci's recordings of sixteen different cadenzas.