# Why is the violin concerto the most consistently excellent genre?



## Gallus (Feb 8, 2018)

If any great composer has written a violin concerto, you know it's going to be above average at least. I don't think you can say this for any other genre? 

I was just thinking this while listening to Ligeti's violin concerto, and then Ades' Concetric Paths, and then went back to Brahms and Beethoven's in the same. I've almost never heard a violin concerto from a composer and thought, that wasn't stimulating.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

I'm biased because the violin is one of my most favoured concertante instruments (together with the cello and clarinet), but I'd agree that for many composers a violin concerto is among the best in their output (best as always imo). Exceptions would be Stravinsky and Vaughan Williams, for whom I would prefer lots of their other works.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Perhaps the question can be related to the fact that a fair number of composers wrote just a single violin concerto—as if they had only that one in them. If you’re going to try your hand at something only once, you may take special care to get it right.


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## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

I am not a particular fan of violin concertos and so I don't think that it is the best any composer has to offer. I agree with Amfortas that most composers only made one. It is interesting to think about a ranking of solo instruments in concerto's. I think that the #1 by far would be the piano, the clear #2 the violin, a long silence, #3 Cello, #4 Clarinet, thereafter the peloton with all the other instruments. 

Why this is the case, I don't know. Maybe, a piano adds more contrast to the orchestra, in comparison with a orchestral instrument like the violin and the others. The dialogue between orchestra and piano is certainly clearer, the piano has 88 notes available, a huge dynamic range, and the pianist can play ten notes simultaneously, where all other instruments are quite limited. 
As a concert-goer (and biased as a piano player), it sure adds to the expectation if a big shiny Steinway is on the podium. 

The violin of course has a specific timbre and therefor, a violin concerto will always sound different from a piano concerto. Maybe, this adds to the similar appreciation of one or the other? Prokofiev (and Bartok) made interesting works for both instruments. I think I like them all equally, yet they are quite different from each other. It depends on the mood, to which one I will connect.

Just a few thoughts, don't know if it is of any use.:tiphat:


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

Ultimately a matter of taste. Relative to the size of the repertoire, there are only a few violin concerti I really like - the Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Barber, Bartok, Dvorak, Sibelius, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, and a handful of more obscure ones. However, none of them I would put in the top tier of the composer’s works except the Sibelius and Barber.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Allegro Con Brio said:


> Ultimately a matter of taste. Relative to the size of the repertoire, there are only a few violin concerti I really like - the Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Barber, Bartok, Dvorak, Sibelius, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, and a handful of more obscure ones. However, none of them I would put in the top tier of the composer's works except the Sibelius and Barber.


Like them or not (I do), I would also put the Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, Korngold, and Berg among their respective composers' top works.


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

amfortas said:


> Perhaps the question can be related to the fact that a fair number of composers wrote just a single violin concerto-as if they had only that one in them. If you're going to try your hand at something only once, you may take special care to get it right.


I agree, and sometimes the special care included working closely with the virtuoso soloist during the composition phase, e.g. Brahms with Joseph Joachim, and Korngold with Jascha Heifetz. Then there were composers who themselves were professional violinists, e.g. Sibelius and Neilsen.

As for the concert violinist soloists who composed violin concertos or concertante works, I have a special place in my heart for the best of them: Paganini, de Beriot, Vieuxtemps, Wieniawski, Sarasate, Ysaye, and others. They have their own area of distinction, and their virtuoso concertos shouldn't be disparaged relentlessly in comparison to the symphonic concertos of Beethoven, Brahms, etc.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

amfortas said:


> Like them or not (I do), I would also put the Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, Korngold, and Berg among their respective composers' top works.


I forgot about the Berg! That's a favorite, and definitely his greatest work IMO, if not one of the great masterpieces of the 20thc.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Overall, I find violin concertos consistently disappointing. Some exceptions are Sibelius, Myaskovsky, and Weinberg.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

I disagree with the whole premise: the violin concertos we know are the cream of the crop. So the great concertos of Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev and Shostakovich get far more play time than the others. The Elgar and Khachaturian are superb, too, if not played as often. But then there are hundreds, probably thousands, of crappy concertos. Bruch wrote three, but only the first is commonly played, the other two just don't measure up. The Karlowicz deserves more exposure, but for some people it's pretty lame. But then consider the concertos of Paganini,Viotti, Wieniawski and their ilk: the performer/composer. Pytotechnics aplenty and musically empty. And of the poor concertos, those are the good ones!


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## Judith (Nov 11, 2015)

Love the Violin Concertos. With those and the Cello ones, feel as though they are singing


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## Ekim the Insubordinate (May 24, 2015)

In terms of ratio of great versus total, I think cello concertos beat violin concertos.


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## Josquin13 (Nov 7, 2017)

I completely agree with you in regards to modern & contemporary composers. The violin concertos by many contemporary composers have served as my introduction and entry point into their music. & I do think the genre has brought out the best in these composers. For example, the violin concertos by Magnus Lindberg, Oliver Knussen, Robin Holloway, Poul Ruders, Per Nørgård, Allan Pettersson, Philip Glass, Anders Hillborg, Colin Matthews, Witold Lutoslawski, Einojuhani Rautavaara, Elliot Carter, Peteris Vasks, etc., all stand out to me as remarkable contemporary works. Therefore, it doesn't surprise me that a good number of these violin concertos have already received two or three recordings, & in some cases, four, five & up, as top violinists want to play this music. For example,

Magnus Lindberg
Violin Concerto No. 1 (2 recordings to date):








Violin Concerto No. 2: 




Esa-Pekka Salonen: 




Per Nørgård, 
Violin Concerto No. 1--"Helle Nacht" (2 recordings to date): 



Violin Concerto No. 2--"Borderlines" (2 recordings to date): 




Krzyztof Penderecki--Violin Concerto No. 2 "Metamorphosen" (5 recordings to date): 




Wolfgang Rihm
--"Gesungene Zeit" (2 recordings): 








--"Lichtes Spiel": 



--"Gedicht des Malers" ("Poem of the painter"): 




Hans Werner Henze: Violin Concertos Nos. 1 & 2: 




Anders Hillborg: Violin Concerto No. 2 (yet to be released on CD): 




Oliver Knussen: 




Robin Holloway: 




Huw Watkins: 




Thomas Ades: Violin Concerto "Concentric Paths": 




Ben Foskett: 




Poul Ruders: Violin Concerto No. 1 (3 recordings to date): 




Vagn Holmboe: Violin Concerto No. 2: 




Witold Lutoslawski: 
--Violin Concerto: 



--Partita: 



--Chain 2: 




Norbert Moret, "En rêve"









Henri Dutilleux, "L'arbre des songes" (at least 5 recordings to date): 




Andre Jolivet: 




Allan Pettersson: Violin Concerto No. 2 (3 recordings to date): 




Pascal Dusapin: "Aufgang": 




Bruno Mantovani "Jeax d'eau": 




Arvo Part, "Tabula Rasa" (at least 9 recordings that I know of):





Somei Satoh: 




Philip Glass, Violin Concerto No. 1 (3 recordings to date): 




Peteris Vasks, "Tala Gaisma" or "Distant Light" (5 recordings that I know of):













Einojuhani Rautavaara (3 recordings to date, and Hilary Hahn has been playing it in concert),





Peter Eötvös: "Seven":









György Ligeti: (at least 5 recordings): 




Elliot Carter:













William Schuman (5 recordings): 




Samuel Barber (over 20 recordings, last count: This is one of my favorite violin concertos of the 20th century, along with Prokofiev's two VCs):













Igor Stravinsky: 




Roy Harris: 




Walter Piston: Violin Concerto No. 2: 




Ned Rorem: 




George Rochberg:





















Einar Englund: 




Uno Klami: 




Anders Eliasson: "Einsame Fahrt" or "Solitary Journey": 




Paavo Heininen, Violin Concerto, Op. 75: unrecorded.

Errki Melartin, Violin Concerto, Op. 60: 




Fartein Valen (2 recordings): 




Aarre Merikanto, 
Violin Concerto No. 2: 




Jaakko Kuusisto: 




Bent Sørensen: "Sterbende Gärten" ("The Echoing Garden"): 




John McCabe, Violin Concerto No. 2: 




James MacMillan: 




Colin Matthews: 




David Matthews: Violin Concerto No. 1: 




Christopher Gunning: 




John Adams: 
Violin Concerto (6 recordings, including two by violinist Leila Josefowicz): 



Scheherazade 2: 



The Dharma at Big Sur:


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Allegro Con Brio said:


> I forgot about the Berg! That's a favorite, and definitely his greatest work IMO, if not one of the great masterpieces of the 20thc.


I almost forgot about the Berg myself; it was a last-minute addition to my post. Glad it struck a chord!


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

Allegro Con Brio said:


> I forgot about the Berg! That's a favorite, and definitely his greatest work IMO, if not one of the great masterpieces of the 20thc.


I wouldn't rule out his two great operas. As much as I love the violin concerto I think Berg's major talent was writing for the stage, like Mozart.

Re: the titular question, I would agree with Josquin that this maxim is especially applicable to contemporary composers.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Definitely violin concertos are, aside from piano concertos, the tops. Is it something to do with there having been more especially talented violinists than players of other instruments? I guess that once a few great pieces had been written for the violin then the attraction for student musicians of the instrument would grow and as it grows the number of works would grow. At least, the cello repertoire expanded enormously after 1950 as a result of one great player (Rostropovich) inviting composers to write works for him to play.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

mbhaub said:


> I disagree with the whole premise: the violin concertos we know are the cream of the crop. So the great concertos of Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev and Shostakovich get far more play time than the others. The Elgar and Khachaturian are superb, too, if not played as often. But then there are hundreds, probably thousands, of crappy concertos. Bruch wrote three, but only the first is commonly played, the other two just don't measure up. The Karlowicz deserves more exposure, but for some people it's pretty lame. But then consider the concertos of Paganini,Viotti, Wieniawski and their ilk: the performer/composer. Pytotechnics aplenty and musically empty. And of the poor concertos, those are the good ones!


mbhaub here touches upon a subject that, for me, sits just below the surface in any overall discussion of CM: how "good" is the music, really, taken as a whole? This again feeds back into my stressing just how important, how utterly central, are our own unique, personal reactions to music and art.

The simple truth is that while I enjoy a broad spectrum of CM (and other musics) and a large repertoire of favored works, a rather large proportion of CM is of no interest to me at all; it's just "product" called CM, churned out by hordes of composers--some famous, other no-name nobodies. The finding that "90% of everything is crap", by a host of rival discoverers, remains very probably one of the most accurate observations of music and the arts made by human beings and admitted by such in their moments of self-honesty. 
My hat is off to mbhaub :tiphat: for stating this finding very clearly that "there are hundreds, probably thousands, of crappy concertos." And symphonies, and string quartets, and trios, and tone poems, and any number of other genres and pieces as well. We like what we like, and disregard the rest. And that's just as it should be.


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## Eclectic Al (Apr 23, 2020)

I am not sure about this "violin concertos are great" proposition. Most concertos are violin, cello or piano (- obviously there is a whole range of others, but these three types predominate). Is it not truer to say that concertos are often "above average", rather than to pick violin concertos? So many cello concertos are really good in their composer's output: Schumann, Dvorak, Elgar, etc. As far as piano concertos go, where do you stop: Bartok, Brahms, Mozart, Beethoven.
Then what does it mean to say "above average"?
I think the truth behind this thread is very simple: lots of people like concertos, and lots of concertos are violin concertos.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

I disagree with the basic premise. There are a lot of good violin concertos. Also a lot of bad ones, that sound like aimless noodling over an equally aimless accompaniment. Those are the ones I turn off the radio for.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

^ I don't disagree ... until you reach the 20th century, a period which gave us so many first rate violin concertos (Sibelius, Berg, Schoenberg, Bartok, Walton, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Barber, Ligeti, Britten, Elgar ... etc.).


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

Art Rock said:


> I'm biased because the violin is one of my most favoured concertante instruments (together with the cello and clarinet), but I'd agree that for many composers a violin concerto is among the best in their output (best as always imo). Exceptions would be Stravinsky and Vaughan Williams, for whom I would prefer lots of their other works.


Stravinsky's violin concerto is one of his better neoclassical works, IMO.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

The solo violin is a very 'vocal' instrument, which can sound very expressive and voice-like. This contrasts effectively with the orchestra.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

ORigel said:


> Stravinsky's violin concerto is one of his better neoclassical works, IMO.


Yes, but I don't particularly like his neoclassical period.


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

I do not think your premise holds. Haydn's violin concertos, for example, are forgettable.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Let's look at the top40 composers from my TC survey last year and see whether the premise holds:

001 Ludwig van Beethoven: YES
002 Johann Sebastian Bach: YES
003 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: NO*
004 Gustav Mahler: N/A
005 Johannes Brahms: YES
006 Franz Schubert: N/A
007 Dmitry Shostakovich: YES
008 Jean Sibelius: YES
009 Robert Schumann: MAYBE
010 Claude Debussy: N/A

011 Richard Wagner: N/A
012 Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: YES
013 Sergei Prokofiev: YES
014 Joseph Haydn: NO
015 Maurice Ravel: N/A
016 Antonín Dvořák: YES
017 Igor Stravinsky: MAYBE
018 Frédéric Chopin: N/A
019 Felix Mendelssohn: YES
020 Béla Bartók: YES

021 George Frideric Handel: N/A
022 Anton Bruckner: N/A
023 Richard Strauss: N/A
024 Franz Liszt: N/A
025 Ralph Vaughan Williams: NO
026 Sergei Rachmaninoff: N/A
027 Hector Berlioz: N/A
028 Gabriel Fauré: N/A
029 Arnold Schoenberg: YES
030 Alexander Scriabin: N/A

031 Antonio Vivaldi: YES
032 Giuseppe Verdi: N/A
033 Giacomo Puccini: N/A
034 Claudio Monteverdi: N/A
035 Leoš Janáček: N/A
036 Edward Elgar: YES
037 Olivier Messiaen: N/A
038 Aaron Copland: N/A
039 Benjamin Britten: YES
040 Alban Berg: YES

Well, the "AY's" have it.


* I do like the 5th though.


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

^^^ Not sure if it's fair to put an N/A next to Janacek in terms of Violin Concertos. There's a late and probably unfinished concerto, "The Wandering of a Soul". True, it's not a completely satisfying work, but a lot of it made its way into the stupendous final opera, The House of the Dead".

Oh, and the Stravinsky is a real favourite here, a never-ending adrenalin rush, one of his greatest works as far as I am concerned!

On the original post, some composers poured an enormous amount into a single concerto, or maybe two - Beethoven, Brahms, Sibelius, Mendelssohn, Berg, Bartok, Shostakovich, Elgar, so these pieces tend to stand out in their oeuvres. I'm suspicious of any composer who wrote dozens (!) and honestly find the works by Paganini or Vieuxtemps a bit of a snore.

Do try the Roentgen Concerto btw, it's a stunner!


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Some excellent violin concertos (IMO of course) outside the big names include Moeran, Bax, Arutiunian, and Reinecke (one each).


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

I don't often listen to violin concertos, when I listen to concertos I usually listen to keyboard concertos.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Art Rock said:


> Yes, but I don't particularly like his neoclassical period.


But nearly all of Stravinsky's music (all but three of his major works) is neoclassical.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Enthusiast said:


> But nearly all of Stravinsky's music (all but three of his major works) is neoclassical.


Yes. I also never said that Stravinsky was a favourite composer of mine. The only work from his (long) neoclassical work that I would put at the same level (for me) as the three early ballets (which I love) is the Symphony of Psalms.


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## sstucky (Apr 4, 2020)

It is not the most consistently excellent genre.


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

CnC Bartok said:


> Do try the Roentgen Concerto btw, it's a stunner!


If you mean Roentgen's _Violin Concerto No. 1_ in A Minor (1902) I agree! It's an effective Brahms-influenced symphonic concerto with many original touches, including a poke at Wagner's Magic Fire Music. Roentgen's _Ballade for Violin and Orchestra_ (1918) and _Violin Concerto No. 3_ in F# (1931) are very good, but to me No. 1 is the most inspired.


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

Roger Knox said:


> If you mean Roentgen's _Violin Concerto No. 1_ in A Minor (1902) I agree! It's an effective Brahms-influenced symphonic concerto with many original touches, including a poke at Wagner's Magic Fire Music. Roentgen's _Ballade for Violin and Orchestra_ (1918) and _Violin Concerto No. 3_ in F# (1931) are very good, but to me No. 1 is the most inspired.


Yes, the A minor. Fabulous piece!


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