Violin Concerto in D major, op. 77

Johannes Brahms’s only violin concerto, one of the most important violin concertos of the 19th century, is now a central repertoire piece. This fact is all the more notable, as, by his own account, Brahms understood “all too little” about the instrument. The concerto was composed at Wörthersee during the summer of 1878 in collaboration with Joseph Joachim, a leading contemporary violinist. The solo part is extremely demanding, with “really unusual difficulties.” This circumstance did not go unnoticed by the critics of the first performance: “Even to Joachim, the battled-seasoned wrestler,” the “technically difficult and tricky” solo part was to be mastered only with obvious effort.

Evidencing this close collaboration between composer and performer is not only the work’s genesis and publication history, together with its dedication to Joachim, but also its solo cadenza. Based on the New Brahms Complete Edition, this Urtext edition includes both the printed version of Joachim’s cadenza as well as its shorter version arranged in 1885 by the violinist Marie Soldat.