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Ludwig van Beethoven - Violin Concerto, Op. 61

Further Information

• Franz Clement was a talented violinist of Beethoven's day. Leader and director of the Theater an der Wien where Fidelio had premiered in 1801, the twenty-six year old musician was a prominent figure in Vienna's music circles, and a composer as well as a performer. Late in 1806, Clement decided to give a benefit concert --- for his own benefit: he would keep the proceeds himself. He assembled an orchestra of his colleagues and selected a program of works by Mozart, Cherubini, and Handel. Yet the concert would need something more, a show-stopper to attract attention during the business Christmas season, so Clement invited his friend Beethoven to write a violin concerto. The composer agreed, even though very little time remained. Working with uncustomary haste, Beethoven managed to complete the work only hours before the concert was to begin. The official tale is that Clement sight-read the entire work, but it takes little imagination to suppose that he probably had been visiting his friend throughout the composition process, trying out the piece several pages at a time. Moreover, the first two movements, though fiercely demanding of a performer's tone and lyrical ability, offer no technical challenges that would need to be beat into the fingers, and the concluding Rondo, though brimming with fire, is not so long that a virtuoso might not learn it in an afternoon.

  At the premiere December 23, 1806, Clement declared that the concerto's opening movement would be played prior to intermission, and its conclusion following intermission. No one today would think of dissecting a piece in this fashion, but it was common practice at the time. This separation of the work into two portions explains why, between movements of the concerto, Clement indulged himself and his audience by playing a solo fantasia while holding his violin upside-down. These gravity-defying acrobatics did not arise from a lack of reverence for Beethoven's effort, but rather were only a pre-intermission encore. Bring them back for more, the stunt seems to say, so they can appreciate the rest of the concerto, too. Indeed, the audience received the new work enthusiastically, though the critics were less appreciative. "Tiring" and "commonplace" were amongst the adjectives used to describe the piece, which has since been accepted as one of Beethoven's most gracious and masterful works.

  Beethoven often dedicated his compositions to aristocrats who might pay handsomely for the privilege. Yet when it came time to publish the Violin Concerto in 1808, he chose instead to honor someone closer to home. The work is dedicated to Stephan von Breuning, the composer's childhood friend with whom he had grown up back in Bonn. As a boy, Beethoven had often escaped his father's drunken demands by seeking refuge in the Breuning home. He and Stephan remained close throughout their lives, and the composer recognized that friendship with this dedication. Soon afterward, Beethoven prepared a revision of the work in the form of a piano concerto, which, upon publication, would be dedicated to Breuning's new bride Julie. His timing was good, for Julie would die the following year at the age of nineteen. Beethoven, who had been in the habit of visiting the young couple at their Vienna home and improvising for them at the piano, was reported to have been particularly fond of his good friend's wife.