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Reviews of Beethoven’s Violin Concert
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During the last two months of 1806, Beethoven completed the Violin Concerto in D Major
Op. 61 for the his virtuosic violinist friend Franz Clement, and the work was premiered
immediately thereafter on Dec 23rd in a benefit concert at Theater an der Wien. 1 In a review of
the concert published in the Wiener Theater-Zeitung in January, 1807, the critic Johann N. Möser
described the “undivided judgement” towards Beethoven’s new work; while the audience
recognized the beauty of the concerto, they perceived its structure as “somewhat torn and were
exhausted by its endless repetitions.”2 Möser added that “Beethoven should make better use of
his great talent by giving the audience more works resembling his earlier compositions (the first
two symphonies, the graceful Septet in E-flat or the witty Quintet in D Major)” and warned that
“if he continued to compose in this way he might lose his audience,” as the music was getting
too complicated and long.3 By the time Beethoven started to work on his violin concerto, he had
already completed Symphony No.3 in E-flat Major and Symphony No. 4 in B-flat Major, which
are twice the length of his first two symphonies and of any previous symphonies by Mozart and
Haydn. Beethoven expanded the violin concerto just like he did with the previous two
symphonies, and by only loosely adhering to the customary sonata-ritornello form in the first
movement, many less sophisticated members of audience could only appreciate the beautiful
tunes while naturally feeling lost in the rest of the concerto.4 In addition, a combination of
1
Herttrich, 2009.
“Ueber Beethhofens Concert ist das Urtheil von Kennern ungetheilt, es gesteht demselben manche Schönheit zu,
bekennt aber, daß der Zusammenhang oft ganz zerrissen scheine, und daß die unendlichen Wiederholungen einiger
gemeinen Stellen leicht ermüden könnten.” (Johann Nepomuk Möser, “Musikalische Akademie im Theater an der
Wien, vom Musikdirektor Klement.” Wiener Theater-Zeitung (Bäuerles Theaterzeitung), Jg. 2, Nr. 2 vom 8. Januar
1807, S. 27). The translations of all documents quoted from German in the article are my own.
3
Ibid, “Es sagt, daß Beethhofen seine anerkannten großen Talente, gehöriger verwenden, und uns Werke
2
schenken möge, die seinen ersten Symphonien aus C und D gleichen, seinem anmuthigen Septette aus Es, dem
geistreichen Quintette aus D dur, und mehreren seiner frühern Compositionen, die ihn immer in die Reihe der
ersten Componisten stellen werden. Man fürchtet aber zugleich, wenn Beethhofen auf diesem Weg
fortwandelt, so werde er und das Publicum übel dabey fahren.”
4
Beethoven, Violin Concerto in D Major, 1806.
Reviews of Beethoven’s Violin Concert
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deadline pressure on Beethoven and his excessive technical demands on the soloist without much
rehearsal time also made the work difficult to appreciate.5
There is no current evidence showing any other performance of the concerto until 1838 at
the first benefit concert of the composer and pianist Mr. W. S. Bennett from the Royal Academy
of Music in London.6 The concerto was once again poorly received, as the soloist Henry G.
Blagrove broke a string, was forced to change his instrument, and had trouble with intonation.7
The next performance in 1844, which featured the 12-year-old violin prodigy Joseph Joachim
with the London Philharmonic Society under Mendelssohn, finally helped the concerto begin to
shed its unfavorable reputation; as the critic “Q” noted in The Musical World, “So well did he
[Joachim] play, that we forgot how entirely unadapted for display was the violin part.” 8 The
work entered the violin concerto canon thereafter, and because Beethoven’s compositional
techniques needed no further validation, reviews from 1850 on focused more on the execution of
the soloist. In a performance given by the Philharmonic Society of New York on April 20th 1868,
the soloist Theodor Thomas was praised for his seriousness about true art. 9 In a review of a live
recording made by Adolf Busch in 1949, the author criticized Busch’s “old-fashioned approach
to tone production” and the “constant stream of small imperfections and fallibilities” in contrast
to his commercial recording of the same piece in 1942.10 In a recent performance of the concerto
by Joshua Bell under the 94-year-old Herbert Blomstedt at the Tanglewood Music Festival in
2021, the Boston Globe lauded the soloist’s own cadenza and his “smooth and resourceful
performance.”11
5
Herttrich, 2009.
The Musical World, 1838.
7
The Musical World, 1838.
8
“Q”, The Musical World, 1844.
9
New-Yorker Staats-Zeitung und Herold, 1868.
10
Haley, 2013.
11
Eichler, 2021.
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Reviews of Beethoven’s Violin Concert
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As the reviews since the concerto’s premiere in 1806 have shifted from criticism of the
composer to the soloists, discussion of its technical difficulty has been gradually neglected after
Joachim’s performance in 1844, due to even more technical demands by later composers such as
Paganini or Ysaÿe. Since the invention of recording made the soloists’ executional accuracy a
primary concern of both critics and audiences, soloists have focused a great deal more on
technical perfection. Möser and the audience of 1806 resisted the tides of evolution that
Beethoven was bringing to his compositions, much like 20th- century audiences resisted the
music of the Second-Viennese school in Europe or that of Charles Ives and Milton Babbitt in the
United States. As Ives explains in his memos: “I am fully convinced [that] if music be not
allowed to grow, if it’s denied the privilege of evolution that all other arts and life have, … then
music, before many years, cannot be composer, … and music as a creative art will die.” 12
12
Ives, Memos, 48.
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Reviews of Beethoven’s Violin Concert
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Bibliography:
Beethoven, Ludwig van. Ludwig van Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61. Critical Edition edited
by Shin Augustinus Kojima. Preface by Ernst Herttrich. Munich: G. Henle Verlag, 2009.
Eichler, Jeremy. “A daring debut, and a master’s return at 94, lift BSO at Tanglewood.” Boston
Globe, Aug 10, 2021: B6.
Haley, John H. Review of “Adolf Busch: Beethoven – Violin Concerto.” ARSC journal 44/2
(2013): 318-20.
Ives, Charles and John Kirkpatrick, ed. Charles Ives memos. New York, W. W. Norton, 1972.
Möser, Johann Nepomuk. [German] “Musikalische Akademie im Theater an der Wien, vom
Musikdirektor Klement.” Wiener Theater-Zeitung (Bäuerles Theaterzeitung), Jg. 2, Nr. 2 vom 8.
Januar 1807, S. 27. Available online: https://anno.onb.ac.at/cgicontent/anno?aid=thz&datum=18070108&seite=11&zoom=19. Accessed Oct 8, 2021.
Program notes from Theater an der Wien. [German]. Available online:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violinkonzert_(Beethoven).
Accessed Oct 8, 2021.
“Q.” Review of Philharmonic Society Concert. The Musical World, May 30, 1844, 179-81.
Review of Mr. W. Sterndale Bennett’s concert. The Musical World, May 31, 1838, 81.
Review of Beethoven Violin Concerto. New-Yorker Staats-Zeitung und Herold, April 20, 1868,
8. Excerpted in Music in Gotham: The New York Scene 1862-75. Available online:
https://www.musicingotham.org/event/124424#citation_124441
Accessed Oct 8, 2021.