Beethoven’s life falls into three creative periods: 1790-1800, 1800-1814, and a third period to 1827. The Violin Concerto of 1806 therefore dates from his middle period, that of most of his orchestral music. Beethoven had by then written his Fourth Piano Concerto and his Fourth Symphony. He chose to present his Violin Concerto to Franz Clement (1780-1842), leader of the orchestra of the Theater an der Wien, who was then regarded as the greatest violinist of his time but was also remarkable conductor (he had conducted the first performance of Beethoven’s ‘Eroica’).
The work, intended for a benefit concert given by Clement, had to be written in a very short time because everything, including the date of the concert, had already been settled when Clement asked him to compose the piece. Beethoven began work on the compose the piece. Beethoven began work on the composition at the end of November 1806 and the first performance was given a month later. on 23 December. Clement had hardly been able to practice the piece and mostly sight-read the score at the première. And Beethoven had not had time to make up his mind between different possibilities for some passages, so that the soloist had several versions to choose from in some places! For the same reason he was unable to revise his orchestral material, so there was no cadenza. But Clement, who was not unused to such practices, improvised his own.
Somme commentators have also pointed out French influence in the very unusual use of the timpani to converse with the violin, thus setting the rhythm and the melody on an equal footing. Finally, we note that Beethoven prepared a revision of the work in the form of a piano concerto for the publisher Muzio Clementi.
Régis Pasquier plays the cadenzas composed by Fritz Kreisler (1875-1962), who also composed a cadenza for the Brahms Violin Concerto.
The 2 Romances are for violin plus a flute, two oboes, two bassoons, two horns and string accompaniment. It is believed that Beethoven used the same rather modest ensemble in the slow movement of his earlier unfinished Violin Concerto, WoO 5.
Both the 1175 are serene pieces, bringing out the expressive qualities of the violin with an elegance that calls to mind Mozart, including the subtle alternation of minor and major modes.
