Konzert d-moll op 56

Gade composed his Violin Concerto in D minor, op. 56, in the summer of 1880. The opening movement was completed in July 1880, the slow movement in the following August, and the finale on 12 August 1880. The orchestration was finished in the autumn. The première took place at the Berlin Musikhochschule on 15 February 1881, with the solo part taken by the work’s dedicatee, Joseph Joachim. The Danish première was given at the Musikforeningen on 30 November 1882, with Anton Svendsen as soloist and Gade himself at the conductor’s desk. The first edition was issued by Breitkopf & Härtel in 1881. Having turned away from the national style during his Leipzig years, he adopted a more neutral idiom for the concerto. The work vanished all too quickly from the repertoire. Even during Gade’s lifetime it was often played as a torso without its first movement, which was widely felt to be overly long. Breitkopf & Härtel also published the slow movement separately and in arrangements. Nonetheless, it has recently appeared on several CD releases, including one with the Malmö Symphony Orchestra (Anton Kontra, violin) and another with the Aarhus Symphony Orchestra (Kai Laursen, violin).