Here's the place to list your 5 favorite Violin Concertos.



My personal favorites (in order):

1 - Beethoven Violin Concerto

2 - Brahms Violin Concerto

3 - Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto

4 - Brahms Double Concerto for Violin and Cello (okay, I'm cheating a bit )

5 - Mozart Violin Concerto # 3

My five are:

Beethoven
Brahms
Miaskovsky
Weinberg
Mozart's 5th

Not really my favourite (sub)genre.

1. Sibelius
2. Tchaikovsky
3. Brahms
4. mendelsshon
5. carmen fantasy (sarasate edition)(i know it's cheating, but I have yet to listen to beethoven's. and although it is called Carmen Fantasy, it is a violin concerto)

Brahms
Tchaikovsky
Goldmark
Lalo S.S.
Taktakishvili first

Paganini nos 1 and 2
Mendelssohn
Mozart no. 3
Brahms

Mendelssohn
Nielsen
Tchaikovsky
Sibelius
Elgar

1) Mendelssohn Violin concerto
2) Handel Concerto grosso op. 6 no 10
3) Handel Concerto grosso op. 6 no 7
4) Mozart Violin concerto #4
5) Vivaldi Concerto violin concerto op.3 no 11.

Not really. Its name is quite descriptive and efficiently describes the genre of the piece: a fantasy for violin and orchestra, on themes extracted from an opera.
You may say it's a concertante for violin and orchestra (or piano too, but that's not relevant), but even then you wouldn't be completely accurate.
I know we can't actually define a violin concerto as a three movement work (being them moderately fast, a slow one, and a faster final one), but we can be sure a concert fantasy doesn't really qualify.

I can list five, but there are so many interesting there, that I can not assure this really reflects my preferences.

1. Brahms
2. Shostakovich's 1st
3. Mozart's 5th
4. Sibelius (the standard version, not the original)
5. Saint-Saens' third. (Only by Perlman and Barenboim. Eventually Francescatti, but his recording is not complete, and this is enough to discard him).

I feel so prosaic: I'm going to list some of the "usual suspects:"

Brahms- sweeping the boards so far
Tchaikovsky
Bruch- no support for Bruch so far. Interesting.
Sibelius- appreciated it more as I matured
Prokofiev 1- when teamwork is in evidence, it comes off a treat. Is this why Heifetz didn't incorporate it into his repertoire?

I thought it was because Szigeti already had the concerto for himself. However, when it comes to reflection, Heifetz hijacked Glazunov from Milstein; so I don't think the concept of stealing material really forbade him.

I'm with Opus67. My question when I first read the post title was "are there five good ones?"

I'm only half kidding.

I can think of only two, off-hand, that are truly wonderful pieces of music, regardless of (sub)genre, and that's Bartok's 2nd and Ligeti's. I know Janacek's, but I only like it because it uses bits from House of the Dead.

Maybe you just have to be Hungarian...?

I have heard Beethoven's played by a girl from Asia somewhere that was a pretty spectacular performance. Can't remember her name, sadly. (And "Asia" covers a lot of territory, so that's no help.)

Just think if Helmut Lachenmann were to write a violin concerto. Whew. Now that would be something to write home about. And if you were home, you could go away, and then write.

Luximus, I must congratulate you for having the courage and conviction to put this concerto above the big romantic ones that you list lower. As a Sibelius fan, I can appreciate this feeling but as a musician, I place Brahms and Beethoven above this one.

So here is my list, for one time in my life in order:

1. Brahms
2. Beethoven
3. Sibelius
4. Tchaikovsky
5. Mendelssohn

If you dare to discuss Sibelius' concerto's place among other violin concertos in another forum, click here:

Sibelius' Concerto among other Concertos

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I was just kidding about that. Violin concerti are my |favourite|.

Tchaikovsky
Beethoven

Those are my top two. I'm sure Mendelssohn would be in there, too. I should listen to the others more to complete the list.

That's what I thought