Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64

Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy created a standard work with his final violin concerto in E minor op. 64 MWV O 14 that is now firmly established in today’s concert repertoire. When in 1838 the composer indicated that he had “in mind a violin concerto […] in E minor […],” it was not only his friend Ferdinand David, the Gewandhaus concertmaster for whom it was intended, who was euphoric. The “whole civilized violin world” was awaiting this concerto – and yet it was another seven years before the much-anticipated composition was ultimately published by the Leipzig publishing house Breitkopf Härtel in June 1845. The first edition documents the composer’s valid final revision, which is reproduced as the work’s main version in the present Urtext edition. The matching piano reduction includes not only an unmarked string part, but also a part with the established markings by Igor Oistrach.