Publisher's Synopsis
Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy's violin concerto op. 64 had - like many of his other works - a lengthy genesis: it is in the summer of 1838 that surviving documents first mention the promise made to his friend Ferdinand David, concert master of the Leipzig Gewandhaus, to write, besides a sonata, a grand solo concerto for him. Ultimately, work on this opus continued - with some longer interruptions - until September 1844. Even then, it owed its preliminary completion in no small measure to the constant urging of the prospective solo violinist. But after the „official" handing-over of the parts to David and a first joint rehearsal of the concert in Leipzig Mendelssohn continued working on the score. There subsequently began an intensive correspondence with David between Leipzig and Frankfurt am Main, where Mendelssohn resided with his family, in particular concerning issues of the principal part and the reworking of the solo cadence. In March 1845 the then current version of the work was premiered in a subscribers' concert in Leipzig.This volume deals with Mendelssohn's first complete manuscript of the score with the corrections contained therein, including all surviving drafts and sketches; also included is the epistolary evidence of the correspondence with Ferdinand David prior to the premiere. The further developments up to the printing of the main version of op. 64 by Breitkopf & Härtel are dealt with in Series II, Vol. 7 of the edition.
