Max Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 58, was composed in 1891 and dedicated to the violinist/composer Joseph Joachim, who had persuaded him to expand a single movement concert piece into a full violin concerto.
It has never attained the same prominence as the G minor concerto.
Description
In 1891 Bruch composed his Violin Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 58, which was dedicated to his friend (and superior at the Berlin Academy of Music) the violinist/composer Joseph Joachim, who had persuaded him to expand what had started out as a single movement concert piece into a full violin concerto.[1] Joachim was the soloist at the work's premiere, in Dusseldorf in 31 May 1891.[1]
Despite being advocated by Joachim and Pablo de Sarasate, the concerto, which differed from its predecessors in its adherence to traditional classical structures, never attained the same prominence as the G minor concerto.
In recent years the concerto has been described as "...a musical unicorn: since it has almost never been played, its existence is for many the stuff only of musicological folklore."[2] Program notes for a 2013 performance of the G minor concerto by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra even denied the existence of the concerto, stating that Bruch had composed only two violin concertos, the G minor concerto and the D minor concerto composed for Sarasate.[3]