Violin Concerto (Strauss) in the context of "Violin concerto"

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⭐ Core Definition: Violin Concerto (Strauss)

The Violin Concerto in D minor, Op. 8, is a concertante work written from 1881 to 1882 by the German composer Richard Strauss.

This violin concerto was written during the composer's teenage years while he was still attending his last two years of school, and is less distinctive than many of his later orchestral works. Despite this it contains some bold and inventive solo writing as well as occasional passages that hint at the composer's mature harmonic style. Though written in the romantic tradition of its time, it hints at the young composer's reverence of masters of the preceding classical period, especially Mozart and Beethoven. In 1880 he had first begun to turn to large scale compositions during a tempestuous compositional interval after having decided to devote his life to composition, including a symphony in D minor (TrV 94), which was well received. The following year he began to sketch the Violin Concerto in D minor, among several other compositions. Although it is today rarely performed, it received encouraging reviews, including the following by Karl Klindworth from May 1882, before its premiere:

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Violin Concerto (Strauss) in the context of Richard Strauss

Richard Georg Strauss (/strs/; German: [ˈʁɪçaʁt ˈʃtʁaʊs] ; 11 June 1864 – 8 September 1949) was a German composer and conductor known for his tone poems and operas. A leading figure of the late Romantic and early Modern era, and a successor to Richard Wagner and Franz Liszt, he combined, along with his friend Gustav Mahler, subtleties of orchestration with an advanced harmonic style.

His compositional output began in 1870 when he was just six years old and lasted until his death nearly eighty years later. His first tone poem to achieve wide acclaim was Don Juan, and this was followed by other lauded works of this kind, including Death and Transfiguration, Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks, Also sprach Zarathustra, Don Quixote, Ein Heldenleben, Symphonia Domestica, and An Alpine Symphony. His first opera to achieve international fame was Salome, which used a libretto by Hedwig Lachmann that was a German translation of the French play Salomé by Oscar Wilde. This was followed by several critically acclaimed operas with librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal: Elektra, Der Rosenkavalier, Ariadne auf Naxos, Die Frau ohne Schatten, Die ägyptische Helena, and Arabella. His last operas, Daphne, Friedenstag, Die Liebe der Danae and Capriccio used libretti written by Joseph Gregor, the Viennese theatre historian. Other well-known works by Strauss include two symphonies, lieder (especially the Four Last Songs), the Violin Concerto in D minor, the Horn Concerto No. 1, Horn Concerto No. 2, his Oboe Concerto and other instrumental works such as Metamorphosen.

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