Vieuxtemps’s Violin Concerto No. 5 in A minor, Op. 37

Composer

Vieuxtemps

Work

Violin Concerto No. 5 in A minor, Op. 37

Key

A minor

Composed

1861

Movements

3 movements (played without pause)
I. Allegro non troppo (A minor)
II. Adagio (F major)
III. Allegro con fuoco — Poco meno mosso (A minor)

Instrumentation

oboe 2, clarinet 2, horn 2, trumpet 2, timpani, solo violin, strings (5 parts), bassoon 2

Premiere

1861, Brussels

There’s a piece that students at the Brussels Conservatory dread for their graduation exams. And ironically, it was commissioned specifically to be a “competition test piece.” That piece is Vieuxtemps’s Violin Concerto No. 5. In 1858, Vieuxtemps’s friend and fellow violin professor, Hubert Léonard, made a request: write a concerto for the Brussels Conservatory’s entrance exam. The work born from this request was the Violin Concerto No. 5.

But here’s the irony. The concerto designed as an exam piece is now considered one of the most brutally difficult works in the violin repertoire. The E minor martelé section just before the cadenza, the relentless trills, the punishing chordal arpeggios… Even seasoned virtuosos admit their shoulders tense up when facing this piece. If this was the level of difficulty the exam proctor intended, Léonard must have been a rather cruel man.

And yet, the concerto survived. More than survived—it thrived. It’s a staple at international violin competitions, a constant in record catalogs, and a go-to for young artists making their debut. Why?

Why a Nearly Forgotten Concerto Survived

Believe it or not, Vieuxtemps’s Fifth was once on the brink of disappearing. From the late 19th to the early 20th century, it was quietly pushed out of the standard repertoire. The Romantic era was flooded with violin concertos, and works by Tchaikovsky, Brahms, and Mendelssohn dominated the stage, causing Vieuxtemps’s name to fade.

Leopold Auer, the legendary St. Petersburg violin professor who taught Jascha Heifetz and Mischa Elman, documented the situation perfectly. In 1925, Auer wrote that the concerto had been “practically forgotten,” but he insisted that if played as the composer intended, it “will not fail to impress the majority of its auditors.” It’s a poignant image: a man who knows the piece is forgotten is pleading for it not to be.

Fortunately, a few performers brought it back from the dead. Jascha Heifetz was the primary champion. When Heifetz recorded the concerto and added it to his concert programs, Vieuxtemps’s Fifth was given a new lease on life. Audiences who heard Heifetz’s performance were stunned, asking, “This is that forgotten Vieuxtemps piece?” Soon after, violin professors began teaching it again. The reason this concerto holds a firm place on competition and recital stages today is, in many ways, thanks to Heifetz.

After Heifetz, a new generation of violinists continued the legacy: Henryk Szeryng, Nathan Milstein, Maxim Vengerov… There’s a reason violinists across generations choose this concerto. It allows them to showcase the full potential of the violin in under 20 minutes. For the performer, it’s a chance to prove their mettle. For the audience, it’s an opportunity to experience top-tier virtuosity in a concentrated dose.

Who Was Vieuxtemps? The Boy Approved by Paganini

Born in Verviers, Belgium, in 1820, Henri Vieuxtemps was a born violinist. He made his stage debut at six and was touring Germany by thirteen, earning praise from Louis Spohr and Robert Schumann. Schumann even compared the boy to Paganini—you can imagine how astonished the adults of the time were.

Paganini himself heard Vieuxtemps play at his London debut in 1834. Paganini was nearly sixty; Vieuxtemps was fourteen. No record exists of the expression on the face of the “devil’s violinist” as he listened to the teenager, but the meeting itself was a symbolic moment, marking a passing of the torch.

Vieuxtemps’s teacher was Charles de Bériot in Brussels. De Bériot was one of Europe’s most famous violinists and took the young Vieuxtemps to Paris in 1829. Vieuxtemps had a successful debut, but the July Revolution of 1830 plunged Paris into chaos, forcing him to return to Brussels. His teacher left on tour with his lover, the singer Maria Malibran, essentially leaving the ten-year-old on his own.

However, the most crucial period of Vieuxtemps’s career was spent in Russia. From 1846 to 1851, he served as court musician to Tsar Nicholas I in St. Petersburg. During this time, he established the violin pedagogy at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, laying the groundwork for what would become the “Russian violin school.” Vieuxtemps stands at the very beginning of the lineage that leads through Auer to Heifetz.

After returning from Russia, Vieuxtemps continued to tour Europe and even visited the United States with the pianist Sigismond Thalberg. He was received with the highest honors in nearly every city he visited. Hector Berlioz, after hearing him, described his work as a “magnificent symphony for violin and orchestra.” To call a concerto a symphony was to recognize that Vieuxtemps’s music transcended mere soloistic display.

Tragically, Vieuxtemps’s later years were marked by disaster. In 1871, he returned to Belgium as a professor at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, but just two years later, a stroke paralyzed his right arm. A violinist who could no longer hold a bow—he had lost the very core of his being. He spent his final years composing in a sanatorium in Algeria, unable to perform and cut off from the European music scene. His position at the conservatory was passed on to his students, Eugène Ysaÿe and Henryk Wieniawski. He died in Algeria in 1881 at the age of sixty-one.

The Concerto No. 5 dates from before this tragic decline, from the peak of Vieuxtemps’s powers. Composed between 1858 and 1859, when he was around 39, it captures his technique and musicality at their absolute zenith.

Movement by Movement: Three Movements, No Breaks

One of the most unusual features of this concerto is that its three movements are played without a pause. It’s the kind of structure that can catch you off guard if you try to applaud between movements. The total performance time is about 18 to 20 minutes—short for a concerto. But Vieuxtemps packs an incredible amount into that short span.

The connected movements are a deliberate choice. Just as Beethoven surprised audiences by seamlessly linking movements in his Piano Concerto No. 4, Vieuxtemps opted for a structure where the three movements form a single, continuous flow. The lack of breaks demands constant focus from the audience and careful energy management from the performer.

Mvt. 1: Introduction and Challenge—A Test from the Very Start

The orchestra opens by presenting the main theme, a stately introduction in A minor. The moment the solo violin enters, the atmosphere shifts completely. It feels as though the violin is taking a sharp leap from the foundation the orchestra has laid. This entrance alone is striking.

In Romantic concertos, the soloist’s entrance always had to be dramatic. The audience needed to feel that “the hero has arrived.” Vieuxtemps’s opening meets that standard. The orchestra sets the mood, and the soloist transcends it, declaring from the outset that the violin is not just part of the orchestra but its conversational partner.

The section that performers dread most in the first movement comes just before the cadenza: the martelé section in E minor. Martelé is a bowing technique where the bow is pressed firmly into the string and then released quickly, creating a sharp, hammered sound. Each note must be distinct yet connected. To put it simply, it’s like typing with perfect precision without breaking the flow. There’s a reason this section is frequently cited in violin forums as “the most troublesome part of Vieuxtemps 5.”

The cadenza is where the soloist’s personality shines. The orchestra falls silent, and for this brief moment, all of the performer’s technique and musicality are laid bare. The cadenza of Vieuxtemps’s Fifth demands both technical prowess and expressive depth, with its chords, leaps, and rapid passages serving as a true measure of the artist’s skill.

After the cadenza, the movement drives into the coda, where the first real climax erupts. It’s a moment of explosive energy from the soloist, and the point where the audience first realizes this is not just a pretty piece.

Mvt. 2: The Moment a Concerto Becomes a Song

The music shifts to F major. The tension releases. But this isn’t just any slow movement. Vieuxtemps makes a surprising choice here: he borrows a melody from the opera Lucile by the 18th-century French composer André Grétry. The song is titled “Où peut-on être mieux qu’au sein de sa famille?” (“Where can one be better than in the bosom of one’s family?”).

This quotation is more than just a simple borrowing. Vieuxtemps had a reason for choosing this melody. Grétry was a Belgian composer. So was Vieuxtemps. This is an homage to a compatriot, a musical nod filled with longing for family and home. For a man who spent five years in Russia and lived a nomadic life across Europe, the lyrics “in the bosom of one’s family” were likely more than just words. This is why the concerto is sometimes nicknamed ‘Le Grétry’.

In the second movement, the solo violin’s song is gently supported by the orchestra. Vieuxtemps lets the melody itself do the talking, free of excessive virtuosity. It’s the movement that proves he was not just a technician, but a musician who knew how to sing.

There’s another reason this movement is special. Even in its slow tempo, the violin never rests. The soloist must sustain the melody while creating subtle changes in tone and dynamics. It’s not technically difficult in the flashy sense, but it’s musically demanding. You could call it a “deceptively difficult” movement. This is why some violinists fear the second movement even more than the first and third.

Grétry’s opera Lucile is not well-known today, but in Vieuxtemps’s time, it was quite famous, and French and Belgian audiences would have recognized the melody instantly. Vieuxtemps’s inclusion of it was not just a technical choice but an emotional message—a diary entry written in music about home, family, and a sense of belonging.

Mvt. 3: Technique and Energy—The Final Explosion

We return to A minor. The marking is Allegro con fuoco—”fast, with passion.” The movement lives up to that marking entirely. The third movement is an all-out energy burn from start to finish. Staccato, trills, complex arpeggios… The technical challenges of the first movement reappear, but in a more compressed form.

Staccato involves playing notes short and detached. In the third movement of Vieuxtemps 5, there are continuous staccato passages that require simultaneous control over bow speed and pressure. Maintaining consistent volume and tone at high speed is a major technical hurdle.

There is a brief Poco meno mosso (“a little less motion”) section, a moment to catch one’s breath before the final sprint. Then the tempo picks back up, racing toward the conclusion.

The highlight of the third movement is the final coda. Chords and high-speed passages overlap as the soloist soars completely over the orchestra. For a performer who has already been playing for nearly 20 minutes, this coda is the final sprint. In a great performance, the audience feels just as breathless.

By the end of the third movement, the soloist should be exhausted. If they’ve played it right, that is. This is why the concerto is often described as a 20-minute, all-out sprint.

Listening Guide for First-Timers

If you’re new to Vieuxtemps’s Concerto No. 5, here are a few things to listen for.

The three movements are connected. There are brief pauses, but the music never stops. It’s a piece that maintains its tension for the full 20 minutes. You might miss the right moment to clap, so it’s best to just let it flow until the very end.

Remember the melody in the second movement. When the key shifts to F major and a lyrical theme emerges, that’s the quote from Grétry’s opera. Knowing it’s a nod to the composer’s Belgian roots adds another layer of meaning.

Pay attention to the cadenza. In the latter half of the first movement, the soloist plays entirely alone. When the orchestra goes silent, the violinist’s skill is on full display. Every performer interprets the cadenza differently.

The last two minutes of the third movement are the climax. The tempo accelerates, and everything converges. It’s the moment all the energy built up over 20 minutes is finally unleashed.

Try a comparative listening. Put a recording by Heifetz next to one by a modern young artist. It’s the same piece, but they reveal completely different faces. Heifetz is lean and sharp; contemporary players are often more emotive.

Why Is It Still Performed? A Compendium of Violin Technique

The reason Vieuxtemps’s Concerto No. 5 has survived is simple: it showcases the technical possibilities of the violin all in one place.

Staccato, trills, arpeggios, double stops (playing two strings at once), martelé—all the key techniques taught in violin pedagogy are packed into this one piece. That’s why it’s so important educationally and so popular at competitions. It tests a performer’s entire technical foundation in a single go.

At the same time, this concerto is more than just a technical showcase. A performer must know how to sing, as in the second movement, and how to control and unleash energy, as in the third. Fast fingers aren’t enough. The piece only comes alive when played by someone who understands the music.

Among violin students, there are two schools of thought on this concerto: “Don’t touch it until your technique is perfected,” and “You must go through it to perfect your technique.” Either way, everyone agrees on its immense technical demands. And honestly, both views are correct. This piece is meaningful both for those who are ready and for those in the process of getting ready.

From the audience’s perspective, the concerto’s seamless single-movement flow and lyrical melodies make it one of the most frequently programmed Romantic violin concertos. In just 20 minutes, it delivers both slow lyricism and fast-paced virtuosity. There’s never a dull moment. This is another reason it’s a frequent choice for concert programs.

There was a time when this work was dismissed as just another “virtuosic Romantic concerto,” lacking the “philosophical depth” of Brahms or Tchaikovsky. But over time, that assessment has changed. This concerto proves that technique and musicality are not separate. The Grétry quotation, the organic connection between movements, the delicate musicality of the Adagio—these elements reveal something more than mere showmanship.

The orchestration is also noteworthy. While many large-scale Romantic concertos boast massive forces, Vieuxtemps’s Fifth uses a relatively small orchestra: oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns, trumpets, timpani, and strings. There are no trombones or tuba. This smaller ensemble allows the solo violin to stand out more clearly, ensuring the orchestra supports rather than overwhelms the soloist.

Its popularity in competitions has another practical reason: its length. At around 20 minutes, it fits neatly into a competition program. It allows a performer to demonstrate both technique and musicality without the stamina required for a 35-minute behemoth like the Tchaikovsky or Brahms concertos. This changes the energy strategy. In a longer work, a soloist must conserve energy at the beginning. With Vieuxtemps No. 5, they can go all out from the start. It’s over in 20 minutes, after all.

It’s also interesting how perceptions of the concerto have changed over generations. Until the mid-20th century, it was strongly considered “Heifetz’s piece.” His interpretation was so authoritative that other violinists hesitated to touch it. But since the 1980s, a new generation of violinists has approached it with fresh perspectives, opening up a wider range of interpretive possibilities. It’s no longer “Heifetz’s piece,” but a challenge embraced by all violinists.

Unique Musical Features: The Essence of the Romantic Concerto

Several features distinguish Vieuxtemps’s Concerto No. 5 from other Romantic concertos.

First, its quasi-single-movement structure. The way the three movements flow into one another without a break was experimental for its time. While Schumann’s Piano Concerto (1845) used a similar approach, Vieuxtemps’s Fifth connects the movements even more seamlessly, like a single narrative unfolding across three chapters.

Second, the balance between soloist and orchestra. Some Romantic concertos have the soloist completely overpowering the orchestra, while in others, the orchestra buries the soloist. Vieuxtemps No. 5 finds a delicate equilibrium. The soloist shines brilliantly, but the orchestra functions as a conversational partner, not just a simple accompaniment.

Third, the integration of virtuosity and lyricism. Many 19th-century violin concertos were nothing more than technical displays. Vieuxtemps’s Fifth was different. It has dazzling technique, but it intersperses it with moments of pure song, like the second movement. The virtuosity and lyricism enhance each other. The fast movements make the slow movement more poignant, and the slow movement gives the fast movements’ energy more meaning.

Fourth, the use of the Grétry quotation. It’s rare for a composer to insert another’s melody wholesale into the slow movement of a concerto. Vieuxtemps used this quotation not just as an homage but as an expression of his own identity, weaving the musical tradition of his homeland into his own work.

Comparative Listening: Three Key Performers

Jascha Heifetz / London Symphony Orchestra, Malcolm Sargent (1935, HMV)

Heifetz comes first. He was the one who brought this concerto back to the world, after all. The 1935 recording quality is dated, but the precision and speed of his playing are astonishing even today. Heifetz’s characteristically lean, precise style is a perfect match for this work. It feels like he cuts straight to the core, with no frills. This recording long stood as the definitive interpretation.

Maxim Vengerov / Various Live Versions

Vengerov has performed this concerto many times. His interpretation is more expressive and emotional than Heifetz’s. The difference is especially clear in the second movement. It’s the same Grétry melody, but in Vengerov’s hands, it feels like it takes a longer, deeper breath. His performance stands somewhere between a virtuoso and a singer. If you find the Heifetz recording too dry, give Vengerov a try.

Massimo Quarta / Orchestra Haydn di Bolzano e Trento (2016, Dynamic)

This is a recording by the Italian violinist Massimo Quarta. The album features both Vieuxtemps’s Concerto No. 4 and No. 5, allowing for a great comparison between the two. Quarta’s playing is technically polished and musically fluid. The album received positive reviews from classical music outlets like MusicWeb International.

Listen with the Score

For those who enjoy following along with the score, here is a full performance synchronized with the sheet music. You can observe how Vieuxtemps translates complex technical demands into notation and how the soloist navigates these challenges in real time.

The original score is available for free on IMSLP.

View the score for Vieuxtemps’s Violin Concerto No. 5 on IMSLP

Frequently Asked Questions

Further Reading

• The Complete Guide to Violin Concertos
• Dvořák’s Violin Concerto in A minor, Op. 53
• Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in C major, Op. 15
• Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 25 in C major, K. 503
• Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in G major, Op. 44