Classical Violin Repertoire: the listening guide to classical violin music
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There are many, pieces written for the violin, so if you have a new interest for the classical violin world it can be a bit overwhelming to know where to start.
The guide will help give you some background to help demystify classical violin, and help you better understand the music you like to listen to.
I don’t intend to cover all of the most important pieces of the violin repertoire, but rather will try to give you some context on the types of works that exist as well as a few examples and starting points for your listening.
These categories are not cut-and-dry, and are my opinion — art can’t be categorized. My musical choices are also completely personal, and I think every violinist could choose completely different examples. That said, I think having some structure in place will make some of this music a lot easier to understand, and will help you discover new music as well.
Some classical music terminology
Repertoire
Repertoire comes from the French “repertoire,” sometimes lovingly referred to as “rep,” and is just a fancy word we use to talk about the music and songs that classical musicians play.
Piece
In the classical world, we call a song a piece, and only use the word song to refer to a piece written for voice.
Movement
Sometimes a piece is really big, and is divided into smaller pieces that we call movements. Sometimes, movements can be played alone as it’s own work, and sometimes they’re only performed within the context of the overall piece.
The classical violin repertoire
We can divide up the classical repertoire into several categories:
Unaccompanied violin: anything that is for solo instrument
Solo works
The caprice
Violin and accompaniment: this can be for violin, piano, etc.
Accompanied sonata
Concerto
Show piece
Unaccompanied violin
Let’s start for music for solo violin.
Westhoff Violin Sonata no. 3
The earliest known solo work was written in 1682 by Johan Paul von Westhoff. However, people have played solo violin in other styles long before that, probably as long as the instrument has been around.
Although violin is mostly considered a melodic instrument, meaning that it is often given the melody or singing line in compositions, it is also possible to play violin as a harmonic instrument as well.
This means that we can play more than 1 note at a time, which allows us to essentially accompany ourselves. Many, although not all, solo repertoire uses this concept to make the music more complex and interesting.
If we play 2 notes at once, that’s called a double-stop, and 3 to 4 notes at a time is called a chord, just like piano or guitar. Both of these techniques are difficult, and that makes many solo violin repertoire intimidating and technical to violinists.
Recommended listening: Solo Bach
The biggest and most famous works for solo violin are the 6 solo sonatas and Partitas by JS Bach.
These works of art both beautiful and difficult, and takes a violinist a lifetime to master. Solo Bach, as we like to call it, are almost always required to be played in conservatory auditions, and all classical violinists can play some movements.
Bach wrote an equivalent masterpiece for solo cello, the 6 suites. The first movement of the first suite is the most famous, and you’ve heard it played by Yo-Yo Ma or in the form of a jingle.
Recommended listening: Ysaye 3
Less famous outside of the violin world are the Ysaye Solo Sonatas, which are completely different than the Bach but use many of the same techniques, like double stops, chords, and other textural elements to make the violin sound like multiple instruments.
The Caprice
A sub-category of the solo violin piece is the caprice or etude, which is a study or exercise that is meant to develop a specific technique, but is also performed as a standalone piece.
Recommended listening: Paganini Caprice 24
The most famous of these performance etudes are the Paganini 24 caprices, which are each an incredibly virtuosic piece that is often performed as an encore, in a solo recital.
The most famous of his caprices is number 24, which you’ve heard before, either performed, on TV, or even as a ring tone.
These caprices are often used in auditions as well— most graduate schools require potential applicants to perform one of these to demonstrate their technique.
Accompanied Violin
The other category of violin music is violin with accompaniment, which can then be broken up into further sub-categories.
Let’s look at 3 categories: the concerto, the solo accompanied, sonata, and show piece.
The Violin Concerto
We’ll start with the biggest of these works, the concerto.
A violin concerto is a piece written for solo violin, and accompanied by orchestra.
The Tchaikovsky violin concerto- 41 minutes of endurance
These works can be absolutely huge, lasting up to 45 minutes or even longer, and are often extremely difficult. The violinists needs to be able to project over 50, 80, maybe even 100 other musicians playing with them, and be heard clearly.
Learning concertos are often the most exciting part of learning rep as a violinist, but we unfortunately don’t all have orchestras at our disposal.
So, most concertos have an arrangement of the orchestral part written for piano, which is called a piano reduction. This allows violinists to play, rehearse, and perform the piece much more often.
Playing with orchestra is a rare and wonderful opportunity for most violinists, and is usually reserved for the top-of-the-top concert performers, competition winners, and overall superstars. So, if you see a concert with a violinist performing a concerto, you know they must be an excellent violinist.
Concerto Structure
Another feature of most concerti is that they are written in 3 movements, usually fast-slow-fast.
The violin cadenza…the original guitar solo
Near the end of the first movement, the the orchestra goes silent and the performer will play the cadenza, which is usually the most virtuosic and technically demanding part of the piece.
You can consider this the equivalent of the guitar solo in a rock song. Historically, cadenzas were actually improvised, but now most violinists play written cadenzas.
Some cadenzas are standard, and published in editions of the sheet music, but some violinists will opt to commission a new cadenza or even write their own.
Recommended Listening: Vivaldi Four Seasons
Concertos have been around since the baroque times, and the most famous of these baroque concertos are the Vivaldi Four Seasons.
You have very likely heard most of these pieces, but if you haven’t already I would highly recommend checking out a period performance played on baroque instruments.
This will give you a better idea of the style in which this music was played back in the day, usually with smaller orchestras and no conductors.
Recommended listening: Tchaikovsky, Mendelssohn, and Sibelius
The biggest concerti, and the ones violinists are usually the most eager to learn however, are of the romantic era.
The romantic concerto often push the technical boundaries of their time, and a first movement is often a requirement in conservatory auditions.
I’ve tried to narrow down my top 3 picks to best illustrate the variation in style of this era to Mendelssohn, Sibelius, and Tchaikovsky, although there are so many equally important works in the repertoire. The Tchaikovsky is a massive undertaking, lasting almost 40 minutes of non-stop very difficult technical endeavors.
Sonatas
Another type of accompanied work is the violin sonata, which is essentially a duet between violin and another instrument, usually piano.
Sonatas are usually in 4 movements and follow a musical structure called sonata form. The details of sonata form are beyond the scope of this blog post, but you can consider it a musical blueprint that each movement follows. Traditionally, sonatas are in 4 movements, but can have more or less as well.
A sonata is considered a form of chamber music, which was historically played in a chamber, or more intimate setting, and now are more commonly performed in recitals rather than orchestral concerts.
One of the most famous violin sonatas is Beethoven’s 5th, the spring sonata. Beethoven wrote 9 sonatas, and they are very important work in the repertoire. Another is big composer for violin sonatas is Brahms, who only wrote 3.
I think, and this is just my opinion, that most violinists love to play sonatas over all the other types of works. Playing a solo piece can be stressful since there’s nowhere to hide, and a concerto is often so virtuosic and difficult.
The sonata is not flashy, but it’s where we find the most beautiful works written for violin, and is where the instrument can shine the most.
Don’t get me wrong— many sonatas are just as difficult to get right as a concerto, and can even require a higher level of musical expression. But they are very interactive with the piano and that’s what makes them so fun to play.
Solo accompanied
The accompanied counterpart of the solo piece, which is the solo accompanied piece. This music is often a stand-alone piece of music, not necessarily divided into movements, but can be.
This category is more versatile, and can include basically anything that doesn’t fit into the structure of a concerto, sonata, or any other category mentioned above.
They are also often on the shorter side, and the accompaniment is very often piano, but can also be another instrument, such as classical guitar, or with a full orchestra.
Along with the sonata, this music is often included in a concert violinist’s solo recital.
When I think of this type of work, I usually think of a slow and lyrical piece, such as the Meditation from Thais, or the Mélodie by Tchaikovsky, but in reality this is probably the most flexible and exciting type of work written for violin.
One album that perfectly encapsulates the diversity of the solo violin with accompaniment piece is 27 Pieces: The Hilary Hahn Encore Album.
Ms. Hahn commissioned all of these pieces by living composers, and by performing them in this album, she has now introduced them into the violin repertoire.
Show pieces
A show piece is a virtuosic work meant to impress a listener— pretty much a piece to flex your violin skills. That said, there are some really beautiful show pieces that I find very musically interesting and fun to listen to.
The show piece is often written for either violin and orchestra, or violin and piano. Like the concerto, the orchestra parts also have piano reductions so that violinists can play and perform the piece without having to hire 100 musicians to accompany them.
The way you can tell the difference between a showpiece with orchestra and a concerto is that a concerto will be divided into movements, whereas the showpiece is stand alone.
Also, composers of show pieces were often violinists themselves, and knew the ins and outs of the instrument so well that they can truly write for the instrument.
The Paganini caprices that I mentioned earlier could be considered a show piece, but since Paganini named it a caprice, I included it as a performance etude.
Paganini wrote many other show pieces, though, and all of them are impossibly difficult. Paganini was a violinist himself, and was one of the most virtuoso players of his time. He was very tall and had very large hands, which allowed him to reach very large interval and chords on the violin, of which he includes many in his music.
Some other very important composers in the show piece category are Fritz Kreisler, with pieces like Praeludio and Allegro.
Another is Wienawski, with the Scherzo Tarantelle and his Polonaises. All 3 of these composers were highly acclaimed violinists in their day, as well as teachers.
My personal favorite composer-violinist, though was Spanish composer Pablo de Sarasate, who wrote a ton of show pieces. If you were to choose one, I would start with the Zigeunerweisen.
The repertoire in summary
Next time you listen to some violin music, see if you can figure out what type of work you’re listening to.
You can ask yourself what, if any, accompaniment there is, and listen to see if the piece is divided into different movements.
I hope this will make the listening a bit more fun for anyone just getting into classical music.