The concerto opens with a highly characteristic first theme, in its orchestral exposition, moving forward to themes identified with the Windflower. The soloist enters, introducing a second exposition, a reworking of the first material, developed in the central section of the movement, which relies at first on the first subject, before turning to the Windflower second subject, now played maestoso. The first subject opening figure is played in descending sequence by the soloist in introducing the recapitulation of this sonata-form movement.

The slow movement, the part of the concerto that Elgar wrote first, moves from the key of B minor to B flat major. Here the solo violin adds its own element to the ingenuous first theme announced by the orchestra, which also proposes the modal second theme, shifting in key to a mysterious D flat major in music of wonderful lyricism.

The final Allegro opens with an introduction of ominous excitement, leading, after ornamental brilliance from the soloist, to the announcement of the first theme, echoed and developed by the soloist. The gently romantic second subject, marked cantabile e vibrato, is introduced by the soloist and this thematic material, and that of the introduction to the movement, re-appear, as the music is developed, leading to an initially accompanied cadenza, into which the orchestra softly intrudes in conclusion. The final section of the movement echoes the introduction, culminating in a version of the principal theme, in violin triple stopping and marked nobilmente, a favourite direction in Elgar's music, bringing to an affirmative end a major addition to the violin repertoire, a concerto that goes far beyond any merely insular tradition.

Yehudi Menuhin and Elgar's Violin Concerto

Yehudi Menuhin made his first recordings at the age of twelve, in 1928. Born in New York in 1916, the son of Russian-Jewish parents who had first met in Palestine and then, finally, in New York, he was brought up in San Francisco, where he had his first violin lessons at the age of four, later to work with Louis Persinger, a pupil of Hans Becker at Leipzig Conservatory, of Ysaye in Brussels and of Jacques Thibaud. Persinger was also a competent pianist and accompanied Menuhin on the boy's first concert tours in America. In 1927 Menuhin had been able to study with Enesco in Paris, where he had made his debut, and in November of the same year played the Beethoven concerto in New York under Fritz Busch. The recordings of 1928 were made during an extended concert-tour in America, starting with a ten-inch disc of the Fiocco Allegro and Franz Ries's La Capricciosa, as he later recalled, and a twelve-inch of Sierra Morena by the nineteenth-century Spanish violinist Jesus Monasterio and an arrangement of La Romanesca. Further recordings followed and by now Menuhin was fully launched on his professional career, performing the major concertos of the repertoire including the concertos of Brahms and of Tchaikovsky.

1929 brought a second journey to Europe, starting with a concert in Berlin under Bruno Walter at which Menuhin played concertos by Bach, Beethoven and Brahms with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. Further concerts were followed by a period of relative respite in Basle, where he was able to study with Adolf Busch, followed by removal to Paris for further study with Enesco. The years that followed brought a routine of concert tours in Europe and in America, with breaks for relaxation and further study.

It was in 1931 that Menuhin recorded Max Bruch's concerto with the London Symphony Orchestra under Sir Landon Ronald. The concerto, written in 1866 and revised with the help of the violinist Joseph Joachim, had by this time become a popular part of international repertoire and Menuhin was to make a number of later recordings of the work. Sir Landon Ronald was one of the leading conductors of the time, a champion of Elgar, who dedicated his symphonic poem Falstaff to him, and a friend of the violinist Fritz Kreisler, who had given the first performance of Elgar's violin concerto in 1910 and to whom the work was dedicated.

Elgar had enjoyed a long association with The Gramophone Company (His Master's Voice), which had recorded the cello concerto with Beatrice Harrison as soloist in 1919, the year of its completion. It was now hoped that the violin concerto could be recorded with Fritz Kreisler. In the event, however, it was the young Yehudi Menuhin, in 1932, who recorded the work. He has left an account of his meeting with Elgar, when he hoped to play the whole concerto over to him. Menuhin recounts his eager anticipation of the meeting and his surprise, after his experience of other composers, to encounter a grandfatherly country gentleman. With his accompanist Ivor Newton he started to play the work through to Elgar, beginning at the soloist's entry, only to be interrupted by Elgar before the second subject was reached, asking them to excuse him, assuring them that all would be fine at the recording session, as he left for the races. Perhaps Menuhin's memory has exaggerated the event. Ivor Newton, at least, remembered that Menuhin discussed the concerto with Elgar at some length and apparently on equal terms.

Menuhin remarked on Elgar's lack of self-importance at the recording sessions on 14th and 15th July and the unobtrusiveness with which he exerted his authority, working together with the London Symphony Orchestra in a general atmosphere of ease and equanimity. Elgar, of course, had his own early orchestral experiences behind him and was well known among players of the time for his sympathetic writing for instruments. On 20th November Menuhin gave a public performance of the work at the Albert Hall, with Elgar again conducting, after a first half in which Sir Thomas Beecham had conducted Menuhin in performances of concertos by Bach and Mozart. It was planned that Elgar's concerto should be played the following May in Paris, although Elgar showed his diffidence in fearing that Yehudi would seem to be making a mistake in appearing with a musician of inferior calibre such as himself. On 28th May, for the first time in his life, Elgar travelled by air to Paris, where he rehearsed the concerto the following morning, leaving time for him to visit Delius, by then blind and paralysed, at Grez-sur-Loing. Enesco had earlier rehearsed the orchestra and Elgar conducted the performance, to a cool but polite reception from an audience that included the French President. As Menuhin later remarked, the concerto has found more appreciative audiences in the United States, in England and in countries of the former British Empire. Honoured by the French President, Elgar flew back to receive, at the beginning of June, the award of the KCVO. It was in the autumn of 1933 that he was found to be suffering from cancer. He died in February the following year.