Experiencing the Violin Concerto: A Listener's Companion

Since the eighteenth century, violin concertos have provided a showcase for dramatic interplay between a soloist’s virtuosity and the blended sonority of an orchestra’s many instruments. Using this genre to showcase skill and ingenuity, composers cemented the violin concerto as a key genre of classical music and gifted our ears with such timeless masterpieces as Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.

In Experiencing the Violin Concerto, Franco Sciannameo draws on his years of scholarship and violin perform...