Violin Concerto no. 2 in D minor, op. 44

Bruch wrote the Second Concerto in 1877 for Pablo de Sarasate, who played the premiere in London that November with the composer conducting. Its shape is unorthodox: it opens with a slow movement of considerable weight, and the conventional first-movement drama is deferred. Bruch defended the plan against publishers who wanted something more saleable, and the work never approached the popularity of the G minor concerto — a comparison that irritated him for the rest of his life, since he had sold the rights to the first concerto outright and earned almost nothing from it.