Violin Concerto in D major, op. 61

Franz Clement, leader of the Theater an der Wien orchestra, gave the first performance on 23 December 1806, reportedly reading much of it at sight because Beethoven delivered the part late; between movements he is said to have played a solo of his own with the violin upside down. The concerto then dropped out of use for nearly forty years, dismissed as unviolinistic, until the twelve-year-old Joseph Joachim played it in London in 1844 with Mendelssohn conducting. The four soft timpani strokes that open it become the structural germ of the entire first movement.