Violin Concerto in D minor, op. 15

Britten finished his Violin Concerto in 1939, newly arrived in America and not yet twenty-six, a pacifist who had left a Europe sliding into war. He told his publisher, with a mixture of pride and anxiety, that it was without doubt his best work so far, perhaps too serious, though he had found some good tunes in it. The concerto was written for the Spanish violinist Antonio Brosa, who gave the premiere with the New York Philharmonic under John Barbirolli on 29 March 1940.

Three movements follow one another without any of the expected classical proportions. The first is restless and unsettlingly dynamic, driven by a timpani figure heard at the very opening; the second is a demonic scherzo; and the finale is a passacaglia, a slow lament built over a repeating bass, a form Britten would return to at moments of grief for the rest of his life. Listeners have long heard in that last movement an echo of the Spanish Civil War, whose defeat had shaken the composer and whose dedicatee was himself Spanish. The concerto is not programme music, but its shadow is unmistakable: brilliance and virtuosity are present, yet the work ends in mourning rather than triumph.