Violin Concerto in A minor, op. 53

Dvořák began the concerto in the summer of 1879 while staying with his friend Alois Göbl at Sychrov, at the suggestion of his publisher Simrock. He had little experience of the concerto form but knew strings from the inside, having played viola in the orchestra of the Czech Provisional Theatre and written ten quartets. The premiere was meant for Joseph Joachim, whom he had met in Berlin that April; Joachim kept the score for two years, asked for revisions and never performed it. František Ondříček introduced it in Prague in 1883.