Czech composer Antonín Dvořák wrote his only Violin Concerto for, and in consultation with, renowned violinist of the day Joseph Joachim. But after literally years of personal meetings and play-throughs in progress and letters back and forth, Joachim never played the concerto publicly. Proposed reasons are many, including the violinist’s unhappiness with certain structures of the concerto and insufficient opportunities for him to shine in virtuosic ways he preferred, or even simply that by that time Joachim was too busy with his duties as director of Berlin’s Academy of Music, conductor and composer, to study and prepare to perform new works. As a virtuoso, at that point Joachim relied on old standards that had already become staples for his performing career.

The Concerto was premiered by a young highly regarded Czech violinist nearly as famous at the time, František Ondříček, who was honored to play the Czech composer’s masterpiece and performed it with frequency, raising his notoriety, Dvořák’s, and the Concerto’s internationally. With its cheerful Czech folk elements and now a staple of the violin repertoire, the Dvořák Violin Concerto in A-minor is today’s Midday Masterpiece at 2:00 pm.