I. Allegro ma non troppo
II. Larghetto
III. Rondo. Allegro

Beethoven set down to write the Violin Concerto in 1806, having just completed his Fourth piano concerto (in G major). Its premiered was arranged for December 23rd, which considering Beethoven's painstaking working methods, was uncomfortably close. We know from a contemporary description that the violinist chosen to premiere it, Franz Clement, leader of the Theater an der Wien Orchestra, was compelled to sight read a solo part on which the ink had barely dried. In spite of this, the concerto was a huge success – although its reception could not compete with that accorded to the soloist when, as light relief between the first and second movements of the Beethoven, he elected to treat the audience to a sonata of his own invention, played on a violin held upside down, and using a single string! (The critics however, took both the audience and performer to task for this performance and its enthusiastic reception!) The initial success of the violin concerto did not lead to it attaining repertory status though, and it had to wait until the 1840's and the young Jószef Joachim's advocacy, before finally established itself.
 The idea for rewriting the violin concerto for piano naturally derived from a keyboard virtuoso: Muzio Clementi. The two versions of the work were published about the same time in 1808 – the original dedicated to Stephan von Breuning and the piano version to Breuning's wife. When writing the transcription, Beethoven was extremely faithful to the violin score – perhaps recklessly so, because the concerto can justifiably be accused of being unpianistic. These days, the transcription suffers, because the violin concerto is so firmly embedded in our ears, that we tend only to sense what is missing from the usual experience. Naturally, no keyboard technique is capable of approaching the idiomatic sonority that Beethoven coaxes from the violin. This concerto does possess one feature of musical note – in the violin concerto, Beethoven entrusted the cadenzas to the improvisational skills of Clement (and his successors). Perhaps the memory of the inverted fiddle prompted the composer to uncompromisingly write out the cadenza during the equivalent sections of the piano version.