Top 10 best violin songs ever written

There’s no denying that the violin is one of the most important instruments in the history of music. And as such, almost every composer out there has turned to it at some point, in one genre or another.  

What’s more, composers tend to bring their very best when they foreground the violin. They understand its importance and exploit its stylistic and expressive versatility. String quartets, concertos, sonatas - every musician knows that these are all forms to be taken seriously. 

Reflecting the instrument’s adaptability, the ten pieces assembled below represent the very best of violin music. They span the breadth of its repertoire, from violin-only works to those for string orchestra, Baroque-era essentials to movie music. This is some of the finest work that the violin has inspired. 
 

Top 10 best violin pieces
 

1. Violin Concerto in E minor by Felix Mendelssohn
2. Atlantic Drift by Judith Weir
3. String Quartet No. 13 by Elizabeth Maconchy
4. Violin Sonata in G minor by Giuseppe Tartini
5. D’un matin de printemps by Lili Boulanger
6. Violin Concerto No. 1 by Dmitri Shostakovich
7. Theme from Schindler’s List by John Williams
8. Danzas de Panama by William Grant Still
9. Violin Concerto in E, ‘Spring’ by Antonio Vivaldi
10. La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura by Luigi Nono

1. Violin Concerto in E minor by Felix Mendelssohn

This piece made a couple of appearances in the best violinists article. That it launched the incredible careers of both Itzhak Perlman and Kyung Wha Chung is no coincidence. Go to the heart of the violin repertoire and you just might find this concerto. Conquer it, and you’ll pass one of the greatest tests out there. 

As a boy, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy was a precocious talent, writing works that came to be core repertoire before he was a teenager. Having already composed symphonies, chamber works and countless songs, he turned to the violin concerto at the age of 29, pledging to write one for his friend Ferdinand David to perform.

Mendelssohn didn’t complete it for another six years, but that time wasn’t spent in vain. He produced a work celebrated for its lyricism, structural innovations, and influence on countless later composers. Today it is among the most highly acclaimed and frequently performed violin concertos of all time.

2. Atlantic Drift by Judith Weir

With operas and large-scale vocal and orchestral works among her most notable achievements, Judith Weir is a composer renowned for making big musical statements. Even so, she’s just as comfortable in the most intimate musical setting, and few of her compositions prove that better than Atlantic Drift.

It’s composed for two violins, an unusual instrumentation, to be sure. But when you listen to this work, it’s difficult to understand why. The violins call and respond, dovetail and align in a binary dance, and the effect is magnificent. Weir manipulates just two voices to construct what seems a vast musical soundscape. 

Echoes of the folk melodies of her native Scotland sound out harmonically and texturally, tapping into another dimension of violin music. It’s one of the great contemporary works for the instrument, by one of the great composers of the modern era. You can check out more of Weir’s works in this playlist. 

3. String Quartet No. 13 by Elizabeth Maconchy

Elizabeth Maconchy’s cycle of thirteen string quartets is at the heart of her compositional output. Collectively, they make up one of the great explorations of this essential genre - a form that’s totally synonymous with violin composition. No. 13 is her closing statement, the culmination of her endeavours in string-writing.

The Irish-English composer’s instrument was piano, but through her early violin sonata she quickly displayed aptitude for violin composition. Later on, with the quartets, she exhausted the technical, timbral and textural possibilities of the instrument. In No. 13, the ‘short quartet’, she condenses all these explorations into the most compact of forms. 

Changes in time signature are rife in Maconchy’s work. This gives the listener the constant sense of being off-balance, an effect compounded by asymmetrical rhythmic interplay between the players. It’s no less challenging for the players - the piece calls for delicate high-position manoeuvres, harmonics and parallel double stopping. 

4. Violin Sonata in G minor by Giuseppe Tartini

We come to the first individual here who excelled as much as a violinist as they did as a composer: Giuseppe Tartini. One of the most noteworthy figures on the Italian Baroque scene, Tartini is revered for his output of violin concertos and sonatas, as well as his work as a music theorist.

No doubt foremost among all those works is the Sonata in G minor, the ‘Devil’s Trill’, whose composition has become the stuff of legend. Tartini claims the demon himself visited in a dream, performing a work of breathless virtuosity on the violin. On waking up, the composer attempted to recreate what he had heard, giving birth to the diabolical sonata.

Tartini claimed that the piece was a pale imitation of the music he heard in his dream, but it’s fair to say it’s monstrous enough. It’s one of the great early works in the repertoire, whose technical difficulty and musical intensity inspired composers to think ever more ambitiously about the possibilities of the sonata genre. 

5. D’un matin de printemps by Lili Boulanger

Like Mendelssohn, Lili Boulanger was a composer whose remarkable creative gifts were apparent from an early on. Discovering that she had perfect pitch at the age of two, the composer Gabriel Fauré predicted that she was destined for great things. Rightly so, as it turned out - Boulanger was one of the great talents of the early 20th century.

D’un matin de printemps was written in 1917, first as a duet for violin and piano, and later rearranged by the composer several times. Helping to redefine the chamber dynamic between the two instruments, it’s marked by a brightness and vigour that’s atypical of her work. But that’s precisely what allows the violin to coarse through so much material. 

Tragically dying at the age of just 25, Boulanger left behind a relatively small body of work. Few of her pieces are written for the violin, but her handling of the instrument in this piece - the last she composed - shows the wisdom of a seasoned composer. There aren’t many works exploiting the beautiful expressivity of the violin as this piece does.

6. Violin Concerto No. 1 by Dmitri Shostakovich

This is perhaps the 20th-century statement on the violin concerto. It’s a remarkable work by a composer who seemed to have infinite statements to make on the great forms of the classical tradition: symphonies, string quartets, and concertos. Shostakovich composed two of the third category for violin. No. 1 is a landmark work, and a real tour de force.

Shostakovich dedicated the work to the Ukrainian violinist David Oistrakh, with whom he corresponded as the work neared completion. An eternal victim of the Soviet censors who eyed his music closely, Shostakovich wrote the work at a time of extreme political suppression. And for that reason, it’s a piece of real historical significance. 

It’s a leftfield concerto in a number of ways. It comprises four parts as opposed to the standard three, and employs unconventional musical forms, and its iconic first movement - a tribute to Edward Elgar - exhibits an incredible calmness. One atypical not only of concerto openings but also of Shostakovich’s usually stormy musical style. 

7. Theme from Schindler’s List by John Williams

Notable for being one of the most searingly beautiful melodies composed for violin, the Theme from Schindler’s List only assumes full power when heard in the cinematic context it was composed for. John Williams wrote it and the rest of the film’s score, as he did for almost all of Steven Spielberg’s films. 

The film tells the story of Oskar Schindler, who helped to save over a thousand Jewish refugees from Nazi persecution. Emerging in this setting, Williams’ theme sounds with breathtaking poignance. His tune is carried by a solo violin, juxtaposing wide intervals and arpeggios with flowing stepwise phrases.

It’s violin music at its most emotionally charged. Musically, it emulates the yearning, lyrical melodies prevalent in traditional Hebrew music, a likeness perfectly aligning the material with the subject matter. The theme is a regular fixture in the concert programmes of many violinists, but you can hear the great Itzhak Perlman playing it on the film’s soundtrack.

8. Danzas de Panama by William Grant Still

The violins work the magic in Danzas de Panama, an electrifying piece for string orchestra. In it, William Grant Still combines the distinctive dance rhythms of the Central-American nation with the structural and instrumental idioms of the classical tradition. The result? A musical whirlwind like no other. 

Still’s work of the early 20th century is often linked to the Harlem Renaissance, which places his work in the context of the revival of African-American culture associated with that movement. Danzas, however, sees him looking further afield, engaging originally with source material a world away from the concert-music mainstream.

Listen out for the percussive taps on the violin’s body in the ‘Tamborito’ movement. So often in music, extended techniques are used as decorative embellishment, but they’re an integral part of Still’s composition. Through those strikes, the spirit of Panamanian music and dance is channelled into the work. Fusion at its finest.

9. Violin Concerto in E major, ‘Spring’ by Antonio Vivaldi

The Four Seasons, Vivaldi’s quadrilogy of concertos, are major players in the repertoire. It would be cheating to include them all here though, so we’ll focus on ‘Spring’, RV 269. It’s arguably the most iconic in the set, and it also kicks off the seasonal cycle in style.

You can almost smell the flowers blooming in the opening notes of the concerto - they embody spring itself. But as famous as the work is, it’s no less notable for its historic contribution to violin composition. The mimicry of natural sounds in the violin part was revolutionary, and the virtuosity of the piece is still immense, even three centuries on.

Vivaldi, a gifted violinist, harnessed his playing experience to produce a staggering 230 concertos for the instrument, but in the Four Seasons he pushed his creative exploits to new levels. Today, these works remain inspirational to countless musicians. Max Richter’s interpretation of them - The Four Seasons Recomposed - is a great testament to that. 

10. La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura by Luigi Nono

Luigi Nono was one of the most visionary composers in the modern era. His radical work continuously pushed musical boundaries, and La lontananza nostalgica utopica futura is no exception. As well as being a work that applies Nono’s pioneering approach to the great lineage of violin music, it’s one of his finest musical statements.

Its title translates as ‘The Nostalgic Utopian Future Distance’, but don’t worry too much about what that’s supposed to mean. The work requires two performers: a violinist and a sound engineer. The violinist wanders between six music stands positioned on-stage to Nono’s specifications, playing passages from parts placed on each stand. 

Meanwhile, the engineer manipulates recordings by the Latvian violinist Gidon Kremer, shifting them among speakers that surround the audience. Traditional aspects of music - harmony, rhythm, texture - are joined in performance by a spatial dimension that adds a whole new layer to the concept and experience of performance. 

Your next steps for violin music

There you have it - the best violin music. You can find all these masterpieces and more great violin music on nkoda. The violin sheet music collection brings together all pieces for the instrument available in nkoda’s collection.

For similar content, check out the hardest violin pieces. Many works featured there - Bach’s Chaconne in D minor, Paganini’s Caprice No. 24, Beethoven’s Kreutzer - would have been right at home on this list, if they weren’t so unbelievably difficult.

On the other hand, for slightly less similar content, take a look at this guide to easy violin songs - a more relaxing read. Find something that captures your imagination. Something that strengthens not only your love for music but also your resolve to become the musician you want to be.