With this concerto, I've finished what I call my Joachim project: to get to know the four concertos named by Joseph Joachim (the very famous 19th century violinist) in this remark:

The Germans have four violin concertos. The greatest, most uncompromising is Beethoven's. The one by Brahms vies with it in seriousness. The richest, the most seductive, was written by Max Bruch. But the most inward, the heart's jewel, is Mendelssohn's.

And possibly, with hesitation and deference, to see whether I agreed with him. The answer is: well, not exactly. I wouldn't say I disagree, exactly; I'm only going to say that his description of the Mendelssohn is not mine, nor would I pick any of the four as a "heart's jewel."

You will note that Joachim's statements are not rankings. He's not saying that there is a semi-objective superiority of one over the others. Yes, he does say that Beethoven's is the greatest, but considering what he says of the others, I don't think he means absolutely superior, but rather the grandest, the largest. By virtue of their inclusion in his list, all four are "great" in the more casual sense. But Mendelssohn's, it seems, is especially beloved. To say that one has a favorite flower does not disparage other flowers, and it seems reasonable to say that this was Joachim's personal favorite.

In truth, my most accurate response to the question "Which of these is your favorite?" would be "The one I'm listening to now." But I'll put it another way with another question: if you had to pick one, if could only ever again hear one, which would it be? Right now I would pick Brahms, and it's not only because it's the one I heard most recently. That was a couple of weeks ago, so I'm not under its immediate influence. My reason may be the same thing that Joachim sees in the Beethoven. The word "majesty" occurred to me several times as I listened. It just seems somehow a little larger, a little more powerful, perhaps a little deeper, than the others, while lacking nothing in basic musical appeal when compared to them. 

I would probably declare myself unable to choose between Beethoven and Brahms except that I'm not fond of Beethoven's third movement. Like the Beethoven, the Brahms is way out of balance in favor of the first movement, which in both is as long or longer than the second and third two combined. This is not true of the other two concertos. That makes me wonder whether Brahms was consciously emulating Beethoven or not. A biography might answer that question. 

Joachim's list completed, I'm now extending the project to include two other great Romantic violin concertos, those of Tchaikovsky and Sibelius. Wait, Dvorak wrote one, too, which as far as I remember I haven't heard. Joachim's list was limited to German composers, so Dvorak's absence is not necessarily significant. So, three others.

I'm glad to see that it seems to be generally acceptable now to say "concertos" instead of "concerti." The latter, at least when I tried to use it, always sounded pretentious or snobbish. But if I didn't use it I felt like a hick who just didn't know any better. The word has long completed the journey to full Anglophone citizenship, and can be pluralized like other English words. Or so I say. 

I was a little surprised, when reading Bleak House a few months ago, to see "restaurant" italicized, as is normally done with foreign words and phrases that remain foreign. I don't know when that ceased. I'm amused by the idea that the concept was apparently foreign. England certainly had long had its pubs and other places where one could have a meal (Samuel Johnson frequents a "chop house"), but there must have been something different about the French approach.