Violin Concerto No. 1 (Shostakovich)

The Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Op. 77 (99), was originally composed by Dmitri Shostakovich in 1947–48. He was still working on the piece at the time of the Zhdanov Doctrine, and it could not be performed in the period following the composer's denunciation. In the time between the work's initial completion and the first performance, the composer, sometimes with the collaboration of its dedicatee, David Oistrakh, worked on several revisions. The concerto was finally premiered by the Leningrad Philharmonic under Yevgeny Mravinsky on 29 October 1955. It was well-received, Oistrakh remarking on the "depth of its artistic content" and describing the violin part as a "pithy 'Shakespearian' role".

The concerto is sometimes denoted with the Opus number 99 as it was written in 1947–48 but without a premiere at the time because of the use of Jewish themes and Shostakovich's troubles with the government at the time. The concerto had its premiere seven years later, in which time Shostakovich had written other pieces, hence the difference. In addition to the political circumstances surrounding its delay, some musicologists have argued that the intervening years allowed Shostakovich to refine the concerto’s structure and emotional range. Laurel E. Fay observes that the composer used this period to heighten the contrast between the work’s “private introspection” and “sardonic brilliance”, a duality that reflected both his personal struggles and the cultural climate of the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Oistrakh characterized the first movement Nocturne as "a suppression of feelings", and the second movement Scherzo as "demonic." The Scherzo is also notable for an appearance of the DSCH motif—a motif representing Shostakovich himself that recurs in many of the composer's works. Boris Schwarz (Music and Musical Life in Soviet Russia, 1972) commented on the Passacaglia's "lapidary grandeur" and the Burlesque's "devil-may-care abandonment".