Violin Concerto No. 1 (Prokofiev)

Violin Concerto No. 1 (Prokofiev)

Sergei Prokofiev began his Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major, opus 19, as a concertino in 1915 but soon abandoned it to work on his opera The Gambler. He returned to the concerto in the summer of 1917. It premiered on October 18, 1923 at the Paris Opera with Marcel Darrieux playing the violin part and the Paris Opera Orchestra conducted by Serge Koussevitzky. Igor Stravinsky made his debut as conductor at the same concert, and conducted the first performance of his Octet for Wind Instruments.