Concerto In C Major, Opus 48
By Dmitri Kabalevsky

It's a pleasure working on Kabalevsky. Beyond the enjoyable melodies and exciting passages, I found the difficult phrases to be challenging yet conquerable.

This edition edited by Gingold gives the best fingerings for articulation and comfort out of all the editions I own of this fantastic advanced student Concerto. It's the best edition I own. Also, Gil Shaham has made a nice CD for Deutsche Grammophone of this piece recently. Nice recording...

.

This concerto is very suitable for a student who has played such pieces like Accolay and Kreisler. The concerto itself is very simply composed, and some people consider Kabalevsky to be a copycat to his contemporaries and Romantic composers (such as Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky, Borodin, Mendelssohn). Elements of these composers frequently...

appear on the song, but it's still a fun piece to play. During the third movement, I just want to mention that Kabalevsky copies Mendelssohn in a section (the soloist plays appegios while the orchestra plays the theme). This piece can at times be a challenge, since it's really fast and there are a lot of accidentals. The entire concerto lasts about 15-20 minutes, so I'd play it in a recital or informal concert. THis concerto deserves to be played more often, since it's not that well known in the violin repetoire.