Clement's first violin concerto was premiered on 7 April 1805 at the Theater an der Wien by the barely 25-year-old Clement himself, incidentally one year before Beethoven's violin concerto opus 61, which is also in D major. Coincidence or not, rather not. Beethoven held the Viennese star violinist Franz Clement in high esteem, who had been a child prodigy like Mozart and who celebrated great successes with his free fantasising on the violin. Clement was also involved as concertmaster in many premieres of Beethoven's works (including the opera Leonore and the Eroica). Beethoven was full of praise when, as early as 1794, he made an entry in Clement's pedigree book celebrating Clement as a great artist. Music critics also praised Clement's "indescribable daintiness, niceness and elegance, an extremely lovely tenderness and purity of playing" (1805 in the Leipziger Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung). It seems that Clement was influenced for the composition of his first violin concerto by Beethoven's piano concertos, which had already been written, in any case more than by Mozart's or Haydn's concertos. Incidentally, Clement also played the piano very well and had a phenomenal musical memory, for it is said that after performances of Haydn's Creation, in which he participated as a violinist, he made a piano arrangement based only on the libretto. As a practising violinist and as a composer, he followed what was happening compositionally and violinistically in his environment. Composing specifically for his solo instrument, the violin, was also common at the time, both in France (Rohde, Kreutzer) and in Germany (Spohr). And a little later, Paganini felt the need to show off his violin skills in his own violin concertos.

A year after his own first violin concerto, Clement wanted a concerto by Beethoven for the violin. And it is only slowly becoming known in musical circles that Beethoven took much from and for Clement for his Violin Concerto. The view that Beethoven's Violin Concerto stands like an erratic block between the violin concertos of Mozart and Mendelssohn must be corrected. Incidentally, Beethoven humorously wrote "Concerto par Clemenza pour Clement" over the score. However, it has been forgotten that Clement was the first interpreter to contribute many ossia passages of the score of Beethoven's violin concerto to the definitive known violinistic figurations. As one can easily hear, Beethoven was influenced by Clement's first concerto and his violin artistry. Conversely, in his second violin concerto in 1810, Clement would also adopt more of Beethoven's compositional style, as was common among composers at the time. The entire structure of Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D major op 61, Apollonian lyricism (1st movement), floating melodies (2nd movement) and the final exuberant dance, can also be found in Clement's work. But Beethoven radicalises this arrangement in his own way, as evidenced not only by the unusual beginning with the timpani beats, this sonorous symbol of the inexorable march of time! Nevertheless, it is worth listening more closely to Franz Clement's Violin Concerto, in the knowledge that Beethoven's Violin Concerto did not yet exist, but that Beethoven had come to know and appreciate Clement's concerto in Vienna.

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1st movement
2nd movement
3rd movement

Listening guide: