What Richard Flury's son Urs Joseph Flury writes about his father's second violin concerto reveals the circumstances and genesis of this urromantic violin concerto full of bright emotions:

"Father left the 2nd Violin Concerto, composed in 1940, only in the piano reduction. He wrote it as a birthday present for my mother, who performed the second and third movements of the work in public the same year with the composer at the piano. The famous German violinist Georg Kulenkampff played the demanding work so brilliantly at sight in private that my father felt inspired to write a new, technically even more difficult 3rd Violin Concerto for him (which Kulenkampff then performed twice shortly before his death). Due to this circumstance, the 2nd concerto remained in the piano score and I orchestrated it after father's death and premiered it in 1969 with the Solothurn City Orchestra. In the orchestration, the task was to use the orchestra in a purely accompanying function, for in this concerto the soloist is hardly allowed a breathing space, and the orchestra is only given room for a few tutti bars in the two outer movements. The accompanying figurations, which are mainly in the lower registers, were to be given to the corresponding registers of the strings, while higher counterpointing voices, which carry on a dialogue with the solo instrument, had to be given to various wind instruments, which form a contrast to the violin in their timbre. The concerto, in classical three-movement form, bears a decidedly lyrical character in the first two movements, these especially in the deeply felt, highly romantic second movement. The rondo-like final movement in 6/8 time is exuberant and capricious, placing high technical demands on the soloist and also leading to lyrical sections through multiple changes of meter."

(from the booklet to a recording of the concerto with Urs Joseph Flury).

Listen here:
1st movement
2nd movement
3rd movement

Listening guide: