Raffaele d'Alessandro belongs to a completely unjustly forgotten Swiss composer of the 20th century, although he ideally embodies multilingual Switzerland in his biography. He grew up in St. Gallen in the German-speaking part of Switzerland as the child of an Italian immigrant and a Grisons mother. In 1934 he went to Paris to study with Nadia Boulanger, Marcel Dupré and Paul Roes, but because of the war he had to return to western Switzerland in 1940, where, living in Lausanne, he had to eke out a living as a freelance pianist and composer. He died on the day of his 48th birthday, completely impoverished, as a result of internal bleeding after rupturing an aorta. Unfortunately, his works were hardly ever performed after that; the serial music revolution, coming from France, completely overtook his work, although d'Alessandro composed anything but traditional music. He was held in high esteem during his lifetime by conductors such as Ernest Ansermet and Paul Kletzki, Eugene Ormandy in Philadelphia and Dinu Lipati played works by him in public concerts.

Stylistically, his work contains elements of French impressionism of the Ravelian type, expressionism and neo-classicism, but in a creative new combination as regards ostinato rhythm, bitonality, form and harmony. His oeuvre consists of some 80 opus numbers, much piano music (including the 24 Préludes), chamber music and, increasingly with his compositional development, orchestral works, instrumental concertos and symphonies. His death, however, was obviously also an interruption of a promising career that could have only just begun for a composer.

The Violin Concerto by Raffaele d'Alessandro was written in Lausanne in 1941 within eight days. It was not performed at that time. It was not until 1997 that it was premiered by the Winterthur City Orchestra and violinist Sibylle Tschopp and was received with enthusiasm by the public and the press. Formally, it consists of an introduction and a movement in sonata form, for which he has a particular weakness, as he writes with a certain ironic undertone:

"I have a particular weakness for the classical sonata form which, of all musical forms, appeals to me at once as the strictest and, within its fixed limits, as the most varied. That is why at least half of my chamber and orchestral music is written in sonata form. However, for several years now, I have allowed myself to deviate somewhat from the rule in the sonata movement by placing the main themes in the recapitulation contrapuntally on top of each other instead of letting them return individually as in the exposition. This somewhat unorthodox rape of tradition has at least the following to offer: the recapitulation shows a different face than the exposition and is shortened in favour of the development, which, from a compositional point of view, is the most interesting part of the sonata movement (in single-movement sonatas of this form, I let the normal development be followed by a second Lento development that functions as a slow movement). - With that, I would have touted the only invention of my life, for lack of a better one. The Egg of Columbus was not discovered by me. But in the end, it should not be important for a creative or re-creative artist to pull the unprecedented out by the hair, but rather to use the talent he has received as a blessing or burden on his life's path for the best, to make no concessions, to be self-critical and loyal to his art, and on the other hand - precisely for this reason - to bite his teeth now and then. (Raffaelo d'Alessandro 1955, quoted in: Luise Marretta-Schär, Raffaele d'Alessandro. Leben und Werk, Zurich 1979, p. 65)

In the Violin Concerto op 41 we find this formal principle implemented in his work for the first time. After the Introduzione, quasi cadenza follows the Sonata, with the parts Allegro marcato, Grave and Tempo I.

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