Mendelssohn originally proposed the idea of the violin concerto to Ferdinand David, a close friend and then concertmaster of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra.

[9] There are many possible reasons for the delay, including self-doubt,[10] his third symphony[11] and an unhappy period in Berlin after a request from King Frederick William IV of Prussia.

[13] An autograph manuscript of the concerto re-emerged in 1989 in the Biblioteka Jagiellonska in Kraków, leading to some scholarly scepticism of the veracity of Breitkopf & Härtel's 1862 edition of the published score.

The opening two themes are then combined in the development section, where the music builds up to the innovative cadenza, which Mendelssohn wrote out in full rather than allowing the soloist to improvise.

[6] The cadenza builds up speed through rhythmic shifts from quavers to quaver-triplets and finally to semiquavers,[10] which require ricochet bowing from the soloist.

[18] This serves as a link to the recapitulation, where the opening melody is played by the orchestra, accompanied by the continuing ricochet arpeggios by the soloist.

The music gathers speed into the coda, which is marked "Presto",[18] before a variant of the original chromatic transition passage ends the first movement.

[10] The theme to the darker, middle section in A minor[10] is first introduced by the orchestra before the violin then takes up both the melody and the accompaniment simultaneously.

The tremulous accompaniment[19] requires nimble dexterity from the soloist before the music returns to the main lyrical C major theme, this time leading towards a serene conclusion.

The opening exposition leads into a brief second B major[10] theme which is played by the soloist and builds to a series of rapidly ascending and descending arpeggios, reminiscent of the cadenza from the first movement.

There is almost a small cadenza near the end of the movement when the woodwinds play the main tune against prolonged trills from the solo violin.

Classical concertos typically opened with an orchestral introduction followed by a version of essentially the same material that incorporates the soloist.

[22] In a typical Classical concerto, the cadenza is improvised by the performing soloist and occurs at the end of a movement, after the recapitulation and just before the final coda.

[19] The concerto also calls on the soloist to function as an accompanist to the orchestra for extended periods, such as the ricochet arpeggios at the start of the recapitulation.

[27] Moreover, following this concerto it was very rare for a composer to leave a cadenza unwritten for the soloist to improvise as in the days of Mozart and Beethoven.

[32] In 1906, the year before his death, the celebrated violinist Joseph Joachim told the guests at his 75th birthday party:[13] The Germans have four violin concertos.