Joachim promptly replied with a marked copy of the part, and a letter of his own in which he was generally complimentary about the new composition. Brahms incorporated several of Joachim’s suggestions into he final version of the score, and rather than providing a cadenza for the first movement, used the one that Joachim had suggested.

 
The concerto stands as one of the largest and most challenging works in the solo violin repertoire, yet it is also the work which shows in the highest degree of perfection the reconciling of the two opposite sides of the composer’s creative mind – the lyrical and the constructive; Brahms the song writer and Brahms the symphonist. For this concerto is a song for the violin on a symphonic scale – a lyrical outpouring which nevertheless exercises to the full the composer's great powers of inventive development.
 
The orchestral introduction to the first movement reveals the concerto's underlying lyricism from the very outset. First a dark eight-bar phrase, a simple ascending and descending sequence based on the notes of the major triad, then an oboe continuation and finally a strident forte. One subject, but for the purposes of later development, effectively three. The soloist's entry, feiry and wide ranging, is a cadenza-like minor key commentary on the work's opening theme, which Brahms gives in turn to the full orchestra at the start of the development. Throughout the movement, Brahms restlessly develops his themes, even in the short coda that follows the cadenza.
 
The beautiful Adagio is a tender and moving intermezzo, deceptively simple in form. It opens with a long-breathed lullaby for solo oboe, beautifully supported by woodwinds and horns. When the violinist enters, with a dreamy variant of the theme, the predominant wind textures are replaced by strings as the music grows more impassioned, eventually evolving into a contrasting middle section with its own rhapsodic, highly embellished melody. With a brief but lovely transition back to the main key, F major, Brahms brings together the violin, the solo oboe, and the remainder of the orchestra in a memorable meditation on the opening theme.
 
The finale is a rousing and rhythmically striking rondo, with something of a Hungarian flavour, affording the soloist ample opportunity to display his virtuosity, the music being in turn feiry and relaxed. Brahms originally titled this movement "Allegro giocoso" but Joachim significantly added the words "ma non troppo vivace?" to the part that Brahms had sent him, adding the terse comment "otherwise difficult"!
 
Joachim (who was, incidentally, the first president of Bristol Music Club) gave the inaugural performance in Leipzig on New Years Day 1879, with the composer himself conducting.