Brahms wrote this concerto, one of the two or three most masterly violin concertos in the repertoire, especially for his close friend, the Hungarian violinist Joseph Joachim. Joachim was a fine composer himself, had dedicated his own Violin Concerto in D “in the Hungarian style” to Brahms in 1861, and now collaborated intimately with him, just as Ferdinand David had earlier with Mendelssohn, on the details of the solo part. He premiered it, with Brahms conducting, in Leipzig on New Year's Day 1879, after which Brahms made further revisions before publication in October that same year.

sources

A  Autograph score (1878) in the Library of Congress, Washington D.C., who published it in facsimile in 1979 (viewable online at IMSLP)

E,P  First Edition, published in score and parts by Simrock, Berlin in 1879

EE  Miniature score, published c.1915 by Eulenburg

Br  Breitkopf & Härtel full score, edited by Hans Gál and published in 1926

Uh  Urtext edition, edited by Linda Correll Roesner and Michael Struck and published by Henle in 2004

Ub  Urtext edition, edited by Clive Brown and published by Bärenreiter in 2006

Where Uh and Ub agree, they are referred to as Ur