In 1953, Montsalvatge continued his traversal of the major forms that might be said to define an important career as a composer in the grand manner. While there must have been some disappointment that a work like the Simfonia Mediterrànea did not find widespread currency, Montsalvatge was continuing to learn the value of even minority approval that could exert wider influence. The important Polish violinist Henryk Szeryng (a former pupil of the Jacques Thibaud of long Barcelonan popularity) had heard the unlucky Simfonia with admiration and asked Montsalvatge to come up with a work for violin and orchestra. Szeryng desired that it not be a concerto, since he said that the repertory was so dominated by those works that, anytime he needed something shorter, he always had to resort to the Ernest Chausson Poème, for violin and orchestra, Op. 25. Thus did Montsalvatge, who it will be recalled had technically achieved the skills of a professional violinist, finally compose a major work for the instrument. The resulting Poema concertante keeps up a correspondence with antillanisme while also sounding very much in the virtuoso and expressive lineage of the Chausson that Szeryng had mentioned.