CONCERTOS
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, in D major, Opus 35
Before occupying its permanent niche in the repertory, Tschaikowsky’s violin concerto had to run a fierce gantlet of fault-finding. Friend and foe alike took pokes at it. The wonder is that it survived at all. Even Mme. von Meck, Tschaikowsky’s patroness-saint, picked serious flaws in the work, and the lady was known for her unwavering faith in Tschaikowsky’s genius.
As a matter of fact, Tschaikowsky, often an unsparing critic of his own music, started the trend by finding objection with the Andante and rewriting it whole. That was in April, 1878. He was spending the spring at Clarens, Switzerland. Joseph Kotek, a Russian violinist and composer, was staying with him. Tschaikowsky and Kotek went over the work several times, and evidently saw eye-to-eye on its merits.
Then came the first outside rebuff. Mme. von Meck was frankly dissatisfied and showed why in detail. Tschaikowsky meekly wrote back pleading guilty on some counts but advancing the hope that in time his Lady Bountiful might come to like the concerto. He stood pat on the first movement, which Mme. von Meck particularly assailed.
“Your frank judgment on my violin concerto pleased me very much,” he writes. “It would have been very disagreeable to me if you, from any fear of wounding the petty pride of a composer, had kept back your opinion. However, I must defend a little the first movement of the concerto.
“Of course, it houses, as does every piece that serves virtuoso purposes, much that appeals chiefly to the mind; nevertheless, the themes are not painfully evolved: the plan of this movement sprang suddenly in my head and quickly ran into its mould. I shall not give up the hope that in time the piece will give you greater pleasure.”
Next came a more serious setback from Leopold Auer, the widely respected Petersburg virtuoso. Auer was then professor of violin at the Imperial Conservatory and the Czar’s court violinist. Tschaikowsky, hoping to induce Auer to launch the concerto on its career, originally dedicated the work to him. But Auer glanced through the score and promptly decided against it. It was “impossible to play.”
Tschaikowsky later made a quaintly worded entry in his diary to the effect that Auer’s pronouncement cast “this unfortunate child of my imagination for many years to come into the limbo of hopelessly forgotten things.” Justly or unjustly, he even suspected Auer of having prevailed on the violinist Emile Sauret to abstain from playing it in St. Petersburg.
The ice finally broke when Adolf Brodsky, after two years of admitted laziness and indecision, took it up and succeeded in performing it with the Vienna Philharmonic on December 4, 1881. Yet, even Brodsky, despite his wholehearted espousal of the work, complained to Tschaikowsky that he had “crammed too many difficulties into it.” Previously, in Paris, Brodsky had experimented with the concerto by playing it to Laroche, who, whether because of Brodsky’s rendering or the concerto’s inherent character, confessed “he could gain no true idea of the work.”
Even the première went against the new concerto. In the first place Brodsky had to do some strong propagandizing to get Hans Richter to include the work on a Philharmonic program. Then, only one rehearsal was granted. The orchestral parts, according to Brodsky, “swarmed with errors.” At the rehearsal nobody liked the new work. Besides, Richter wanted to make cuts, but Brodsky promptly scotched the idea. Finally, during the performance, the musicians, still far from having mastered the music, accompanied everything pianissimo, “not to go smash.”
Of course, Brodsky outlines the chain of contretemps in a letter to Tschaikowsky partly to assuage the composer’s pained feelings on receiving news of the Vienna fiasco. For the première ended with a broadside of hisses, completely obliterating the polite applause coming from some friendly quarters. As the coup de grâce Eduard Hanslick, Europe’s uncrowned ruler of musical destinies, wrote a scathing notice, which Philip Hale rendered as follows:
“For a while the concerto has proportion, is musical, and is not without genius, but soon savagery gains the upper hand and lords it to the end of the first movement.
“The violin is no longer played. It is yanked about. It is torn asunder. It is beaten black and blue. I do not know whether it is possible for any one to conquer these hair-raising difficulties, but I do know that Mr. Brodsky martyrized his hearers as well as himself.
“The Adagio, with its tender national melody, almost conciliates, almost wins us. But it breaks off abruptly to make way for a finale that puts us in the midst of the brutal and wretched jollity of a Russian kermess. We see wild and vulgar faces, we hear curses, we smell bad brandy.
“Friedrich Vischer once asserted in reference to lascivious paintings that there are pictures which ‘stink in the eye.’ Tschaikowsky’s violin concerto brings to us for the first time the horrid idea that there may be music that stinks in the ear.”
The pestiferous odors of the Hanslick blast further embittered Tschaikowsky’s already gloomy disposition, and it is not surprising to learn that the review haunted him till the day he died. But Brodsky’s unflagging devotion to the concerto, together with his practical missionary zeal in acquainting the European public with it, finally started the concerto on its path of glory.
“Nor was that the end of time’s revenges,” wrote Pitts Sanborn. “Hanslick was to write glowingly of the ‘Pathétique’ symphony, and in due course Leopold Auer not only played the unplayable concerto himself, but made a specialty of teaching it to his pupils, who have carried its gospel the world over. But while the belated triumphs were accruing Tschaikowsky died.”
The dedication is to Brodsky, who certainly earned it.
The first movement (Allegro moderato, D major, 4-4), opens with a melody for strings and woodwind. Then the solo violin is heard in a cadenza-like sequence followed by the first theme (Moderato assai). A second theme, Molto espressivo, is next discoursed by the violin in A major. Instead of the usual development there is an intricate cadenza without accompaniment. A long and brilliant coda concludes the movement.
The second movement (Canzonetta: Andante, 3-4) starts with the muted solo violin chanting, after a brief preface, a nostalgic theme in G minor. The flute and clarinet then offer the first phrase of this theme, and later the solo violin unreels a Chopinesque second subject, in E-flat major, con anima. The clarinet offers an obbligato of arpeggios when the first theme returns. The rousing finale is an Allegro vivacissimo in D major, 2-4.
The Rondo-like last movement, typically Russian in theme and rhythm, develops from two folk-like melodies. Listeners will be reminded of the well-known Russian dance, the Trepak, in this movement. The music builds up at a brisk pace to a crashing climax.
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, in B-flat Minor, No. 1, Opus 23
Like the violin concerto, Tschaikowsky’s great piano concerto in B-flat minor went through a gruelling ordeal of abusive rebuffs and setbacks before becoming established as one of the world’s most beloved symphonic scores. In the case of the violin work, it was Leopold Auer who first flouted it as unplayable, and then made it a popular repertory standby. Nicholas Rubinstein is the name linked with the early stages of the piano concerto. After excoriating the concerto in its first state, Rubinstein grew to like it, humbly apologized for his blunder, and made practical amends by playing it in public with huge success.
Early in its composition we find Tschaikowsky writing to his brother Anatol: “I am so completely absorbed in the composition of a piano concerto. I am anxious that Rubinstein should play it at his concert. The work proceeds very slowly and does not turn out well. However, I stick to my intentions and hammer piano passages out of my brain; the result is nervous irritability.” Begun in November, 1874, the concerto was completed the following month. Rubinstein was then invited to hear the work. Rubinstein and one or two musical colleagues gathered in one of the classrooms of the Moscow Conservatory. Unluckily, the great man was in a sombre mood that day. Tschaikowsky sat down and played the first movement. No comment from Rubinstein. Then he played the Andantino. Still no comment. Finally, Tschaikowsky ran through the last movement. He turned around expectantly. Rubinstein said nothing. Uneasily, Tschaikowsky asked him pointblank: “What do you think of it?” And the storm broke. It was vulgar, cheap, pianistic, completely valueless, retorted Rubinstein, who then stepped up to the piano and began to burlesque the music.
“I left the room without saying a word and went upstairs,” writes the distraught Tschaikowsky. “I could not have spoken for anger and agitation. Presently Rubinstein came to me and, seeing how upset I was, called me into another room. There he repeated that my concerto was impossible, pointed out many places where it needed to be completely revised, and said that if I would suit the concerto to his requirements, he would bring it out at his concert.
“‘I shall not alter a single note,’ he replied. ‘I shall publish the work precisely as it stands.’ This intention I actually carried out.” Tschaikowsky did make some alterations in the score, however.
Tschaikowsky changed his mind about dedicating the score to Rubinstein, conferring the honor on Hans Von Bülow, instead. Von Bülow played the world première in Boston on October 25, 1875, and in a letter to the Russian composer conveyed his enthusiasm for the work: “The ideas are so original, so noble, so powerful; the details are so interesting, and though there are many of them they do not impair the clearness and the unity of the work. The form is so mature, ripe, distinguished for style, for intention and labor are everywhere concealed. I should weary you if I were to enumerate all the characteristics of your work—characteristics which compel me to congratulate equally the composer as well as all those who shall enjoy the work actively or passively respectively.” Later Tschaikowsky, reading reports of how Americans were acclaiming his concerto, wrote: “Think what healthy appetites these Americans must have! Each time Bülow was obliged to repeat the whole finale of my concerto! Nothing like this happens in our own country.”
The concerto opens with a striking theme, Allegro non troppo e molto maestoso, in D-flat major, 3-4, familiar to music-lovers of all tastes the world over. The strings take it up after some brief preluding, and it is then repeated, with rhythmic modification, by the solo piano. There is a piano cadenza, and the theme comes back by way of the strings, minus double-basses, against an ascending obbligato from the piano. For reasons best known to himself, Tschaikowsky never allows this imposing theme to return to the scene.
The “blind beggar tune” is the name often applied to the piano theme serving as chief subject of the main section of the first movement (Allegro con spirito, B-flat minor). Tschaikowsky heard it sung on a street in Kamenko and he wrote to his patroness-friend, Mme. von Meck: “It is curious that in Russia every blind beggar sings exactly the same tune with the same refrain. I have used part of this refrain in my piano concerto.” Horns and woodwind discourse the second subject (Poco meno mosso, A-flat major) before the solo instrument turns to it.
The song-like first theme of the second movement (Andantino semplice, D-flat major, 6-8) is given out first by the flute, with the oboe and clarinets bringing in the second subject against a bassoon accompaniment. The Prestissimo middle section in F major, has the spirit of a scherzo. A waltz enters the scheme by way of violas and ’cellos. Tschaikowsky’s brother, Modeste, insisted the theme of this waltz derived from a French song the brothers Tschaikowsky used to sing and whistle in their boyhood days.
The Rondo-like finale develops from three themes, the first of which, a lively dance in Cossack style, is given out by the piano. A further folk-like quality is observable in the second theme, and the violins later chant the third of the finale’s themes. In the brisk Coda the Cossack-like first theme is given the dominant role.