To N. F. von Meck.
“Rome, December 4th (16th), 1881.
“Yesterday I received sad news from Kamenka. In the neighbourhood lies a little wood, the goal of my daily walk. In the heart of the wood lives a forester with a large and lovable family. I never saw more beautiful children. I was particularly devoted to a little girl of four, who was very shy at first, but afterwards grew so friendly that she would caress me prettily, and chatter delightful nonsense, which was a great pleasure to me. Now my brother-in-law writes that this child and one of the others have died of diphtheria. The remaining children were removed to the village by his orders, but, he adds, ‘I fear it is too late.’ Poor Russia! Everything there is so depressing, and then this terrible scourge which carries off children by the thousand.”
The violin concerto was the only one of Tchaikovsky’s works which received its first performance outside Russia. This exceptional occurrence took place in Vienna. The originality and difficulty of this composition prevented Leopold Auer, to whom it was originally dedicated, from appreciating its true worth, and he declined to produce it in St. Petersburg.[88] Two years passed after its publication, and still no one ventured to play it in public. The first to recognise its importance, and to conquer its difficulties, was Adolf Brodsky. A pupil of Hellmesberger’s, he held a post at the Moscow Conservatoire for a time, but relinquished it in the seventies in order to tour in Europe. For two years he considered the concerto without, as he himself says, being able to summon courage to learn it. Finally, he threw himself into the work with fiery energy, and resolved to try his luck with it in Vienna. Hans Richter expressed a wish to make acquaintance with the new concerto, and finally it was included in the programme of one of the Philharmonic Concerts, December 4th, 1881. According to the critics, and Brodsky’s own account, there was a noisy demonstration at the close of the performance, in which energetic applause mingled with equally forcible protest. The former sentiment prevailed, and Brodsky was recalled three times. From this it is evident that the ill_feeling was not directed against the executant, but against the work. The Press notices were very hostile. Out of ten criticisms, two only spoke quite sympathetically of the concerto. The rest, which emanated from the pens of the best-known musical critics, were extremely slashing. Hanslick, the author of the well-known book, On the Beautiful in Music, passed the following judgment upon this work:—
“Mozart’s youthful work (the Divertimento) would have had a more favourable position had it been played after, instead of before, Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto; a drink of cold water is welcome to those who have just swallowed brandy. The violinist, A. Brodsky, was ill_advised to make his first appearance before the Viennese public with this work. The Russian composer, Tchaikovsky, certainly possesses no commonplace talent, but rather one which is forced, and which, labouring after genius, produces results which are tasteless and lacking in discrimination. Such examples as we have heard of his music (with the exception of the flowing and piquant Quartet in D) offer a curious combination of originality and crudeness, of happy ideas and wretched affectations. This is also the case as regards his latest long and pretentious Violin Concerto. For a time it proceeds in a regular fashion, it is musical and not without inspiration, then crudeness gains the upper hand and reigns to the end of the first movement. The violin is no longer played, but rent asunder, beaten black and blue. Whether it is actually possible to give clear effect to these hair-raising difficulties I do not know, but I am sure Herr Brodsky in trying to do so made us suffer martyrdom as well as himself. The Adagio, with its tender Slavonic sadness, calmed and charmed us once more, but it breaks off suddenly, only to be followed by a finale which plunges us into the brutal, deplorable merriment of a Russian holiday carousal. We see savages, vulgar faces, hear coarse oaths and smell fusel-oil. Friedrich Fischer, describing lascivious paintings, once said there were pictures ‘one could see stink.’ Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto brings us face to face for the first time with the revolting idea: May there not also be musical compositions which we can hear stink?”
Hanslick’s criticism hurt Tchaikovsky’s feelings very deeply. To his life’s end he never forgot it, and knew it by heart, just as he remembered word for word one of Cui’s criticisms dating from 1866. All the deeper and more intense therefore was his gratitude to Brodsky. This sentiment he expressed in a letter to the artist, and in the dedication of the Concerto he replaced Auer’s name by that of Brodsky.
While Tchaikovsky was touched by Brodsky’s courage in bringing forward the Concerto, he was unable to suppress his sense of injury at the attitude of his intimate friend Kotek, who weakly relinquished his original intention of introducing the work in St. Petersburg. Still more did he resent the conduct of Auer, who, he had reason to believe, not only declined to produce the Concerto himself, but advised Sauret not to play it in the Russian capital.
To N. F. von Meck.
Rome, 1881.
“Do you know what I am writing just now? You will be very much astonished. Do you remember how you once advised me to compose a trio for pianoforte, violin, and violoncello, and my reply, in which I frankly told you that I disliked this combination? Suddenly, in spite of this antipathy, I made up my mind to experiment in this form, which so far I have never attempted. The beginning of the trio is finished. Whether I shall carry it through, whether it will sound well, I do not know, but I should like to bring it to a happy termination. I hope you will believe me, when I say that I have only reconciled myself to the combination of piano and strings in the hope of giving you pleasure by this work. I will not conceal from you that I have had to do some violence to my feelings before I could bring myself to express my musical ideas in a new and unaccustomed form. I wish to conquer all difficulties, however; and the thought of pleasing you impels me and encourages my efforts.”