The orchestration of the concerto was finished on February 21, 1875, but before that date he played the work to Nicholas Rubinstein. The episode is one of the most singular in the history of this strangely sensitive composer. He described it in a letter written to Nadeshda Filaretovna von Meck. This letter is dated San Remo, February 2, 1878. It has been published in Modeste Tchaikovsky’s Life of his famous brother.
“In December, 1874, I had written a pianoforte concerto. As I am not a pianist, I thought it necessary to ask a virtuoso what was technically unplayable in the work, thankless, or ineffective. I needed the advice of a severe critic who at the same time was friendly disposed toward me. Without going too much into detail, I must frankly say that an interior voice protested against the choice of Nicholas Rubinstein as a judge over the mechanical side of my work. But he was the best pianist in Moscow, and also a most excellent musician. I was told that he would take it ill from me if he should learn that I had passed him by and shown the concerto to another; so I determined to ask him to hear it and criticize the pianoforte part.
“On Christmas Eve, 1874, we were all invited to Albrecht’s, and Nicholas asked me, before we should go there, to play the concerto in a classroom of the Conservatory. We agreed to it. I took my manuscript, and Nicholas and Hubert came. Hubert is a mighty good and shrewd fellow, but he is not a bit independent; he is garrulous and verbose; he must always make a long preface to ‘yes’ or ‘no’; he is not capable of expressing an opinion in decisive, unmistakable form; and he is always on the side of the stronger, whoever he may chance to be. I must add that this does not come from cowardice, but only from natural instability.
“I played through the first movement. Not a criticism, not a word. You know how foolish you feel, if you invite one to partake of a meal provided by your own hands, and the friend eats and—is silent! ‘At least say something, scold me good-naturedly, but for God’s sake speak, only speak, whatever you may say.’ Rubinstein said nothing. He was preparing his thunderstorm; and Hubert was waiting to see how things would go before he should jump to one side or the other. The matter was right here: I did not need any judgment on the artistic form of my work: there was question only about mechanical details. This silence of Rubinstein said much. It said to me at once: ‘Dear friend, how can I talk about details when I dislike your composition as a whole?’ But I kept my temper and played the concerto through. Again silence.
“‘Well?’ I said, and stood up. Then burst forth from Rubinstein’s mouth a mighty torrent of words. He spoke quietly at first; then he waxed hot, and at last he resembled Zeus hurling thunderbolts. It appeared that my concerto was utterly worthless, absolutely unplayable; passages were so commonplace and awkward that they could not be improved; the piece as a whole was bad, trivial, vulgar. I had stolen this from that one and that from this one; so only two or three pages were good for anything, while the others should be wiped out or radically rewritten. ‘For instance, that! What is it, anyhow?’ (And then he caricatured the passage on the pianoforte.) ‘And this? Is it possible?’ and so on, and so on. I cannot reproduce for you the main thing, the tones in which he said all this. An impartial bystander would necessarily have believed that I was a stupid, ignorant, conceited note-scratcher, who was so impudent as to show his scribble to a celebrated man.
“Hubert was staggered by my silence, and he probably wondered how a man who had already written so many works and was a teacher of composition at the Moscow Conservatory could keep still during such a moral lecture or refrain from contradiction—a moral lecture that no one should have delivered to a student without first examining carefully his work. And then Hubert began to annotate Rubinstein; that is, he incorporated Rubinstein’s opinions, but sought to clothe in milder words what Nicholas had harshly said.”
Tchaikovsky erased the name of Nicholas Rubinstein from the score and inserted in the dedication the name of Hans von Bülow, whom he had not yet seen; but Klindworth had told him of Bülow’s interest in his works and his efforts to make them known in Germany. Bülow acknowledged the compliment, and in a warm letter of thanks praised the concerto, which he called the “fullest” work by Tchaikovsky yet known to him: “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 actively or passively (respectively) the work.”
For a long time Tchaikovsky was sore in heart, wounded by his friend. In 1878 Nicholas had the manliness to confess his error; as a proof of his good-will he studied the concerto and played it often and brilliantly in Russia and beyond the boundaries, as at the Paris Exhibition of 1878.
CONCERTO FOR VIOLIN, IN D MAJOR OP. 35
I. Allegro moderato II. Canzonetta: andante III. Finale: allegro vivacissimo