Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D Major, Opus 35 (Published 1888)

  Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840 – 1893)  

1. Allegro moderato
2. Andante (Canzonetta)
3. Finale: Allegro vivacissimo

Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto is one of the best-loved works that exists in its genre. A standard of the violin repertoire, it is perhaps the violinistic equivalent of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in sheer virtuosity. The famous violin concerto was born in Clarens, Switzerland, a resort town on the shore of Lake Geneva, where Tchaikovsky had gone to calm his vulnerable nerves after fleeing from a disastrous marriage with one of his pupils, Antonina Milyukova. Work on the concerto seemed to give Tchaikovsky respite, and he threw himself into it with great enthusiasm. In a letter to his patroness Nadezhda von Meck dated March 19, 1878, he wrote: “For the first time in my life I have begun to work on a new piece before finishing the one on hand. I could not resist the pleasure of sketching out the concerto, and allowed myself to be so carried away that the sonata has been set aside.”[1] Carried away he indeed must have been, for on April 20 he wrote to Meck that the concerto was completed.

Despite its breathtaking and sometimes chilling beauty, several obstacles had to be overcome before the concerto became recognised. First of all, Leopold Auer, the celebrated concert violinist to whom Tchaikovsky had dedicated the work, deemed it “unplayable”.[2] This was enough to make Tchaikovsky dubious of the concerto’s future. In his diary he wrote: “This verdict, coming from such an authority, had the effect of casting this unfortunate child of my imagination for many years to come into the limbo of hopelessly forgotten things.”[3]

It would indeed be almost four years until the work would receive a public premiere: this took place in Vienna on December 4, 1881. The violinist was Adolf Brodsky, to whom Tchaikovsky promptly re-dedicated the score; the orchestra was the Vienna Philharmonic, under Hans Richter’s baton. Critical reception was mixed: although some reviews were positive, most were adverse. Eduard Hanslick lashed out his venoms on the piece: “The violin is no longer played…it is beaten black and blue,” he wrote. “We see wild and vulgar faces, we hear curses, we smell bad brandy…Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto brings us for the first time the horrid idea that there may be music that stinks to the ear.”[4]

Time would prove Hanslick’s opinions to be nothing but laughable pieces of ill-humour. The Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto has survived to become one of the most respected masterpieces in the violin repertoire, and it has been played by all the legendary violinists. It possesses a wide emotional vocabulary, ranging from the brilliant-triumphant to heartbreak and melancholy.

The first movement is full of grace and charm, permeated as it is by a dignified lyricism which could be seen as stemming from Tchaikovsky’s peaceful surrounds of Lake Geneva. But it also contains gaping chasms in which the enormity of life and death seems to be exposed to the listener. In some of the orchestral passages one is indeed reminded of the “Fate music” of the Symphony No. 4, which Tchaikovsky had composed the year before. Strong emotional turbulence is apparent in the orchestra just before the cadenza. At the climax of the orchestra’s tempest the violin re-enters with chordal exclamation marks, momentarily interrupting the storm: the orchestral strings reply with their fierce semiquaver-quaver theme. This is a good demonstration of that which lies at the heart of concertante music. The word concerto itself comes from Latin, meaning “to fight; to dispute”.[5] Though in more peaceful passages it can be more of a conversation between the solo instrument and orchestra, the competition for supremacy between the two is one of the defining aspects of the concerto genre. In this particular example, the polarity between solo violin and orchestra is intensified until the violin emerges victorious in the cadenza.

The cadenza is a characteristic of the concerto inherited by the Romantics from their Classical predecessors. However, while composers such as Mozart and Beethoven simply wrote the word “Cadenza” in the score and expected the soloist to improvise on the spot during the performance, the typical Romantic cadenza was written in by the composer so as to give him greater control over the work. In Tchaikovsky’s cadenza, the main themes of the movement are present in varied form, skilfully interlaced by arpeggios and descending chromatic scales to give the cadenza an improvisatory character. The cadenza eventually merges into the recapitulation: there is a special purity in the way the flutes reintroduce the first theme over the violin’s prolonged trill. The recapitulation is almost the same as the exposition of the work, though perhaps even more heavenly in its hovering around the tonic or “home” key. The movement comes to a triumphant close, saturated in technical virtuosity in the solo violin part and glorious harmonies in the orchestra.

The second movement, Andante Cantabile (“Canzonetta”)[6] is in complete contrast to the first: the mournful voices of the winds set the mood, and when the muted violin enters it is melancholy from the bottom of the heart. Tchaikovsky’s music voices unspeakable despair; the intimacy of the deep sadness of the second movement is unparallelled anywhere else in the concerto. But if the first section of the Canzonetta is permeated by heart-broken unhappiness, then the second has the joie de vivre of spring sunshine. The mute is taken off and the strings resound with natural openness. Nevertheless, towards the end of the section the musical skies darken considerably: we are eventually brought back to the music of the first section, slightly modified and still without mute. In contrast to the first time it was played, its character is that of active unhappiness, not passive dejection. The violin’s sound eventually dissolves, and the winds recollect their opening strain and take us to the end of the movement, which is immediately followed by the finale.

The last movement erupts into existence: after an excited orchestral introduction, the violin’s quasi-improvisatory statement leads to a vigorously energetic Russian dance played with joyous abandon. That is not to say the movement does not have quieter moments: the second theme, introduced by the winds, has a sweetly nostalgic feeling. It is a movement of contrasts: from light playfulness it jumps into roguish passages full of colour and then again sobers down to moments of deep feeling. But the movement ends as it starts: with a bang. The concerto, so full of change and different moods, could be said to be a philosophical statement about life.

Bibliography

Wiley, Roland John. “Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Il’yich.” Grove Music Online. Ed L. Macy. http://grovemusic.com (accessed August 11, 2007)

Ramey, Phillip. Liner notes to Tchaikovsky: Concertos. Emil Gilels and Pinchas Zukerman. Conducted by Zubin Mehta. MDK 44643.

Potter, Tully. Liner notes to Brahms/Tchaikovsky: Violin Concertos. David Oistrakh. Conducted by Sir Malcom Sargent and Norman Del Mar. BBCL 41022.

Discography

Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Il’yich. Tchaikovsky: Concertos. Emil Gilels and Pinchas Zukerman. Conducted by Zubin Mehta. MDK 44643.

Brahms, Johannes, and Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Il’yich. Brahms/Tchaikovsky: Violin Concertos. David Oistrakh. Conducted by Sir Malcom Sargent and Norman Del Mar. BBCL 41022.