Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born in Kamsko-Votkinsk, Russia, on May 7, 1840, and died in St. Petersburg, Russia, on November 6, 1893. The first performance of the Violin Concerto took place in Vienna, Austria, on December 4, 1881, with Adolf Brodsky as soloist and Hans Richter conducting the Vienna Philharmonic. In addition to the solo violin, the D Major Concerto is scored for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, timpani, and strings. Approximate performance time is thirty-three minutes.
Tchaikovsky composed his only Violin Concerto during the spring of 1878. The composer dedicated the Concerto to the great Hungarian violinist Leopold Auer, who was living and teaching in St. Petersburg. Auer, however, declined to play the Concerto. Adolf Brodsky was the soloist for the premiere, which took place in Vienna on December 4, 1881. Hans Richter conducted the Vienna Philharmonic. Tchaikovsky greatly appreciated the courage displayed by Brodsky in premiering a work “before a Viennese audience with a concerto by an unknown composer, and a Russian one to boot.”
The extent of Brodsky’s courage becomes even clearer when the circumstances of the premiere are examined. The reaction by the audience and critics was unfavorable, to say the least. The performance inspired the prominent critic Eduard Hanslick to write one of the most scathing and infamous reviews in music history. For several months after the concert, Tchaikovsky carried with him a copy of the review and, to the end of his days, could recite verbatim Hanslick’s caustic prose:
The Russian composer Tchaikovsky is surely not an ordinary talent, but rather an inflated one, with a genius-like obsession without discrimination or taste. Such is also his latest, long, and pretentious Violin Concerto. For a while it moves soberly, musically, and not without spirit. But soon vulgarity gains the upper hand and asserts itself to the end of the first movement. The violin is no longer played; it is pulled, torn, drubbed. The Adagio is again on its best behavior, to pacify and win us. But it soon breaks off to make way for a finale that transfers us to a brutal and wretched jollity of a Russian holiday. We see plainly the savage vulgar faces, we hear curses, we smell vodka. Friedrich Visser once observed, speaking of obscene pictures, that they stink to the eye. Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto gives us for the first time the hideous notion that there can be music that stinks to the ear.
Brodsky persevered in his advocacy of the Concerto, playing it throughout Europe. In time, the merits of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto became clear. Even Leopold Auer finally performed the Concerto, as did such protégés as Mischa Elman and Jascha Heifetz. But it was Adolf Brodsky to whom Tchaikovsky dedicated this beloved masterpiece.
The Concerto is in three movements. The first (Allegro moderato) opens with an orchestral introduction, but it is not long before the soloist plays a short introductory passage that serves as prelude to the flowing, principal theme. The brief and extraordinarily beautiful second movement (Canzonetta. Andante) segues without pause to the Concerto’s whirlwind Finale (Allegro vivacissimo). The writing for the soloist throughout the Finale is brilliant, culminating in the thrilling final pages.
Program notes by Ken Meltzer