Run Time: Approx. 19 Minutes

Written in 1893, Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 3 was initially conceived as a symphony, but upon receiving a commission for a new concerto, he abandoned what would have been his seventh symphony and reworked the music as a piano concerto. Although Tchaikovsky completed sketches for the entire work, he was only able to finish composition for the first movement before his death. The remainder of the concerto was later finished by Sergey Taneyev, however, most performances of the piece feature only the first movement composed entirely by Tchaikovsky.

The work carries the characteristic beauty and passionate complexity of Tchaikovsky’s oeuvre, while also displaying a sense of playfulness that foreshadows the music of later Russian composers such as Prokofiev and Shostakovich, who would follow in Tchaikovsky’s footsteps.