Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35
Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)

THE STORY

     In 1877, Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky—desperate to repress his homosexuality—married a former student, Antonia Milukova, who was infatuated with him. The marriage, unsurprisingly, was a disaster and lasted only two months. 
     After the pair’s separation, a depressed Tchaikovsky escaped to a Swiss resort on Lake Geneva. There, he was joined for a time by his composition student, Iosif Kotek, who had a budding career as a violinist. (The two may also have been lovers: Tchaikovsky had admitted that he was in love with Kotek in a letter to his brother the previous year.)
     Tchaikovsky and Kotek played through music together for fun, including a violin and piano arrangement of Lalo’s new Symphonie espagnole. Tchaikovsky was deeply impressed by Lalo’s work and it is believed to have inspired his own Violin Concerto, which he began work on immediately. During the remainder of his time in Switzerland, Kotek advised Tchaikovsky on the composition of the solo violin part.
     It would seem fitting that the concerto, when finished, would be dedicated to Kotek—but Tchaikovsky feared that if he did so, it would inspire gossip about their relationship; Kotek, in turn, refused to give the premiere. Tchaikovsky and Kotek’s relationship would never recover after the fallout (although Tchaikovsky did visit his friend at his deathbed several years later when he fell ill with tuberculosis at only 29 years old).
     Next in line to premiere the concerto was Leopold Auer, but he also refused, feeling that some of the solo violin passages needed revision. Auer, in fact, took this task upon himself and would teach his edited version to his students.
     Tchaikovsky’s one and only Violin Concerto was premiered, finally, by Adolph Brodsky at the end of 1881. Although it received mixed reviews (the influential music critic Eduard Hanslick famously claimed that the concerto proved “music can exist which stinks to the ear”), Brodsky continued to champion it and the concerto has become one of the most important and beloved in the violin repertoire. 

LISTEN FOR

• The violin’s main theme in the first movement and its later reappearance in the orchestra as a grandiose hero statement—considered one of the most satisfying “arrivals” in all of orchestral music

• The chorale-like introduction in the woodwinds followed by a simple, song-like melody in the violin (Canzonetta means “little song” in Italian)

• The dance-like theme in the finale played on the violin’s lowest string, the G-string, giving it a deep and earthy sound

INSTRUMENTATION

Solo violin; two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, timpani, strings