Violin Concerto (Tchaikovsky)

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The Violin Concerto in D major Op. 35 is the only violin concerto by the Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky . It is one of the most famous and most frequently performed violin concertos.

Emergence

Tchaikovsky wrote the concert in March and April of 1878 in Clarens , a wine-growing town on Lake Geneva . There Tchaikovsky recovered from depression and a severe nervous breakdown caused by his unhappy marriage to conservatory student Antonina Miljukova and his repressed homosexuality. The positive effect of his stay was reflected in the concert, in which newly won joie de vivre manifested itself.

Tchaikovsky, who was not a practicing violinist himself, was supported by the violinist Josef Kotek , Tchaikovsky's former student of composition. The compositional work was completed after three weeks, although Tchaikovsky replaced the originally planned middle movement with the Andante known as “Canzonetta”. The originally planned middle movement later became the Méditation for piano and violin op.42 .

premiere

Tchaikovsky initially envisaged Leopold Auer as the soloist . However, he did not consider some passages of the solo part to be technically ideal and consequently declined because the parts had already been printed. He later made some changes and shortened orchestral passages, especially in the third movement. In this form he passed the concert on to many of his students, such as Jascha Heifetz . The first performance of the work in the version for violin and piano by Leopold Damrosch may have taken place in New York in 1879. It was not until two years later that the orchestral version was performed in Europe or premiered on December 4, 1881 by Adolph Brodsky , who was able to convince Hans Richter and his Vienna Philharmonic of the quality of the work. Brodsky also played a critically acclaimed concert in London on May 8, 1882 and the Russian premiere in Moscow on August 20, 1882, paving the way for the concert to achieve worldwide fame.

construction

The line-up consists of 2 flutes , 2 oboes , 2 clarinets , 2 bassoons , 4 horns , 2 trumpets , timpani , string instruments and a solo violin .

  1. Allegro moderato
  2. Canzonetta. Andante
  3. Final. Allegro vivacissimo

First sentence

The first sentence surprised by the fact that the cadence already the implementation follows and not, as previously usual, the reprise . Another special feature is that the introductory orchestral melody - as in Tchaikovsky's B flat minor piano concerto - does not recur in the entire work.

Second sentence

His patron and pen friend Nadezhda von Meck wrote to him about the second movement, which is characterized by the melancholy playing of the violin : »The canzonetta is downright wonderful. How much poetry, what longing and deep sadness in these sons voilés , the mysterious tones! «

Third sentence

The attacca subito of the third movement suddenly interrupts the melancholy of the previous movement and leads to the two lively main themes of the final movement. - listen ? / iAudio file / audio sample

effect

The concert reminded the influential music critic Eduard Hanslick of "the brutal and sad merriment of a Russian church festival" as well as of "nothing but desolate and mean faces" and "raw curses"; He said of the work that it "gave us the horrible idea whether there might not also be pieces of music that one could hear stinking." Other music critics also reacted negatively to the work. Critics were similarly negative about Tchaikovsky's 1st Piano Concerto, composed four years earlier, and later largely revised their opinion. Tchaikovsky reacted calmly to the criticism and was convinced that the concert would prevail. To this day it is one of the most famous, most performed and most played violin concertos in the world.

Discography

Movie

literature

  • Richard Clarke (Ed.): Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in D major Op. 35 . Edition Eulenburg No. 708, London 2010

Web links

Commons : Violin Concerto in D Major  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Edward Garden: Tchaikovsky . Insel-Verlag, Frankfurt 1998, p. 148
  2. ↑ en.tchaikovsky-research.net
  3. ^ Constantin Floros: Peter Tschaikowsky . Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, Hamburg 2006, ISBN 978-3-499-50668-0 , p. 131
  4. ^ Letter of May 17, 1878, engl. Translation in: Pyotr Tchaikovsky and Nadeschda von Meck: To My Best Friend. Correspondence between Tchaikovsky and Nadezhda von Meck, 1876-1878 . Ed .: Edward Garden, Nigel Gotteri. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1993, pp. 267 .