Before occupying its permanent niche in the repertory, Tschaikowsky’s
violin concerto had to run a fierce gantlet of fault-finding. Friend
and foe alike took pokes at it. The wonder is that it survived at all.
Even Mme. von Meck, Tschaikowsky’s patroness-saint, picked serious
flaws in the work, and the lady was known for her unwavering faith in
Tschaikowsky’s genius.
As a matter of fact, Tschaikowsky, often an unsparing critic of his
own music, started the trend by finding objection with the Andante
and rewriting it whole. That was in April, 1878. He was spending the
spring at Clarens, Switzerland. Joseph Kotek, a Russian violinist and
composer, was staying with him. Tschaikowsky and Kotek went over the
work several times, and evidently saw eye-to-eye on its merits.
Then came the first outside rebuff. Mme. von Meck was frankly
dissatisfied and showed why in detail. Tschaikowsky meekly wrote back
pleading guilty on some counts but advancing the hope that in time his
Lady Bountiful might come to like the concerto. He stood pat on the
first movement, which Mme. von Meck particularly assailed.
“Your frank judgment on my violin concerto pleased me very much,” he
writes. “It would have been very disagreeable to me if you, from any
fear of wounding the petty pride of a composer, had kept back your
opinion. However, I must defend a little the first movement of the
concerto.
“Of course, it houses, as does every piece that serves virtuoso
purposes, much that appeals chiefly to the mind; nevertheless, the
themes are not painfully evolved: the plan of this movement sprang
suddenly in my head and quickly ran into its mould. I shall not give up
the hope that in time the piece will give you greater pleasure.”
Next came a more serious setback from Leopold Auer, the widely
respected Petersburg virtuoso. Auer was then professor of violin at the
Imperial Conservatory and the Czar’s court violinist. Tschaikowsky,
hoping to induce Auer to launch the concerto on its career, originally
dedicated the work to him. But Auer glanced through the score and
promptly decided against it. It was “impossible to play.”
Tschaikowsky later made a quaintly worded entry in his diary to the
effect that Auer’s pronouncement cast “this unfortunate child of
my imagination for many years to come into the limbo of hopelessly
forgotten things.” Justly or unjustly, he even suspected Auer of having
prevailed on the violinist Emile Sauret to abstain from playing it in
St. Petersburg.
The ice finally broke when Adolf Brodsky, after two years of admitted
laziness and indecision, took it up and succeeded in performing it with
the Vienna Philharmonic on December 4, 1881. Yet, even Brodsky, despite
his wholehearted espousal of the work, complained to Tschaikowsky that
he had “crammed too many difficulties into it.” Previously, in Paris,
Brodsky had experimented with the concerto by playing it to Laroche,
who, whether because of Brodsky’s rendering or the concerto’s inherent
character, confessed “he could gain no true idea of the work.”
Even the première went against the new concerto. In the first place
Brodsky had to do some strong propagandizing to get Hans Richter to
include the work on a Philharmonic program. Then, only one rehearsal
was granted. The orchestral parts, according to Brodsky, “swarmed with
errors.” At the rehearsal nobody liked the new work. Besides, Richter
wanted to make cuts, but Brodsky promptly scotched the idea. Finally,
during the performance, the musicians, still far from having mastered
the music, accompanied everything pianissimo, “not to go smash.”
Of course, Brodsky outlines the chain of contretemps in a letter to
Tschaikowsky partly to assuage the composer’s pained feelings on
receiving news of the Vienna fiasco. For the première ended with a
broadside of hisses, completely obliterating the polite applause coming
from some friendly quarters. As the _coup de grâce_ Eduard Hanslick,
Europe’s uncrowned ruler of musical destinies, wrote a scathing notice,
which Philip Hale rendered as follows:
“For a while the concerto has proportion, is musical, and is not
without genius, but soon savagery gains the upper hand and lords it to
the end of the first movement.
“The violin is no longer played. It is yanked about. It is torn
asunder. It is beaten black and blue. I do not know whether it is
possible for any one to conquer these hair-raising difficulties, but I
do know that Mr. Brodsky martyrized his hearers as well as himself.
“The Adagio, with its tender national melody, almost conciliates,
almost wins us. But it breaks off abruptly to make way for a finale
that puts us in the midst of the brutal and wretched jollity of a
Russian kermess. We see wild and vulgar faces, we hear curses, we smell
bad brandy.
“Friedrich Vischer once asserted in reference to lascivious paintings
that there are pictures which ‘stink in the eye.’ Tschaikowsky’s violin
concerto brings to us for the first time the horrid idea that there may
be music that stinks in the ear.”
The pestiferous odors of the Hanslick blast further embittered
Tschaikowsky’s already gloomy disposition, and it is not surprising to
learn that the review haunted him till the day he died. But Brodsky’s
unflagging devotion to the concerto, together with his practical
missionary zeal in acquainting the European public with it, finally
started the concerto on its path of glory.
“Nor was that the end of time’s revenges,” wrote Pitts Sanborn.
“Hanslick was to write glowingly of the ‘Pathétique’ symphony, and
in due course Leopold Auer not only played the unplayable concerto
himself, but made a specialty of teaching it to his pupils, who have
carried its gospel the world over. But while the belated triumphs were
accruing Tschaikowsky died.”
The dedication is to Brodsky, who certainly earned it.
The first movement (_Allegro moderato_, D major, 4-4), opens with a
melody for strings and woodwind. Then the solo violin is heard in a
cadenza-like sequence followed by the first theme (_Moderato assai_). A
second theme, _Molto espressivo_, is next discoursed by the violin in A
major. Instead of the usual development there is an intricate cadenza
without accompaniment. A long and brilliant coda concludes the movement.
The second movement (_Canzonetta: Andante_, 3-4) starts with the
muted solo violin chanting, after a brief preface, a nostalgic theme
in G minor. The flute and clarinet then offer the first phrase of
this theme, and later the solo violin unreels a Chopinesque second
subject, in E-flat major, _con anima_. The clarinet offers an obbligato
of arpeggios when the first theme returns. The rousing finale is an
_Allegro vivacissimo_ in D major, 2-4.
The Rondo-like last movement, typically Russian in theme and rhythm,
develops from two folk-like melodies. Listeners will be reminded of
the well-known Russian dance, the Trepak, in this movement. The music
builds up at a brisk pace to a crashing climax.