Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto; Sérénade mélancolique

This is a digital recording, released on Deutsche Grammophon in 1983, and originally released in 1980.

## Details

Peter Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)

**Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D major, op. 35**

1. Allegro moderato - 17:46
2. Canzonetta. Andante - attacca: - 5:44
3. Finale. Allegro vivacissimo - 9:53
4. **Sérénade mélancolique in B flat minor op. 26** - Andante - 8:17

Total length: 41 minutes

* Violinist: Gidon Kremer
* Orchestra: Berliner Philharmoniker
* Conductor: Lorin Maazel

Recorded: Berlin, Germany, 12/1979

Catalogue Numbers:

* CD: 400 027-2
* LP: 2532 001
* Cassette: 3302 001

## Liner Notes

In 1875 Tchaikovsky met the young violinist Leopold Auer, and was immediately asked for a piece of music. Responding with enthusiasm, he wrote the *Sérénade mélancolique*, though the first performance the following January was given by Adolf Brodsky. It is not only Tchaikovsky's first piece for violin and orchestra, but a beautiful and characteristic piece whose neglect is due chiefly to the difficulty of fitting such works into the normal concert programme. The melancholy is, rather, wistful, reflective, with the soaring, eloquent violin set in contrast with the some charming orchestral textures (making prominent use of the horn, in whose tone Tchaikovsky finds a complement to the violin).

Abandoning his disastrous marriage in 1877, Tchaikovsky fled to Switzerland; and here he was visited by Yosif Kotek, the young violinist for whom he had written a *Valse-Scherzo* for soloist and orchestra. They played a good deal of music together, and soon Tchaikovsky was sketching out plans for a concerto. Work went smoothly; on 1 April 1878 he played through the first movement with Kotek to his brother Modest. Both of them were delighted. However, when the slow movement came, the two were less enthusiastic, and agreeing with them, Tchaikovsky discarded the piece. It became one of the three "Souvenirs d'un lieu cher" (op. 42), written for his patroness Nadezhda von Meck.

Having completed the concerto with a new Andante and a rondo finale, Tchaikovsky showed it to Auer, who, to his dismay, said it was impossible. "This verdict", Tchaikovsky mourned in his diary, "coming from such an authority as the St. Petersburg virtuoso, had the effect of casting this unfortunate child of my imagination for many years into the limbo of hopelessly forgotten things." Kotek also decided against playing it, and for two years the work languished until once more Brodsky came to the rescue and played it in a performance, with Hans Richter conducting, at a Vienna Philharmonic concert on 4 December 1881. The audience reacted violently, demonstrating for Brodsky and against the work; and Hanslick solemnly declared in his review that the piece demonstrated that music could actually give off a bad smell.

According to his habit of the B flat minor Piano Concerto and several of the symphonies, Tchaikovsky begins with a slow introduction. It has little thematic connection with the main part of the work: as with the Piano Concerto, the passage is best seen not under the microscope of thematic analysis but as a general preliminary statement about the character of the solo instrument as the concerto will explore it - in this case, lyrical, graceful and lively.

It is, then, a lyrical manner which is proposed by the two themes of the main part of the first movement; the instrument's virtuoso side tends to be reserved for the bridge passages and for some elegant and elaborate decoration of the themes. This enables the cadenza (which is composed out in full) to be an enhancement of the two themes rather than merely an occasion for display. The dramatic climaxes are reserved for the orchestra alone; and Tchaikovsky skilfully contrives a dramatic balance between solo and orchestra, alternating them ingeniously and scoring in a manner that allows the voice of the violin to remain at the front of the music.

The gentle side of the instrument is further emphasized by the new slow movement, a so-called Canzonetta, that is much subtler and more thoughtful than the piece it replaced. The key is G minor; at the end, the music turns back towards the concerto's basic tonality of D major; and then, softly and unobtrusively, Tchaikovsky begins to prepare the way for the main theme of the finale. When this bursts in, it turns out to be a wild dance, very Russian in flavour and closely related to folk music. It even produces a second theme that has a Russian village atmosphere, with droning bagpipe fifths and a plodding bassoon, while the violin continues with a theme also related to folk music but still lyrical in feeling. For all the excitement and the high spirits of this music, suggesting as it does that the experience of his marriage was rapidly receding into emotional perspective, it is still not merely to empty high spirits but to the lyrical element - and for Tchaikovsky, the "lyrical idea" was the heart of music - that the movement is essentially given over.

*John Warrack*

## Links

For the playlist of the album, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7e0pPwIYyOo&list=OLAK5uy\_nTc-WKZ3z9XPlMdetDFW8zMmCvWNEoxCQ

For more details on the album, click here: https://www.deutschegrammophon.com/en/catalogue/products/tchaikovsky-violin-concerto-kremer-maazel-9190

For the official Deutsche Grammophon website, click here: https://www.deutschegrammophon.com/en