The Story Behind Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto

Tchaikovsky had seized upon the idea of composing a concerto for violin after hearing others he liked, particularly the energetic, five-movement Symphonie espagnole (a violin concerto in all but name) by the French composer Edouard Lalo. He worked intensively on the project, and at first, its progress seemed smooth. He chose the great violinist Leopold Auer as the concerto’s dedicatee and to play the premiere, and planned to convey the completed manuscript to the virtuoso via their mutual student, Josif Kotek. “How lovingly [Kotek] busies himself with my concerto,” Tchaikovsky told his brother Anatoly while composing it. “…He plays it marvelously.”

Because of his agonized confusion over his own sexual identity, Tchaikovsky’s ardent admiration of Kotek has been the subject of scholarly speculation, and we can only imagine the composer’s distress when the young Kotek refused the manuscript outright. The fault was probably Leopold Auer’s: Having seen the work in progress, Auer had expressed his misgivings with harshness, pronouncing the concerto “unplayable,” a judgment that Kotek would have been unwise to ignore.

Finding an alternate soloist for the concerto hardly lifted the cloud hanging over it. Reviewing the premiere performance in Vienna on December 4, 1881, Eduard Hanslick—the dean of the Viennese music critics and one of the era’s most influential tastemakers—lambasted it as “music that stinks to the ear,” one of the most infamous phrases in the annals of music history. With hindsight it’s easy to dismiss such invective, but it tormented Tchaikovsky, who reportedly re-read Hanslick’s review until he had committed it to memory.

Hanslick’s outburst is all the more shocking in light of the characteristically singing melodies in which this concerto abounds. Its first movement, an allegro moderato in D major, is all graceful lyricism—seemingly an affectionate description of the scenic charms of Clarens, the Swiss resort town where it was composed. But its virtuosity and vigor seem to delineate the existential questions that are always present and passionately articulated in Tchaikovsky’s major works, especially in the symphonies. This emotional intensity reaches a climax in the buildup to the first cadenza.

The second movement, a serenely mournful andante cantabile, contrasts markedly with the first; the violin’s entry is melancholy, and it voices a singing lament that eventually gives way to a happier pastoral melody, like a song of spring. Both moods shadow each other for the duration of the movement, as we alternate between brighter and darker soundscapes.

The concerto’s final movement follows the second without pause. It is extravagantly marked allegro vivacissimo and returns to the opening movement’s D major key, recapturing its exuberant energy. This movement also incorporates an energetic Russian dance (Hanslick’s “whiff of vodka”?) that leaps off the page as the violinist’s bow dances along with it. A nostalgic second theme provides an emotional counterpoint to the movement’s higher-energy passages, but it is finally eclipsed by a passionate, exuberant finale.

Experience it with Guest Conductor Matthew Halls, violinist Paul Huang, and Pacific Symphony, Jan. 11-13 at 8 p.m. at the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall in Costa Mesa. The evening concert is complete with music by Sibelius and Vaughan Williams. Huang plays on the legendary 1742 “ex-Wieniawski” Guarneri del Gesù on extended loan through the Stradivari Society of Chicago. See video below for more.

To learn more about the concert and get tickets, please click here.

Michael Clive is a cultural reporter living in the Litchfield Hills of Connecticut. He is program annotator for Pacific Symphony and Louisiana Philharmonic, editor-in-chief for The Santa Fe Opera and editor of OperaHound.com.