Program Notes for Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D Major, op. 35

All program notes for the IVSO, unless otherwise noted, are written by Larry Ault, IVSO librarian and orchestra timpanist.

Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Violin Concerto in D Major, op. 35

Portrait of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Born: May 7, 1840, Votkinsk, Russia • Died: November 6, 1893, St. Petersburg

Early January 1878 found Tchaikovsky in San Remo, Italy, where he completed his Fourth Symphony. Traveling to Italy with his brother Modest and Modest’s student Nikolay Kondrati, the excursion was an attempt to escape a nearly fatal and ill-considered marriage to a former pupil, Antonina Milyukova, in July 1877. But because of distractions [in Italy], Tchaikovsky took up residence in the Villa Richelieu at Clarens, Switzerland. Returning to Florence [Italy?] and then back to Clarens in mid-March, he completed his opera Eugene Onegin, a score he sent to Moscow, declaring that “it has no future.”

He then began reading through a great deal of music with the violinist Iosif Kotek (1855–1885), a gifted young violinist whom Madame von Meck, Tchaikovsky’s patron, had hired to play chamber music with her in her home, on the recommendation of Rubinstein, and who had studied composition with Tchaikovsky at the Moscow Conservatory. One of the pieces they played was Eduard Lalo’s violin concerto Symphonie Espagñol. Inspired by this piece, Tchaikovsky began sketches for a violin concerto on March 17, 1878. By April 11, the concerto was complete, and Kotek was selected to give the first performance. The second movement displeased both the composer and the soloist, so a previous tune, the Canzonetta, was substituted. However, having mastered the first movement, Kotek lost interest in the concerto. It was decided that Leopold Auer would premiere the new work, but Auer considered the concerto too difficult.

Finally, Adolf Brodsky premiered it with the Vienna Philharmonic on December 4, 1881. By the middle of 1882 the concerto was heard in Moscow for the first time, and it was a successful performance. Leopold Auer eventually championed the concerto and performed it often. Auer subsequently introduced it to his illustrious students Jasha Heifetz and Mischa Elman. The concerto utilizes the violinist’s considerable technical capabilities during the transitions and decoration of the various themes. According to John Warrack, annotator for the BBC Symphony programs, “the violinists who have succeeded best with it are those who treated it as fundamentally a lyrical and not a virtuoso work.”

Instrumentation: two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, and strings. Duration is 30 minutes.