Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35

Program notes

About the Work

Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto is now one of the best-loved of all concertos, but it was born in crisis and greeted with abuse. He wrote it with astonishing speed in the spring of 1878, by the shores of Lake Geneva at Clarens, where he had fled to recover from the catastrophe of his brief, disastrous marriage. He was helped and inspired by his former pupil, the violinist Iosif Kotek, and by the example of Lalo’s Symphonie espagnole, and the concerto poured out of him in less than a month, music of irrepressible melodic generosity and high spirits that gives no hint of the misery surrounding its composition.

Then came the setbacks. The great violinist Leopold Auer, to whom it was dedicated, declined to play it, judging passages unsuited to the instrument, and the premiere was delayed for years. When Adolph Brodsky finally gave it in Vienna in 1881, the feared critic Eduard Hanslick savaged it in print, sneering that it showed ‘music can exist which stinks to the ear,’ and that the violin was ‘not played but beaten black and blue.’ Tchaikovsky was deeply wounded. Posterity, of course, has utterly reversed the verdict: the concerto is a cornerstone of the repertoire, beloved for its soaring lyricism, its dazzling virtuosity, and its irresistible Russian dance energy.

What to Listen For

After a brief orchestral introduction, listen for the soloist’s entrance with the first movement’s great main theme, one of Tchaikovsky’s most singing, expansive melodies, which the violin then spins into ever more brilliant figuration. The movement is huge and generous, building to a formidable solo cadenza (written by Tchaikovsky himself) before a thrilling close.

The slow movement (Canzonetta) is a tender, slightly melancholy song, muted and intimate, framed by gentle woodwind, a moment of Slavic wistfulness. It leads without a break, via a sudden surge, straight into the finale: a wild, foot-stamping rondo on Russian dance themes, full of whirling energy and earthy high spirits (this is the movement Hanslick found vulgar; listen and judge for yourself!). Throughout, savour the combination Tchaikovsky balances so perfectly: heart-on-sleeve melody, glittering virtuosity, and the irrepressible pulse of Russian dance, driving to an exhilarating finish.