Piano Concerto No. 3 (Tchaikovsky) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...

's Piano Concerto No. 3 in E-flat major, Op. post.

Opus number

An Opus number , pl. opera and opuses, abbreviated, sing. Op. and pl. Opp. refers to a number generally assigned by composers to an individual composition or set of compositions on publication, to help identify their works...

75, was begun as a symphony in E flat

Symphony in E flat (Tchaikovsky)

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Symphony in E flat, Op. posth., was commenced after the Symphony No. 5, and was intended initially to be the composer's next symphony. Tchaikovsky abandoned this work in 1892, only to reuse much of it in the Third Piano Concerto and Andante and Finale for piano and...

. The symphony was abandoned, only to become a single-movement Allegro brillante when published posthumously. Controversy remains, despite the composer's stated intentions, as to what form this concerto would have taken had Tchaikovsky completed it to his satisfaction. This question is further heightened by two points—the musical quality of what might have been intended as the second and third movements of the concerto and whether this material was worth the efforts of his former student and fellow-composer Sergey Taneyev in resurrecting it after Tchaikovsky's death. These two movements were published as a separate but related composition as Op. post. 79 under the title Andante and Finale.

Most pianists who have performed this work have played the single-movement Allegro brilliante. More recently, it has been played together with the Andante and Finale as a three-movement concerto. The single-movement version also served as the basis for the ballet Allegro Brillante, as imagined and choreographed by George Balanchine

George Balanchine

George Balanchine , born Giorgi Balanchivadze in Saint Petersburg, Russia, to a Georgian father and a Russian mother, was one of the 20th century's most famous choreographers, a developer of ballet in the United States, co-founder and balletmaster of New York City Ballet...

in 1956 for the New York City Ballet

New York City Ballet

New York City Ballet is a ballet company founded in 1948 by choreographer George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein. Leon Barzin was the company's first music director. Balanchine and Jerome Robbins are considered the founding choreographers of the company...

.

In the 1950s, Russian musicologist and composer Semyon Bogatyrev used the sketches for the Third Piano Concerto, the Andante and Finale for piano and orchestra and a Scherzo from Tchaikovsky's Eighteen Pieces for Piano, Op. 72, to reconstruct Tchaikovsky's Symphony in E flat. This piece was subsequently published and recorded under the title "Symphony No. 7."

Structure

Three musical subjects are presented in the single-movement

Movement (music)

A movement is a self-contained part of a musical composition or musical form. While individual or selected movements from a composition are sometimes performed separately, a performance of the complete work requires all the movements to be performed in succession...

Allegro brillante, as is also the case with the opening movements of Tchaikovsky's previous two piano concertos. The opening theme is lively, the second more lyrical and the third akin to a vigorous folk dance. While the development section begins with piano and orchestra collaborating, the musical forces quickly become segregated. The orchestra is given a lengthy section to itself, while the piano completes the development with a cadenza

Cadenza

In music, a cadenza is, generically, an improvised or written-out ornamental passage played or sung by a soloist or soloists, usually in a "free" rhythmic style, and often allowing for virtuosic display....

. The structure of the recapitulation

Recapitulation (music)

In music theory, the recapitulation is one of the sections of a movement written in sonata form. The recapitulation occurs after the movement's development section, and typically presents once more the musical themes from the movement's exposition...

is regular, followed by a vigorous coda.

Instrumentation

The concerto is scored for piano solo; piccolo

Piccolo

The piccolo is a half-size flute, and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. The piccolo has the same fingerings as its larger sibling, the standard transverse flute, but the sound it produces is an octave higher than written...

; two flute

Flute

The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...

s; two oboe

Oboe

The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...

s; two clarinet

Clarinet

The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...

s; two bassoon

Bassoon

The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...

s; four horn

Horn (instrument)

The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player ....

s; two trumpet

Trumpet

The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...

s; three trombone

Trombone

The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...

s; tuba

Tuba

The tuba is the largest and lowest-pitched brass instrument. Sound is produced by vibrating or "buzzing" the lips into a large cupped mouthpiece. It is one of the most recent additions to the modern symphony orchestra, first appearing in the mid-19th century, when it largely replaced the...

; timpani

Timpani

Timpani, or kettledrums, are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum, they consist of a skin called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a timpani stick or timpani mallet...

and strings

String instrument

A string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones...

History

Tchaikovsky's first mention of using the sketches of his abandoned Symphony in E flat

Symphony in E flat (Tchaikovsky)

as the basis for a piano concerto came early in April 1893. He began work on July 5, completing the first movement eight days later. Though he worked quickly, Tchaikovsky did not find the job a pleasant one—a note on the manuscript reads, "The end, God be thanked!" He did not score this movement until autumn.

In June Tchaikovsky was in London to conduct a performance of his Fourth Symphony

Symphony No. 4 (Tchaikovsky)

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Op. 36, was written between 1877 and 1878. The symphony's first performance was at a Russian Musical Society concert in Saint Petersburg on February 10 /February 22 1878, with Nikolai Rubinstein as conductor.- Form :The symphony is in four...

. There he ran into his friend, the French pianist Louis Diémer

Louis Diémer

Louis-Joseph Diémer was a French pianist and composer.- Life :Diémer studied at the Paris Conservatoire, winning premiers prix in piano, harmony and accompaniment, counterpoint and fugue, and solfège, and a second prix in organ...

, whom he had met in Paris five years earlier during a festival of Tchaikovsky's chamber works. Diémer had performed Tchaikovsky's Concert Fantasia

Concert Fantasia (Tchaikovsky)

The Concert Fantasia in G, Op. 56, for piano and orchestra, was written by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky between June and October 1884. It was premiered in Moscow on , with Sergei Taneyev as soloist and Max Erdmannsdörfer conducting. The Concert Fantasia received many performances in the first 20 years...

, in a two-piano arrangement with the composer at the second piano. Diémer was one of the major French pianists of his time. Sometime during their reacquaintance, Tchaikovsky might have mentioned the concerto upon which he had been working. Regardless, he decided to dedicate the work to Diémer.
After finishing the Pathétique symphony

Symphony No. 6 (Tchaikovsky)

The Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74, Pathétique is Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's final completed symphony, written between February and the end of August 1893. The composer led the first performance in Saint Petersburg on 16/28 October of that year, nine days before his death...

, Tchaikovsky turned once again to the concerto, only to experience another wave of doubt. He confided to pianist Alexander Siloti

Alexander Siloti

Alexander Ilyich Siloti was a Russian pianist, conductor and composer. Alexander Ilyich Siloti (also Ziloti, , Aleksandr Iljič Ziloti) (9 October 1863, near Kharkiv - 8 December 1945, New York) was a Russian pianist, conductor and composer. Alexander Ilyich Siloti (also Ziloti, , Aleksandr Iljič...

, "As music it hasn’t come out badly—but it's pretty ungrateful." He wrote to Polish pianist and composer Sigismund Stojowski on October 6, 1893, "As I wrote to you, my new Symphony is finished. I am now working on the scoring of my new (third) concerto for our dear Diémer. When you see him, please tell him that when I proceeded to work on it, I realized that this concerto is of depressing and threatening length. Consequently I decided to leave only part one which in itself will constitute an entire concerto. The work will only improve the more since the last two parts were not worth very much."

The choice of a single-movement Allegro de concert or Concertstück would have been in line with French piano-and-orchestra works of the period such as Gabriel Fauré

Gabriel Fauré

Gabriel Urbain Fauré was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th century composers...

's Ballade, César Franck

César Franck

César-Auguste-Jean-Guillaume-Hubert Franck was a composer, pianist, organist, and music teacher who worked in Paris during his adult life....

's symphonic poem

Symphonic poem

A symphonic poem or tone poem is a piece of orchestral music in a single continuous section in which the content of a poem, a story or novel, a painting, a landscape or another source is illustrated or evoked. The term was first applied by Hungarian composer Franz Liszt to his 13 works in this vein...

Les Djinns and Symphonic Variations
Symphonic Variations (Franck)
The Symphonic Variations , M. 46, is a work for piano and orchestra, written in 1885 by César Franck. It has been described as "one of Franck's tightest and most finished works", "a superb blending of piano and orchestra", and "a flawless work and as near perfection as a human composer can hope to...

—several of these works premiered by Diémer. There was also a growing trend toward similar works by Russian composers. This included Mily Balakirev

Mily Balakirev

Mily Alexeyevich Balakirev ,Russia was still using old style dates in the 19th century, and information sources used in the article sometimes report dates as old style rather than new style. Dates in the article are taken verbatim from the source and therefore are in the same style as the source...

's First Piano Concerto, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov was a Russian composer, and a member of the group of composers known as The Five.The Five, also known as The Mighty Handful or The Mighty Coterie, refers to a circle of composers who met in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in the years 1856–1870: Mily Balakirev , César...

's sole foray into this genre, and currently lesser-known works as the Allegro de concert in A major by Felix Blumenfeld

Felix Blumenfeld

Felix Mikhailovich Blumenfeld was a Russian composer, conductor, pianist and teacher.He was born in Kovalevka, Kherson Governorate, Russian Empire , the son of Austrian Mikhail Frantsevich Blumenfeld and the Polish Marie Szymanowska, and studied composition at the St...

and the Fantasie russe in B minor by Eduard Nápravník

Eduard Nápravník

Eduard Francevič Nápravník was a Czech conductor and composer, who settled in Russia and is best known for his leading role in Russian musical life as the principal conductor of the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg for many decades...

. Tchaikovsky was especially fond of the Nápravník piece and even conducted it. Siloti and Taneyev also performed it.

Once Tchaikovsky finished scoring the Allegro brillante in October 1893, Tchaikovsky asked Taneyev to look it over. Taneyev, on whom Tchaikovsky relied for technical pianistic advice, found the solo part lacking in virtuosity

Virtuosity

Virtuosity is a 1995 techno-thriller film directed by Brett Leonard. The movie tells the story of a virtual villain's successful attempt to escape into the "real world". SID 6.7, the villain program portrayed by Russell Crowe, is eventually transplanted into an android body and escapes...

. Tchaikovsky had told Siloti that if Taneyev shared his low opinion of the concerto, he would destroy it. The composer did not carry out this threat, however. Tchaikovsky's brother Modest

Modest Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Modest Ilyich Tchaikovsky was a Russian dramatist, opera librettist and translator.-Early life:Modest Ilyich was born in Alapayevsk, the younger brother of the future composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. He graduated from the School of Jurisprudence with a degree in law...

assured Siloti that while Tchaikovsky in no way questioned Taneyev’s verdict, he also had promised the concerto to Diémer and wanted to show the score to him. In fact, on what would be his final visit to Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

in October 1893, Tchaikovsky showed the concerto once again to Taneyev and still intended to show the work to Diémer.

Less than a month later, Tchaikovsky was dead.

Taneyev gave the first performance of the concerto in Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

on January 7, 1895, conducted by Eduard Nápravník

Eduard Nápravník

Questions about the solo part

The piano part has sometimes been called skeletal, and though while difficult technically, it has been considered lacking in Tchaikovsky's characteristic boldness compared to those in the composer's other piano concertos. David Brown suggests this lack of boldness was due to the solo part being incorporated without any attempt to rewrite the musical material originally intended for the Symphony in E flat. Others have argued that the pianistic texture is often congenial to the keyboard and that the adaption on the whole is well done. They suggest that it is difficult to imagine at which points the piano part takes over material previously intended as part of the orchestral fabric and at which the soloist merely embroiders upon it.

Andante and Finale, Op. post. 79

Despite his stated intentions, Tchaikovsky had written "End of movement 1" on the last page of the Allegro brilliante that would be published by Jurgenson as the Third Piano Concerto. At the insistence of the composer's brother Modest, Taneyev began to study the unfinished sketches of the allegro and finale from the E flat symphony in November 1894. Tchaikovsky had begun to arrange these movements for piano and orchestra but they remained in sketch form. Both Taneyev and Modest questioned how they should be published—as two orchestral movements for a symphony or as a piece for piano and orchestra. After a letter from pianist Alexander Siloti

Alexander Siloti

to Modest in April 1895, he and Taneyev took the piano-and-orchestra route. The first performance took place on February 8, 1897 in St. Petersburg with Taneyev as soloist.

According to Tchaikovsky scholar and author John Warrack

John Warrack

John Warrack is an English music critic, writer on music, and oboist. He is the son of Scottish conductor and composer Guy Warrack. From 1954–1961 he was music critic for The Daily Telegraph, and from 1961–1972 he was music critic for The Sunday Telegraph. From 1978–1983 he served as the Artistic...

, accepting Opp. 75 and 79 as a complete concerto

Concerto

A concerto is a musical work usually composed in three parts or movements, in which one solo instrument is accompanied by an orchestra.The etymology is uncertain, but the word seems to have originated from the conjunction of the two Latin words...

within Tchaikovsky's intentions could be a misnomer. "[W]hat survives is a reconstruction in concerto form of some music Tchaikovsky was planning, not a genuine Tchaikovsky piano concerto". Music author Eric Blom

Eric Blom

Eric Walter Blom CBE was a Swiss-born British-naturalised music lexicographer, musicologist, music critic, music biographer and translator. He is best known as the editor of the 5th edition of Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians .-Biography:Blom was born in Berne, Switzerland...

adds, "It is true that even Taneyev did not know for certain whether Tchaikovsky, if he actually meant to turn out a three-movement concerto, would not have preferred to scrap the Andante and Finale altogether and to replace them by two entirely new movements; so if we decide that the finale at any rate is a poor piece of work, we must blame Taneyev for preserving it rather than Tchaikovsky for having conceived it. For we cannot even be sure how far the conception may have been carried out".

Warrack concludes, "The kindest response is to remember that Tchaikovsky himself abandoned it. Taneyev was being over-pious: much the best solution of the problem of what to do with the music is to perform the Third Concerto as Tchaikovsky left it, in one movement; it could with advantage be heard sometimes in concerts at which soloists wish to add something less than another full-scale concerto to the main work in their program".

"Symphony No. 7"

For the LP sleeve-note of the HMV / Melodya recording of Tchaikovsky's so-called "7th Symphony", which used all the material from the Piano Concerto No. 3 but with the solo part allocated to orchestral instruments, and on which the USSR Symphony Orchestra was conducted by Leo Ginzburg, John Warrack wrote that the Russian musicologist and composer Semyon Bogatyrev (1890–1960) "worked on the sketches contained in the composer's notebooks at the House-Museum at Klin, and out of these constructed a four-movement symphony on what seems to have been Tchaikovsky's original plan." Bogatyrev studied the notebooks, sketches, the piano concerto revisions, and Sergey Taneyev's reconstructions of the Andante and Finale, which form the second and third movements of the 3rd Piano Concerto in its complete form, and was able not only "to deduce a great deal of what Tchaikovsky seems originally to have intended for his symphony ... but was able to reconstruct a fair semblance of how he might have completed it."

It seems certain that Tchaikovsky had intended his new symphony to be in the usual four movements and Modest Tchaikovsky believed that in discarding the symphony in favour of a piano concerto, the composer turned the Scherzo into the tenth of his Eighteen Pieces for Piano, Op. 72. This view is bolstered by the same music existing in an orchestral sketch written at the same time, so in Bogatyrev's edition it duly took its place as the 7th Symphony's third movement. Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra gave the work its Western Premiere on 16 February 1962 and made a recording shortly afterwards for CBS.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.