Program Notes
PETER ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-1893)
VIOLIN CONCERTO IN D MAJOR, Op. 35
Duration: ca. 33 minutes
“Surcharged emotionalism” is how the New York
Times pinned down Tchaikovsky, a “weeping
machine” who spun melody as easily as others
breathe air. The most popular of the Russian
composers, Tchaikovsky’s last three symphonies,
Nutcracker and Swan Lake ballets, concertos, Romeo
and Juliet Fantasy Overture and 1812 Overture have
all been box office hits for more than a century. He
ranks second only to Beethoven on the playbills
of American orchestras. Play him, and people will
come.
It’s a cliché to tag Tchaikovsky as a bleeding-heart
whose music reflects a life of paradox and angst.
Rather, his best creations are marvels of musical
architecture, color and dramatic tension. He
created a sui generis world of beauty that requires
no analytical homework to enjoy. Above all, he
could craft a tune you can whistle leaving the
concert hall.
Of Tchaikovsky’s five concertos, two are evergreen:
the First Piano Concerto and the Violin Concerto.
Written and orchestrated in less than a month
in 1877, the Violin Concerto was intended for the
virtuoso Leopold Auer, who read through the solo
parts and deemed it unplayable. (As a historical
note, the concerto’s most ardent champion in the
early 20th century was Jascha Heifetz -- a student of
Auer. The definitive recording, many critics agree,
is Heifetz’s 1937 performance with the London
Philharmonic.)
Instead, the first performance wound up in the
hands of an inexperienced violinist, and things
didn’t go well during the 1881 premiere with the
Vienna Philharmonic. In his review, the partisan
critic Eduard Hanslick drew blood: “The violin is no
THE FLORIDA OR 64 CHESTRA | 2018-2019
longer played; it is yanked about, it is torn asunder,
it is beaten black and blue.’’ This is music, he said,
that “stinks to the ear.”
The overly sensitive Tchaikovsky would never
forget those words, but took comfort in the praise
following performances throughout Europe. Today,
Hanslick’s invective is a footnote for a concerto that
stands alongside those of Beethoven, Mendelssohn,
Brahms, Bruch and Sibelius.
Like the First Piano Concerto, this is music rich in
melodrama, and it wastes no time introducing an
extroverted tune. The first-movement cadenza is a
nail-biter that demands focus and technical security
from the soloist. Performers who have mastered
the work love the challenge of its finger-breaking
double stops, piercing harmonics, compressed
vibrato and a dynamic range that seems impossible
coming from a little wooden fiddle.
The middle movement, a canzonetta, unfolds like an
aria from an opera and requires a Mozart-like grace
from both violinist and orchestra. The marking for
the finale — allegro vivacissimo — is true to the
letter, sending the violin scampering ahead of the
orchestra as everyone meets head-on in a rousing
climax.
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH (1906-1975)
Symphony No. 5 in D Minor
Duration: ca. 44 minutes
Imagine our president storming out of an opera
and denouncing the music as anti-American,
then demanding an apology from the composer.
Ridiculous? Well, it happened to Shostakovich in
1936 after a performance of his opera Lady Macbeth
of Mtsensk, and served as a warning to Soviet artists.
The opera had enjoyed hundreds of performances
in Russia and Europe since its premiere two years
earlier, but on this night, someone special was in