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Tchaikovsky's Great Unsung Piano Concerto No. 2

5/23/2015

4 Comments

 
PictureTchaikovsky's piano at Klin
 Piano Concerto No. 2 in G major, Opus 44
If you are fortunate enough to circulate among people who discuss pianists, there are times you might hear someone say "She/he will perform the Tchaikovsky," or "Yes, I heard him/her play the Tchaikovsky." And what they will mean by "the Tchaikovsky" is the Piano Concerto No. 1, famous and ubiquitous and more than deserving of its fame and popularity.

But there are three concertos, not to mention the delightful Concert Fantasia. The second was Tchaikovsky's favorite however, and a work that he considered to be among his best, in spite of the angst it gave him later. He undertook its composition in 1879, at a time when he found himself at his sister's home in Kamenka with no pressing  obligations and consequently feeling rather spiritless. At that time he wrote to his brother Modest complaining that he was experiencing 

a certain vague dissatisfaction with myself, an over-frequent and almost irresistible desire to sleep, a certain emptiness, and finally boredom. There were times when I didn't know what to do with myself. Finally yesterday it became fully apparent to me what was the matter. I had to get on with something: I find myself absolutely incapable of living long without work. Today I began to create something and the boredom vanished as if by magic.
That "something" was his second Piano Concerto. "I am very pleased with it, especially with the second movement, the Andante," Tchaikovsky later wrote to Nadezhda von Meck while in Paris. And although the Andante became a source of some of the trouble mentioned above, it's also one of Tchaikovsky's most achingly lyrical inspirations. More about it later.
Even in his Piano Concerto No. 1, we can see a bold freshness of vision in comparison to concertos that had come before, particularly in Russia, but that originality in invention becomes even more apparent with the second. Of his second concerto, there were complaints about the length and the difficulty when it was first written, and even now as it appears in the original score. It takes about 40-45 minutes to do it justice. (But when is it a sin to take as long to say something as it is essential to say it?) There are three movements: I. Allegro Brillante, II. Andante non troppo, and III. Allegro con fuoco. The first movement is indeed brilliant, lustrous and sparkling and energetic, and it takes approximately 20 minutes in performance. The second movement, the Andante, is around 15 minutes long, and the glittering third movement takes about 7 fiery minutes to perform. Pure Tchaikovsky, for people who like that sort of thing. 
PictureThe Piano at Tchaikovsky's home in Klin - Now the Tchaikovsky Museum
The work has its critics ─ but many of these detractors view Tchaikovsky askew, through a teutonic/european bias; and who, for whatever reason, seem to be incapable of seeing him as on a pioneering independent musical path, and his work was indeed, for his place and time, quietly revolutionary. 

In almost every instance and in almost every genre, Tchaikovsky staked out his own grounds for creating a work and did it on his own terms. His first symphony, Winter Daydreams, wrenched the european model out of what-was-to-be-expected-in-a-symphony into a new Russian symphonic language. Tchaikovsky could easily have written a cello concerto in its "accepted" more academic form, but he hewed to his own vision and created Variations on a Rococo Theme, without doubt a fresh take, scattering expectations, and making it new. And he not only changed the world of ballet music, he transmogrified it. His second piano concerto is in the same mold.

PictureAleksandr Ziloti
It is that second movement, the Andante non troppo, the one Tchaikovsky was especially pleased with, that has interfered with the piece taking its rightful place in the concerto repertoire. The arguments over the length and shape of the work took its toll from Tchaikovsky's friends, contemporaries and colleagues. Reluctantly, Tchaikovsky agreed to some cuts here and there, but the unkindest cut of all came from Aleksandr Ziloti (Tchaikovsky's friend, a pianist as well as a conductor), who not only performed the piece with unconscionable cuts and transpositions, it was his butchered version that made its way into the concert hall and, unfortunately, the version that made its way into publication following Tchaikovsky's death. The concerto was not published in the original version as Tchaikovsky intended until 1955. (Ziloti also made cuts and revisions to the Piano Concerto No. 1 as well ─ but more about that another time.)

One of the most egregious cuts was the evisceration of the "trio" section to the Andante at the beginning of the second movement. The original version, which is often called the "trio" movement, is one of Tchaikovsky's most beautiful inventions. Following a short orchestral prelude, a single violin introduces an achingly mournful and melancholy melody, shortly joined by a single cello further unfurling the melody, and only then does the piano join them and the orchestra, and for a time this piano concerto becomes nothing less than a triple concerto. A courageous (and unorthodox) invention on the part of Tchaikovsky, and another mark of his musical genius. The judgment of history is that Tchaikovsky was correct in his original vision ─ and Ziloti has been proven wrong.

PictureIgor Zhukov
Concertos have been and continue to be a showcase for a virtuoso. Here, in the Andante, Tchaikovsky defies the common expectation and in service to the music rather than to the soloist, creates one of the most moving sections to ever appear in a piano concerto. The two blazing, passionate, and pyro-technical outermost movements embrace an extraordinarily lyrical, warm, and tender heart. When the work is performed now, fortunately, it is most often heard in Tchaikovsky's original and uncut form, but for too many years it suffered from Ziloti's interference. 

(One of the finest interpretations of the original Andante is with Igor Zhukov, pianist; Mikhail Tcherniakhovsky, violin; and Viktor Simon, cello with Gennady Rozhedestvensky conducting the USSR RTV Large Symphony Orchestra*.) 

Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 2 has been overlooked, underperformed, and a sad victim of musical meddling. It is by every measure a monumental work, and is every bit as deserving of attention as his more famous First. If more orchestras and soloists can be persuaded to bring this concerto to the fore, perhaps someday those conversations among music lovers will have to differentiate, favorably, and no one will be able again to say, "We went to hear the Tchaikovsky" without needing to clarify their statement because Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 2 will have taken its rightful place among the greatest works ever written for Piano and Orchestra. 


*This movement is from a vinyl recording, to hear the remastered version of the complete piano concerto, click here.
4 Comments
Simon Jean-Jacques
8/14/2015 06:01:22 pm

Je partage ce point de vue depuis que j'ai acquis tout jeune l'enregistrement Melodiya distribué en France par EMI (Igor Joukov - Guennadi Rojdestvenski). Il faut avouer que je n'ai jamais depuis entendu de meilleure version. Celle de Gilels distribuée à l'époque laisse à désirer, ne serait-ce que parce qu'elle choisit l'andante tronqué. Et, pour le coup, l'élève passe le maître.
Le commentaire de l'enregistrement produit en France a tout de suite suscité en moi la controverse. Elle émane pourtant du spécialiste tchaikovskien francais de l'époque !
1) Il affirme que le concerto n°2 est moins brillant que le 1er. J'ai ressenti le contraire dès la première audition.
2) Il colporte l'idée que le compositeur était un "médiocre" pianiste. Affirmation contestée par les contemporains de Tchaikovski.
Quand je songe que j'ai acheté la biographie de ce monsieur où j'ai lu avec effarement sa condescendance pour l'homosexualité de l'illustre maître, masquant une répulsion encore affichée dans les années soixante chez nous.

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Balancement link
8/17/2015 07:11:00 am

Thank you for your comment. Igor Zhukov (Juokov) was my introduction to the Piano Concerto No. 2 as well--first on vinyl and then on the CDs from EMI. I had the pleasure of meeting him in person once as well. I traveled to Madison, Wisconsin, to hear him play Chopin and Scriabin and spent the day with him, followed by an after-party. He was a marvelous, kind, and friendly man--and as we know, a magnificent, magnificent pianist!

As I said above, I don't understand how anyone can fault the original version of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 2. It is a glorious work in the right hands, as Zhukov shows--and as Stephen Hough has shown as well in his recent recording.

Tchaikovsky was a fine pianist--perhaps not a Liszt or a Rubenstein, but he knew his way around the piano and most of all, he knew what he was doing.

The "critics" often get it wrong about Tchaikovsky--or certainly have in the past (and I intend to write about that soon). We can look at the critics with their misguided and often outdated prejudices, or we can trust our own ears.

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Daniel Glover
4/9/2018 01:10:15 am

Thanks for this terrific article. I would add that anyone who is interested in a note by note comparison of Tchaikovsky’s original version and the Siloti version, as published by Jurgenson, can do so by purchasing the Dover edition for two pianos. I served as the editor for this project and have had the great pleasure of performing the piece many times in both versions. I concur that the original is superior to Siloti’s, with the caveat that some rewritten passages sound better and are less difficult. I’m not referring to cuts, but the piano writing. I believe Tchaikovsky would have approved of the revised piano writing and strongly rejected the slow movement cuts. He did authorize two cuts in the first and second movements between the first and second performances during his lifetime. I find it remarkable that both the first and second concertos were premiered in the United States!

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Bianca link
12/17/2020 06:48:07 pm

Nice blog thankks for posting

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