Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Concerto for Violin & Orchestra in D Major, Op. 35

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born in Votkinsk, Russia, in 1840 and died in St. Petersburg in 1893. He composed his Violin Concerto in 1878, and it was first performed in 1881 by violinist Adolf Brodsky with the Vienna Philharmonic, Hans Richter conducting. The concerto is scored for solo violin, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, and strings.

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These days, Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto keeps company with those by Beethoven and Brahms, though it isn’t really “monumental” in the sense that those works are. Instead, it is full of passion, sentiment, and a wealth of wonderful tunes.

But when the concerto was new it was not well-received in all quarters. Leopold Auer, the intended soloist, looked it over and declared it “unplayable.” Even Mme. von Meck, Tchaikovsky’s patron and indefatigable supporter, disliked it. And when it was finally premiered (with a different soloist) the critics panned it, too. One now-infamous review said: “The violin is no longer played: it is yanked about, it is torn asunder, it is beaten black and blue.” The slow movement brought some relief, but in the Finale “we see wild and vulgar faces, we hear curses, we smell the vodka . . . it stinks in the ear.” Tchaikovsky carried that review around with him for months afterward.

For his part, Auer spent his entire life backtracking from his initial opinion; he eventually became the concerto’s champion and taught it to his students, albeit with his own revisions to the solo part. Given the critical reception, the concerto didn’t flourish in the repertory until after Tchaikovsky’s death. Since then it has become indispensable.

Tchaikovsky said that the plan for the first movement “sprang suddenly in my head and quickly ran into its mold.” That plan might have been titled “lyricism,” so endlessly songful is this music. The violin gives the first theme—no long orchestral introductions here—and the closely related second. Tchaikovsky himself composed the devilishly difficult cadenza; listen for how he has the orchestra sneak in before it is finished.

The very short Canzonetta that follows is an aria that mines the rich sounds of the muted violin’s lower registers. As it fades away it leads without pause to the Finale. After a brief orchestral flurry, the violin plays a cadenza that launches the fleet, dance-like first theme. There’s a flavor of folk music to the occasional drone accompaniments and the Gypsy-like moments in the violin. Mostly, though, we remember the impetuous drive of the entire movement.

Tchaikovsky didn’t set out to create a “monument” when he composed his Violin Concerto. Instead, he did what he did best: he filled it with fiery passion, unexpected turns, and endless lyricism.

– Mark Rohr

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Johannes Brahms

Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68

Johannes Brahms was born in Hamburg in 1833 and died in Vienna in 1897. Sketches for this work date back as far as 1862, but Brahms did most of the composing between 1874 and 1876. The first performance took place at Karlsruhe, Baden in 1876 under the direction of Otto Dessoff. The symphony calls for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, and strings.

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“I shall never compose a symphony! You have no conception of how the likes of us feel when we hear the tramp of a giant like him behind us.” So said Brahms to his friend, conductor Hermann Levi; the “giant,” of course, was Beethoven.

Everyone wondered how Brahms could have reached his early forties without writing a symphony. After all, at the same age Beethoven had completed eight of his nine, Haydn half a hundred. When Brahms was only 21 his friend Robert Schumann wrote, “But where is Johannes? Is he flying high or only under the flowers? Is he not yet ready to let drums and trumpets sound? The beginning is the main thing; if only one makes the beginning, then the end comes of itself.”

Brahms did, in fact, make beginnings, but the ends didn’t quite come of themselves. After hearing Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony Brahms was inspired to compose a symphony in the same key of D-minor. He completed three movements before he abandoned the project. The music he produced was good—two of the movements were used later in the D-minor Piano Concerto and one found its way into Ein Deutsches Requiem—but apparently not good enough. “Composing a symphony is no laughing matter,” said Brahms, no doubt hearing the giant’s footsteps behind him.

Brahms knew that his First Symphony would be seen as an artistic manifesto in an age when such things were taken very seriously. Many romantic composers looked upon Beethoven as the Great Liberator, the one who opened the doors to unbridled romanticism. Brahms, on the other hand, was predisposed to believe that much of the strength of Beethoven’s romanticism came largely from his classicism, that the dramatic outbursts were all the more powerful because of the surrounding context of discipline. For Brahms, the heart and mind had to counterbalance each other.

Critical reaction to the First Symphony was mixed. The champions of unfettered romanticism took the symphony as a rebuke to their aesthetic and treated it as such; the fans of Brahms’ style, on the other hand, called it “Beethoven’s Tenth.” Those with greater insight delighted in how Brahms’ passion—as refined by his intellect—led to a work whose impact was greater than either.

Today the First Symphony is a monument familiar to all. There is the pulsing introduction to the turbulent first movement; the melancholy second; the graceful, tune-laden third; and the transcendent Finale, with its startling transformation of a reverent trombone chorale into a bold consummation—all are remembered, yet each encounter with the symphony is a renewal.

The comparisons to Beethoven were inevitable, then as now. In a way, both men approached the same destination from opposite directions: Beethoven had pushed outward on the boundaries of classicism, while Brahms applied discipline to the unrestrained romanticism of his age. Brahms waited to issue his First Symphony until he was a master of his craft, not only able to withstand the comparison but one whose own footsteps would ring in the ears of those who followed.

– Mark Rohr

Mark Rohr was the Portland Symphony Orchestra’s Bass Trombonist from the mid-1980’s and program annotator from 1991 until his passing in 2019. We are privileged to continue publishing his program notes at his bequest.