Piano Concerto No. 3 (Tchaikovsky)

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Tchaikovsky in 1893, as painted by Nikolai Kuznetzov

Tchaikovsky's Third Piano Concerto proved one of the more troublesome of its composer's musical progeny. Birthed as a symphony, then discarded, it returned as a three-movement concerto, only to give no end of trouble to Tchaikovsky as he continued to work with it. The piece proved stubborn to the end. When published posthumously, it had become a single-movement Allegro brilliante, the only part of the piece Tchaikovsky had actually completed. The concerto's convoluted history mirrored its composer's struggle to express himself fully following the triumph of his Fifth Symphony. That quest was fulfilled, finally, with the Sixth Symphony, the Pathétique.

The E flat Symphony

"I literally cannot live without working," Tchaikovsky once wrote to the Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovitch, "For no sooner has some laboir been completed ... there appears a desire to begin at once on some new labor.... [U]nder such circumstances thie new labor is not always provoked by true creative necessity." By November 1889, Tchaikovsky's creative itch was becoming extreme. A year had passed since completing the Fifth Symphony, and eight months since writing another musical composition. Tchaikovsky confided to the Grand Duke that he had long aspired to crown his creative career with a grand symphony on some as yet undefined programme, but it was a further eighteen months before, evidently on his return voyage from America, he jotted down a few preliminary ideas for what might become such a piece. More important still was a programme he roughed out, possibly at the same time: “The ultimate essence ... of the symphony is Life. First part – all impulse, passion, confidence, thirst for activity. Must be short (the finale death – result of collapse). Second part love: third disappointments; fourth ends dying away (also short).”

During the following months, while at work on The Nutcracker and Iolanta, he continued to note down further materials, but when at last he began systematic work on the piece, many of these and earlier ideas were discarded; nor was the programme to be used. Others were drawn in, however, progress was rapid, and by June 8, 1890, both the first movement and the finale were fully sketched. He had hoped to continue work in July and August, but further composition was delayed until October. Nevertheless, by 4 November the entire symphony was sketched, and within three days the first movement was scored up to the recapitulation.

Tchaikovsky (left) with his nephew, Vladimir "Bob" Davidov

Tchaikovsky had already he had offered to conduct the premiere of the symphony at a charity concert in Moscow the following February. But after another enforced break, he took another look at the sketches and experienced total disenchantment. “It’s composed simply for the sake of composing something; there’s nothing at all interesting or sympathetic in it,” he wrote to his nephew Vladimir "Bob" Davydov on December 16, 1892. “I’ve decided to discard and forget it ... Perhaps,” he added, though how he can hardly have realized how precisely, “the subject still has the potential to stir my imagination.”

Davydov's response came quickly and, to the composer's surprise, very strongly worded. In a letter dated December 19, 1892, Davydov wrote, "I feel sorry of course, for the symphony that you have cast down from the cliff as they used to do with the children of Sparta, because it seemed to you deformed, whereas it is probably as much a work of genius as the first five."

The reason Tchaikovsky had given up on the symphony was that the music be found it impersonal, lacking the introspection Tchaikovsky felt a symphony needed urgently -- the expression of the writer's feelings, of his philosophy of life. He had no wish to continue making, as he said, "meaningless harmonies and a rhythmical scheme expressive of nothing" However, Davidov's comments spurred Tchaikovsky to reuse the sketches instead of totally writing them off. The music may have meant nothing to him on a personal level emotionally, but that did not mean it was worthless. The main theme was highly attractive, skillfully worked out, extroverted. When worked out by a composer whose handling of such a theme could become a delight to hear and, for the musicologist, to analyze, the results could become extremely worthwhile after all.

More importantly, the composer did not abandon the thought of writing a new symphony based on the program he conceived. Though his efforts with the E flat symphony did not turn out as planned, they influenced his conception not long afterwards of what would become the Pathétique symphony.

Tchaikovsky's first mention of using the sketches 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!"

From Symphony to Concerto

Louis Diémer

In June Tchaikovsky was in London to conduct a performance of his Fourth Symphony. There he ran into the pianist Louis Diémer, whom he had met in Paris five years earlier during a festival of Tchaikovsky's chamber works. After London, the composer travelled on to Cambridge, where he was awarded a doctorate; fellow composers Camille Saint-Saëns and Max Bruch also received honorary doctorates in the same ceremony. After Cambridge, he returning briefly to London and from there travelled to Paris. From there he made his way back, through Switzerland and Austria, to Russia. He stayed first at the Konradi family estate at Grankino, where he worked on the new concerto, then returned finally to his home at Klin.

Tchaikovsky's decision to recast at least part of his discarded symphony as a piano concerto might have been reinforced by his reacquaintance with Diémer, for whom the work was now intended. Diémer, one of the major French pianists at his time, was known by French audiences as "the king of the scale and the trill." His students at the Paris Conservaroire would include some of the most distinguished pianists and musicians in French history; the roster includes Robert Casadesus, Alfred Cortot and Vincent d'Indy.

More importantly for Tchaikovsky, Dièmer had and would continue to premiere many French works during his career, including César Franck's Variations symphoniques. Additionally, Dièmer had performed Tchaikovsky's Concerto Fantasia in G major, Op. 56, in a two-piano arrangement during the 1888 chamber music festival of Tchaikovsky's works, with the composer at the second pianoc. If there were an artist who would not only show interest in a new work from Tchaikovsky, but also follow through by performing that piece, that performer would be Dièmer. Considering the composer's past disagreements with pianist Nikolai Rubinstein over the Piano Concerto No. 1 and violinist Leopold Auer over the Violin Concerto, Tchaikovsky might not have taken such potentially unqualified interest from Diémer at all lightly.

After finishing the Pathétique symphony, Tchaikovsky turned once again to the concerto, only to experience another wave of doubt. He confided to pianist Alexander Ziloti, “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 Dièmer. When you see him, please tell him that when I proceded 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." That same day, cellist Yulian Poplovsky visited Tchaikovsky at the composer's house in Klin and found him looking through the manuscript.

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's Ballade, Franck's symphonic poem Les Djinns and Variations symphoniques. This was also not the first time Tchaikovsky had considered such a radical cutting of a composition. Tchaikovsky biographer and musicologist John Warrack reminds us that Tchaikovsky had already composed a piano-and-orchestra work in less than three movements -- the Concert Fantasia he had played in Paris with Diémer was conceived as a two-movement work. Tchaikovsky had vascillated between leaving both movements of that work stand as they were and publishing only the "Quasi Rondo" first movement. Though he let both movements alone, he also provided, as an appendix to the published score of the Fantasia, a 12-page coda "of rather facetious brilliance" that he instructed to be played only if the second movement were to be left out..

Sergey Taneyev.

Tchaikovsky had for some time relied on his former student and friend Sergei Taneyev for technical advice on pianistic matters. Once he finished scoring the Allegro brilliante in October 1893, Tchaikovsky asked Taneyev to look it over. However, to music writer and composer Leoned Sabaneyev, who studied composition with Taneyev as a child and met Tchaikovsky through him, Tchaikovsky seemed "'afraid' of Taneyev in some ways. I think he was unnerved by the overt frankness with which Taneyev reacted to Tchaikovsky's works: Taneyev believed that one must indicate precisely what one finds to be 'faults,' while strong points would make themselves evident. He was hardly fully justified in his conviction: composers are a nervous lot and they are often particularly dissatisfied with themselves. Tchaikovsky was just such a person: he worried himself almost sick over each work and often tried even to destroy them ... "

Sabaneyev also remembered when Tchaikovsky came to Taneyev with the Fifth Symphony. Taneyev started played through part of the manuscript at the piano. "With characteristic pedantry Taneyev began showing Tchaikovsky what he considered to be faults, thereby sending Tchaikovsky into even greater despair. Tchaikovsky grabbed the music and wrote across the page with a red pencil: 'Awful muck.' Still not satisfied with this punishment, he tore the sheet of music in half and threw it on the floor. Then he ran out of the room. Despondently Taneyev picked up the music and told me: 'Pyotr Ilyich takes everything to heart. After all, he himself asked me to give my opinion...."

As for the Third Piano Concerto, Taneyev found the solo part lacking in virtuosity -- typical Taneyev in both directness and lack of reassurance. Tchaikovsky had told Ziloti that if Taneyev shared his low opinion of the concerto, he would destroy the work. But Tchaikovsky's brother Modeste assured Ziloti after that meeting that thie composer would not follow through on his threat. While his brother in no way questioned Taneyev’s verdict, Modeste said the composer had already promised the comcerto to Dièmer and wanted to show the score to him, if for no other reason than to prove he had not defaulted on his promise.

Less than a month later, Tchaikovsky was dead.

Some months after the composer's death, Modeste asked Taneyev to go through his brother's manuscripts left unfinished at his death. Taneyev started this work at the end of June 1894. That September, Jurgenson agreed to publish the Allegro brilliante as Piano Concerto No. 3 and the engravings for print were finished the following month.

It was intended for Taneyev to perform the Third Concerto at the first anniversary of Tchaikovsky's death. This premiere had to be postponed because the full score and orchestral parts were not ready in time. Taneyev did not receive a copy of the published score until December 18, 1894.

Taneyev gave the first performance of the concerto in Saint Petersburg on 7th January 1895, conducted by Eduard Nápravník. Afterwards, Taneyev noted in his diary, "Played well, but had little success. Called back only once."

Besides the full score of the concerto, Jurgenson published an arrangement for two pianos and four hands in November 1894, and the orchestral parts in March 1895.

Problems?

According to Tchaikovsky biographer and musicologist David Brown, one specific and glaring defect Taneyev pointed out to the composer in the completed first movement "was an inevitable consequence of transcribing a largely completed orchestral movement into one for soloist and orchestra." Brown maintains Tchaikovsky apparently made no attempt to rewrite the musical substance of what he had composed. He mainly converted what was originally an orchestral texture into a piano solo, drew some idea out of the texture for the soloist to present, or else overlayed what was already there with piano figuration. By essentially rearranging what he had written already, instead of going totally back to the drawing board and rethinking his musical ideas afresh, what came from Tchaikovsky's efforts was likely to turn out "ungrateful" -- the word Tchaikovsky himself used in mentioning the piece to Ziloti.

Brown goes further: "But the problem lay deeper than this. The Fifth Symphony had been a determined reconciliation of what Tchaikovsky saw as the Western symphonic pattern with his own most characteristic invention, and in many regards it was a remarkable success. Most important at all – where the requirements of those interests clashed irreconcilably, his musical creativity had taken precedence. If, when he set about the E flat symphony purposefully at the end of May 1892, he still intended to follow the programme already mapped out, he quickly abandoned it, for it is inconceivable that a design so conventional was articulating anything other than a purely musical experience -- as Tchaikovsky himself certainly perceived when he came to scrutinize his finished sketches. If anything, the E flat symphony attempted to take the experiment of the Fifth Symphony further, hazarding a more total submission to the Western tradition, and despite Semyon Bogatirev’s conscious attempt to revitalize Tchaikovsky’s sketches, the piece remains faceless, given not the slightest hint of the blazing originality and shattering expressive force of the symphony yet to come. Thus it was not only that the Third Piano Concerto was handicapped by the nature of its earlier incarnation; that incarnation was less than first rate in materials ."

However -- and this is a big "however" -- Tchaikovsky had already realized the impersonal nature of the music. This was why he had decided first to discard it, then recast it into a format that would hopefully play to the music's strengths instead of to its weaknesses. Morse's comment on "shattering expressive force" is a telling one. Was what made the Third Piano Concerto "less than first rate" the fact that it was not as overwhelming expressively as the Fifth or Pathetique symphonies, or, for that matter, the First Piano Concerto? Although that point is debatable, it also precludes why Tchaikovsky was rewriting the E flat symphony into a piano concerto in the first place.

"[G]iven not the hint of blazing originality" is also debatable, but potentially easier to defend. Because of how Tchaikovsky chose to rework the symphony, he ended up with a work that, for all his efforts, could be argued to lack freshness. Listening to the First Piano Concerto, then the Third, could confirm the argument. It could also be a logical reason Tchaikovsky was uncomfortable with the concerto off-and-on, though this had been the composer's behavior pattern with several of his major works. But the fact the Third Piano Concerto may not be as inventive as the First should not mean the Third is totally without merit.

On the other side of the argument on the Third Concerto's worthiness, Tchaikovsky biographer and musicologist John Warrack argues, "[T]here is little sign of adaption from purely orchestral material. The piano figuration is natural, and though there are passages where this fills hardly more than a decorative role while the orchestra pursues broad melodies that could well stand on their own, this is not out of Tchaikovsky's style for the piano concertos."

Could it be argued, though, that Warrack contradicts himself? He mentions noticing "little sign of adaption," yet while he concedes "passages ... [fulfilling] hardly more than a decorative role," there are more of these passages in the Third Concerto than in the other two. While this may not be a bad thing in itself, it could be argued that leaving the orhcestra to prusue "broad melodies that could well stand on their own" instead of better balancing the statement and exposition of musical materials plays into Brown's stand of the concerto "being handicapped by the nature of its previous incarnation."

The composer might even have counted on Diémer to help decide the final form the concerto would take -- whether to leave it as one movement or three -- or whether the piece would make it to the concert hall. Tchaikovsky had invariably sought comments and suggestions for his concertos and concerto-like works from their intended dedicatees. The commentary Tchaikovsky received, and his reaction, may have been mixed, but his pattern of seeking such advice was consistent. Whatever information Diémer might have shared, as well as any further input from Taneyev, could have potentially reshaped or modified the piece considerably, perhaps for the better.

One undebatable point that Brown and other detractors of the Third Concerto seem to evade is that the work cannot be judged as a totally finished composition. Tchaikovsky had not sent the piece to Jurgenson for publication; and even if it appeared complete enough to Taneyev to warrant publication, there is no telling how Tchaikovsky would have changed or elaborated on the music had he lived longer.

Though the Third Concerto is a considerably more complete shape than the Mahler Tenth Symphony or the Bartok Viola Concerto, it really belongs in their same category of musical what-ifs and considered accordingly.

Structure

The bassoon opens with the main theme. The soloist follows immediately and later introduces the second subject group, in G major. The exposition follows Tchaikovsky’s familiar three-theme design, and there is some spiciness in the invention which follows the main theme. But, Morse claims, the music quickly stagnates after the tutti reaffirmation of the opening theme and tonic It does not, as had the Second Piano Concerto, proceed to reinforce a tonal grip, only to be broken by the shock of the second subject’s being introduced in a distant key. Instead Tchaikovsky "seems to lose his nerve" and move the music through a major third to the new tonal region (E flat to G – exactly that of the Second Concerto, though in reverse). This new theme, gentle and attractive, is heigened in pathos when the oboe and bassoon counterpoint the piano with unresolved dissonance. Attractive, too, is its sprightly partner in this second subject. As for the sudden re-entry of an E-flat chord, this and what follows brings to the codetta something of that contrast of harmonic color which, Morse says, earlier had been so limply underplayed.

The development starts well. Tchaikovsky selects the lively idea which had filled out the first subject’s center, heightening its piquancy by extending it over a whole-tone bass. Also admirable is the later augmentation of a portion of the first subject to produce a full, cantabile passage before the cadenza. Only now, at a focal point in the musical drama, does Tchaikovsky break away from the symphony. The massive cadenzas Tchaikovsky had provided for the Second Piano Concerto and the Concert Fantasia substituted for the entire development and were thus indespensible musically. But these two cadenzas had fruitfully explored further possibilities the musical materials offered, adding a generous supply of effective, if not always elegant virtuosity. The cadenza in the Third Concerto deals almost exclusively, and considerably less creatively, on the first theme of the second subject.

There is one small saving touch in store. The recapitulation neatly modifies the first subject, taking a new direction from bar three, then extends this fresh idea. The point of this emerges later, after the dual second subject has been re-run. The piano picks up the new extension in the coda, where it becomes a counterpoint for the widely striding portion of theme which it had earlier displaced.

Tchaikovsky might have tailored the the solo part, with its myriad cascades of runs and scales throughout the work and the prominence of trills in the cadenza, especially for Diémer. One of Diémer's students, Lazare Lévy, who himself would become an influence on the French musical scene, wrote about his teacher, "The astonishing precision of his playing, his legendary trills, the sobriety of his style, made him the excellent pianist we all admired." With comments such as this in mind, it could be hard for an informed listener to hear a soloist play the Third Concerto without having its intended dedicate come to mind.

Andante and Finale, Op. 79

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Sergey Taneyev.

Whether Tchaikovsky's decision to leave the Third Concerto as a single movement was short lived, or whether he did so in case Diemer might want a full-length work, the composer's doubts apprear to have been short-lived, Tchaikovsky started adding a solo piano part to the short score of the slow movement and finale of the symphony not long after finishing the Allegro brilliante. These two movements were left in short score at the time of the composer's death, with, Wallace adds, "no positive indication that they were destined for a concerto."

After touching up the Allegro brilliante and sending it off to Jurgenson, Taneyev started work the Andante and Finale, making adjustments on the solo part and attempting to approximate how Tchaikovsky might have orchestrated the rest. Taneyev possibly knew all three movements belonged initially to sketches for the same work and might have assumed Tchaikovsky meant to keep them as one composition. In any case, the Andante and Finale was published with a different opus number (Opus 79) than the Allegro brilliante.

Whether Tchaikovsky would have kept the Andante and Finale or written new music to make the Third Piano Concerto a three-movement work after all is purely conjecture. Accepting Opp. 75 and 79 as a complete concerto within Tchaikovsky's intentions, Warrack maintains, 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."

Warrack continues, "When Taneyev took over, he reduced the scoring of the 'andante' to woodwinds, horns and strings, reserving the return of the full orchestra for the finale -- an intelligent plan, carried off with a plan for Tchaikovskian scoring that at times veers toward parody. The 'andante' is a simple song-like movement, with a dialogue introduced in the central section between cello solo and piano that is handled in a very convincing Tchaikovskian vein.

"The ['allegro'] is far more successful than the finale, a quasi-martial 'allegro maestoso' that could scarcely have been the summing-up of a symphony and does little in this role for a concerto. 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."

References

• Brown, David, Tchaikovsky: The Final Years (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1992)
• Hanson, Lawrence and Elisabeth, Tchaikovsky: The Man Behind the Music (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company)
• Poznansky, Alexander, Tchaikovsky's Last Days (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996)
• Poznansky, Alexander Tchaikovsky: The Quest for the Inner Man (New York: Schirmer Books, 1991),
• Poznansky, Alexander. Tchaikovsky Through Others' Eyes (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999)
• Schonberg, Harold C., The Great Pianists
• Warrack, John, Tchaikovsky Symphonies and Concertos (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1969)

External Links

• http://www.tchaikovsky-research.org/en/Works/th065.html
• http://www.tchaikovsky-research.org/en/Works/th241.html
• http://www.tchaikovsky-research.org/en/Works/th238.html