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seleção de Leandro Oliveira

The russian composer Tchaikovsky is surely not an ordinary talent, but rather an inflated one, with genius-obsession without discrimination or taste, such is also his latest, long, and pretentious Violin Concerto. For a while it moves soberly, musically, and not without spirit. But soon vulgarity gains the upper hand and asserts itself to the end of the first movement. The violin is no longer played; it is pulled, torn, drubbed. The adagio is again on its best behavior, to pacify and win us. But it soon breaks off to make way for a finale that tranfers us to a brutal and wretched jolity of a Russian holiday. We see plainly the savage vulgar faces, we hear cruses, we smell vodka. Friedrich Vischer once observed, speaking of obscene pictures, that they stink to the eye. Tchaikovsky's Violin concerto gives us for the first time the hideous notions that there can be music that stinks to the ear.

Eduard Hanslinck in "Music Criticism 1846-99" (Harmondsworth, 1963).

When Tchaikovsky came to me one evening, about thirty years ago, and presented me with a roll of music, great was my astonishment on finding this proved to be the Violin Concerto, dedicated to me, completed and already in print. My first feeling was one of gratitude for this proof of his sympathy toward me, which honored me as an artist. On closer acquaintance with the composition, I regretted that the great composer had not shown it to me before committing it to print. Much unpleasantness might then have been spared us both. (...)

Warmly as I had championed the symphonic works of the young composer (who was at that time not universally recognized), I could not feel the same enthusiasm for the Violin Concerto, with the exception of the first movement; still less could I place it on the same level as his purely orchestral compositions. I am still of the same opinion. My delay in bringing the concerto before the public was partly due to this doubt in my mind as to its intrinsic worth, and partly that I would have found it necessary, for purely technical reasons, to make some slight alterations in the passages of the solo part. This delicate and difficult task I subsequently undertook, and re-edited the violin solo part, and it is this edition which has been played by me, and also by my pupils, up to the present day. It is incorrect to state that I had declared the concerto in its original form unplayable. What I did say was that some of the passages were not suited to the character of the instrument, and that, however perfectly rendered, they would not sound as well as the composer had imagined. From this purely aesthetic point of view only I found some of it impracticable, and for this reason I re-edited the solo part.

Tchaikovsky, hurt at my delay in playing the concerto in public and quite rightly too (I have often deeply regretted it, and before his death received absolution from him), now proceeded to have a second edition published, and dedicated the concerto this time to Adolf Brodsky, who brought it out in Vienna, where it met with much adverse criticism, especially from Hanslick. The only explanation I can give of the orchestral score still bearing my name is that when the original publisher, Jurgenson, of Moscow, to suit the composer, republished the concerto, he brought out the piano score in the new edition, but waited to republish the orchestral score until the first edition of the it should be exhausted. This is the only way I can solve the problem of the double dedication. (...)

The concerto has made its way in the world, and after all, that is the most important thing. It is impossible to please everybody.

Leopold Auer in "Musical Courier" (12 de Janeiro de 1912).

O Concerto para violino em Ré Maior, op. 35 de Tchaikovsky foi apresentado esta semana pela Osesp na Sala São Paulo.