Sibelius. Tchaikovsky

The violin was Jean Sibelius’ favourite instrument, and in his youth the composer dreamt of a glittering career as a virtuoso violinist. Sadly these dreams were not to be: he had begun to learn the instrument too late, and Sibelius had also suffered an injury to his shoulder which ultimately forced him to abandon his ambitious plans. Nevertheless, the composer never lost interest in the violin and could spend ages improvising on it. Approaching his fortieth birthday, he remarked “there is still a part of me that wishes to be a violinist, and this part of me manifests itself in an unusual way.” Sibelius soon started working on his one and only violin concerto, in which he displays his deep love for and intimate knowledge of the instrument.
The Violin Concerto in D Minor (1905) is remarkable for its extreme complexity: it reflects clearly Sibelius’ desire to showcase the violin’s unparalleled expressive possibilities – the ones that were beyond his own reach as a performer. The premiere of the work in Berlin was an astounding success, and his music led one of the critics to a make a charming comparison with “the picturesque Scandinavian winter landscapes where artists use the refined play of white on white to achieve rare and at times hypnotic and powerful effects.”
Nadezhda Kulygina

“I haven’t yet started composing and am still only gathering some materials for my symphonic work-to-be; its form as yet remains undefined. Perhaps it will be a symphony, or perhaps it might be another suite. For some time now I have found the latter form very appealing thanks to the freedom it offers the composer, unshackled by any traditions, conditional techniques or any hard and fast rules,” Tchaikovsky wrote in a letter to Nadezhda von Meck in 1884.
The imagistic structure of each of the four movements in Tchaikovsky’s Third Suite brings the listener’s attention to other works by the composer. The Elegy contains allusions that make reference to Eugene Onegin, the Scherzo (the third movement) presages many elements of The Nutcracker and the fourth movement is close in character to the folk finales of the symphonies that preceded it. It is a kind of “suite within a suite”, a kaleidoscope of images that follow one after another: a Russian dance, a pastorale for woodwind instruments, a Dies Irae theme, a tarantella and a dazzling and pompous polonaise...
The premiere of the suite in St Petersburg on 12 January 1885 under the baton of Hans von Bülow caused a sensation. One week later it was performed to equally great acclaim in Moscow (where it was conducted by Max Erdmannsdörfer). It was to him that Tchaikovsky dedicated his newest work.
Pavel Velikanov