Weber. Prokofiev. Tchaikovsky

Carl Maria von Weber spent his youth travelling. Touring brought so many interesting surprises his way that at one time von Weber even considered publishing a guide for others like himself. Almost all of his works from this period – concert arias, concertos and ensemble pieces – appeared for performances with newer and newer orchestras and soloists. 1811 was marked by a meeting with the clarinettist Heinrich Baermann who had arrived in Munich. In just one year, the twenty-five-year-old composer had written a concertino and two concertos for him. Their success was so great that in December the musicians set off together for a tour to Prague, Leipzig, Gotha, Weimar and Berlin.
Clarinet Concerto No 2 in E Flat Major, Op. 74, was composed in the virtuoso style that then reigned supreme both in opera and in instrumental music. In the dazzling and bold first movement, the clarinet part begins with a demonstration of range – more than three octaves. The soloist then leaves the orchestra very little opportunity “to get a word in.” The second movement is written in the form of a romance, its central section a pathétique operatic recitative, and again the clarinet takes the lead role. The final rondo comes in the form of a glittering polonaise. If the first two movements of the concerto are technically exceedingly complex, in the coda of the finale the soloist brings down an entire squall of passages on the audience, transforming virtuosity into an apogée.
Anna Bulychova

Piano Concerto No 2 was one of Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev’s favourite works. The composer first performed it at the end of the summer season in 1913 in Pavlovsk (when it was conducted by Alexander Aslanov). The premiere was accompanied by a “glorious” scandal: Prokofiev was labelled as both a cubist and a futurist. And he immediately composed a “cubist-futurist” and incredibly complex piano concerto as his calling card: he performed it in London for Diaghilev when they first met, and he selected it for his official debut in Rome in 1915. When Prokofiev emigrated, the score remained in Russia (and has never been found to this day). In 1923 the composer revived it and soon had the concerto published.
Today it is hard to understand what could have scared away audiences in the bewitching first section. Could it be the massive cadenza of the soloist that slowly approaches its culmination, so complex that it is written over three lines (as if for three hands)? The second section, a scherzo, is one of the finest pieces in the “perpetuum mobile” genre. The piano part does not have one single pause! The start of the third section, an intermezzo, deserves the title of “futurist,” although the soloist performs a refined and fantastical theme. And the stormy, unbridled start of the finale is wisely balanced by the gentle middle section in the character of a nursery rhyme.
Anna Bulycheva

Pyotr Tchaikovsky wrote his only Violin Concerto in 1878 when he was already an acclaimed composer having written his First Piano Concerto, four symphonies and operas (including Eugene Onegin). The Violin Concerto somewhat repeated the destiny of the First Piano Concerto as it was not immediately judged as it deserved to be. Today it is difficult to imagine that a work of such power, expressiveness and beauty did not immediately find an appreciative audience or performer. Initially Tchaikovsky had decided to write the Concerto for his friend and pupil Iosif Kotek, and then because of subsequent disagreements he offered it to the renowned violinist and teacher Leopold Auer. On seeing, however, that the latter “shelved” his work he dedicated the piece to Adolph Brodsky who was the first performer of the Concerto in Russia and abroad and who met with strong resistance from other musicians and sharply negative critical comments afterwards.
For one and a half centuries the main difficulty for the performer has been the extremely virtuoso nature of the Concerto. Today the main problem lies rather in the interpretation because offering a new treatment of such a famous and frequently performed work is a task that is definitely not for the fainthearted.
Svetlana Nikitina