Andante and Finale (Tchaikovsky)

Tchaikovsky's "Andante and Finale" for piano and orchestra were initially intended as the slow movement and finale of the Symphony in E flat, a work he started in 1892 but eventually abandoned. Tchaikovsky began reworking the sketches for these two movements into the the second and third movements of a piano concerto he promised to French pianist Louis Diémer. The composer finished the first movement of this concerto, then decided to leave the work as a single-movement "Allegro de concert."

Despite his stated intentions, Tchaikovsky had written "End of movement 1" on the last page of the "Allegro brilliante" that would be published by Jurgenson as the Third Piano Concerto. Was not crossing out this comment simply an oversight on Tchaikovsky's part? Had Tchaikovsky actually changed his mind and decided to continue work? Was he thinking about continuing work in case Diémer would prefer a full-length piece? Would he have used the two movements he had discarded previously or would he have written something new?

All this became pure conjecture upon Tchaikovsky's death. At that time, what could have appeared to some to be the second and third movements were left in sketch form. Music writer Eric Blom reminds us that Tchaikovsky left "no indication that they too were to be turned into concerto form. Since they originally formed part of the same work, it seemed reasonable, however, to assume that this was his intention [Eric Blom, "Music of Tchaikovsky" (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1946), 63-64] ."

ymphony or concerto—again

After his brother's death, Modest Tchaikovsky asked the composer's friend and former student Sergey Taneyev to go through the sketches of compositions left unfinished. In November 1894, Taneyev began to study the unfinished sketches of these two movements. Both Taneyev and Modest questioned how the work should be published—as two orchestral movements for a symphony or to preserve its subsequent arrangement and complete reworking them as a piece for piano and orchestra [See letters from Mitrofan Beliaiev to Sergei Taneev from 1896, and from Aleksandr Ziloti to Modest Tchaikovsky - Klin House-Museum Archive] . After a letter from pianist Alexander Ziloti to Modest in April 1895, he and Taneyev took the piano-and-orchestra route.

Another question was where and how these two movements would be published. This was complicated by the fact that Jurgenson had already published the opening movement of the concerto as a separate composition. Modest and Taneyev eventually offered the Andante and Finale to M.P. Beliaiev, together with the overtures "Fatum", "The Storm" and "The Voevoda".

Beliaiev questioned how to publish the Andante and Finale—as a fourth concerto in two movements, as two concert pieces, or in purely orchestral form as two movements from an unfinished symphony? [Letter from Mitrofan Beliaev to Sergei Taneyev, 27 April/9 May 1896 - Klin House-Museum Archive] . He eventually published the Andante and Finale in 1897 in Taneyev’s version for piano and orchestra, but as an independent but related composition to the concerto and with a separate opus number (Op. 79, as opposed to Op. 75 for the movement published by Jurgenson).

The first performance took place on February 8, 1897 in St. Petersburg with Taneyev as soloist.

Instrumentation

Consistent with Tchaikovskian practice in his first two concertos, Taneyev reduces the orchestra to woodwinds, horns and strings for the andante. He scored the finale for full orchestra, again as per Tchaikovskian practice.

Form

# Andante
#: This simple song-like movement contains a central dialogue between cello solo and piano which, according to writer Eric Blom, "enhance [s] the effect of a tune at the very moment when its repetition might possibly become tiresome—in this case at the return of the main theme ... [Blom, 66] ."
# Finale. Allegro maestoso
#: This quasi-martial 'allegro maestoso' has energy in abundance—indeed, over-abundance, Blom writes—"but no real vitality of invention. The material is dry and dead, nor does the extremely busy and strenuously athletic piano-part give any real life to it. There is plenty of bustle and very little enterprise [Blom, 67] ."

A complete concerto?

As stated at the beginning of this entry, 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, Tchaikovsky scholar and author John 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 [John Warrack, "Tchaikovsky Symphonies and Concertos" (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1969), 46] ."

Blom adds, "It is true that even Taneyev [sic] did not know for certain whether Tchaikovsky, if he actually meant to turn out a three-movement concerto, would not have preferred to scrap the andante and finale altogether and to replace them by two entirely new movements; so if we decide that the finale at any rate is a poor piece of work, we must blame Taneyev [sic] for preserving it rather than Tchaikovsky for having conceived it. For we cannot even be sure how far the conception may have been carried out ... [Blom, 64] ."

Warrack concludes, "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 [Warrack, "Tchaikovsky Symphonies and Concertos", 47] ."

References

Books

* Blom, Eric, ed. Abraham, Gerald, "Music of Tchaikovsky" (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1946)
* 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/th241.html Andante & Finale, Op. 79 (1893)] at Tchaikovsky-Research.org
* [http://www.tchaikovsky-research.org/en/Works/th238.html Symphony in E-flat major (1892) (unfinished)] at Tchaikovsky-Research.org
* [http://www.tchaikovsky-research.org/en/Works/th065.html Piano Concerto No. 3 in E-flat major, Op. 75 (1893)] at Tchaikovsky-Research.org

Notes