24.9. Concerto Classics!

About the programme

The concertos by Edvard Grieg and Pyotr Tchaikovsky are among those works of Western art music that have been performed so often that they are now somewhat avoided. Grieg was at the very beginning of his career when he composed his only piano concerto at the age of 24, and it is fun to imagine what other now famous piano concertos were part of the repertoire at that time. In the mid-1860s, Ludwig van Beethoven's concertos and a few Mozart pieces were in active use, and on Felix Mendelssohn's initiative, J.S. Bach's works for multiple keyboard instruments were sometimes included in the program when he performed with other pianists. Among the concertos of the Romantic period, works by Frédéric Chopin and Mendelssohn had begun to establish themselves, Franz Liszt's two experimental concertos had just been written, as had Johannes Brahms' first piano concerto, which was mainly performed by the composer himself. Among these, Grieg's concerto is quite unique, and its poetic soulmate was probably Robert Schumann's A minor concerto, which Grieg had become familiar with while studying in Leipzig.

The young, newly graduated composer has naturally studied his role models carefully. A few external features refer to earlier works: Grieg copied the opening directly from Schumann, and the second movement is reminiscent of the slow movement of Beethoven's Emperor Concerto. The form of the work is very classical and almost formulaic, reminiscent of Schumann's late style of constructing large-scale works in the spirit of Franz Schubert. However, there is something irresistibly original in the themes and harmonies of Grieg's concerto, which sounded exotic to the ears of his contemporaries. The famous story of Liszt's first reading of Grieg's concerto in Rome in 1870 is illustrative. Liszt was generally satisfied with the work, but not particularly impressed, until he reached the climax of the last movement, where Grieg had cleverly changed one melody from the usual major scale to a more archaic Mixolydian mode. In Grieg's own words, Liszt then "rose to his full height and strode theatrically around the monastery hall, humming this melody. At that very note, G, he raised his hand triumphantly and declared, 'G, G, not G sharp! Excellent! This is something! And then, in pianissimo and in parentheses: 'Smetana brought me something similar some time ago'. He returned to the piano and played the whole thing again."

As a reform-minded musician, Liszt's enthusiasm for the unusual melody – in a song that is otherwise quite conventional – reveals the most important feature of Grieg's musical language: his skill in being one of the first to incorporate authentic folk music features into Western art music in such a way that themes and practices typical of folk music permeate the rules of art music and rise to the forefront of the musical structure. Tchaikovsky sought a similar approach in his music, and when he composed his first piano concerto ten years after Grieg, he also created his first worldwide success. It is perhaps no surprise that these two concertos, which were innovative in their day, very quickly became classics. A certain melodic appeal and positive accessibility, combined with skilful composition and appropriately virtuosic solo parts, make them works without which it is impossible to imagine later concertos.

Quite a bit has been written about the history of Tchaikovsky's concerto, and one key story relates to the fact that the composer's friend, pianist Nikolai Rubinstein – for whom the work was written – harshly criticized Tchaikovsky's way of writing virtuoso passages for the piano. Offended by this, Tchaikovsky vowed never to change a single note in his work! However, when the work soon gained popularity among the most prominent pianists of the time, it became apparent that almost all of them had slightly altered the piano part and presented the composer with diplomatic suggestions for corrections that were not strictly related to the musical material, but rather to how the notes were arranged on the piano in a convenient or inconvenient manner. Anyone who has played Tchaikovsky, even the simpler pieces, can notice a certain clumsiness in his approach to the piano keyboard. This is understandable, as he was not a virtuoso pianist himself. In the case of the concerto, this led to the piano part becoming slightly less demanding in subsequent editions. And to tell the truth, at some point there was also a slight change in the composition itself, when the composer became frustrated with an unnecessary long repetitive section in the finale and shortened it by about ten bars. In addition, he refined the articulation and dynamics throughout the work. So never say never!

In this concert, we have the pleasure of hearing the original version of the concerto, as Alexander Melnikov has taken on the challenge of learning Tchaikovsky's less straightforward and often more detailed piano part. This is most evident in the concerto's famous opening chords!

The third work of the evening is the opposite of the concertos in the sense that it has not earned its rightful place in the orchestra's repertoire. When listening to Fanny Hensel's works, one often wonders why they have been forgotten. As a member of the famous Mendelssohn family, her education was as thorough as that of her brother Felix, but while her brother ended up pursuing a professional career from childhood, Fanny had to limit her activities to private events, which were impressive in themselves but nevertheless limited. At these invitation-only concerts, a full orchestra was a rarity, but for one such occasion, specifically the Sunday Music concerts organized by Fanny at the Mendelssohn palace on Leipziger Strasse in Berlin, she composed an Overture in C major. Fanny herself conducted the orchestra at the performance. In her final years, Hensel broke free from the restrictions imposed by her family and began to publish her music. However, most of her works, such as the overture for the evening, remained unpublished, and the manuscripts eventually ended up forgotten in the archives of various libraries. One can only imagine what kind of piano concerto Hensel would have composed had her untimely death not cut short her promising career.

Text by Emil Holmström
Translations by the festival team