Concert Fantasy in G major for piano and orchestra, Op.56

When Tchaikovsky heard Sergey Taneyev give the first performance of the Concert Fantasy, in Moscow in March 1885, he pronounced himself “very pleased with it” and was delighted that it proved such “a big success with the public.” If the public has now forgotten it, it is above all because, like the Second and Third Piano Concertos, it has been seriously overshadowed by the immensely popular First Concerto in B flat minor.

The other major reason for the neglect of the Concert Fantasy is surely not the quality of its thematic material - it is unfailingly attractive even if it is not Tchaikovsky’s best - but the peculiarity of its construction. Inspired in the first place by the playing of Liszt’s favourite pupil Eugen d’Albert, it was clearly meant to be something different. In a work presented as a “fantasy” a composer could be as different as he liked. So, eager to secure an out-of- the-ordinary profile for his soloist, Tchaikovsky awarded him a cadenza longer than the other two parts of the first movement put together. Fascinating and formidably accomplished though it is as a stylistic tribute to d’Albert’s distinguished teacher, the cadenza does seem extravagantly ambitious in the context of the modestly tuneful outer sections. But in a “quasi rondo” (a “sort of rondo”) there are no more formal restraints than in a fantasy.

If there is anything disproportionate in the distribution of the material between piano and orchestra in the first movement and anything anomalous in the construction, the second movement does much to compensate. Although it is the piano that introduces the first theme of the Andante cantabile in G minor, it is joined at an early stage by a solo cello and it yields gracefully to horn and strings for a tenderly lyrical episode in B flat major. Although the following Molto vivace section is obviously intended as an extreme contrast, Tchaikovsky takes the structural precaution of introducing it bit by bit before the definitive change of key to G major. Similarly, although the tendency from now on is for the tempo to accelerate, it twice slows down to allow the orchestra to refer wisely back to the Andante cantabile before approaching the frantic coda.