Piano Concerto in B flat minor, Op.23

If there is any one reason for the immense popularity of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto in B flat minor it is the splendid tune - swinging in on violins and cellos against heroic chordal gestures on the piano - with which it begins. Once this highly dramatic introduction is over, however, the great opening theme is never heard again. If this seems a little strange to us today it must have been quite disconcerting to the audiences which heard the work when it was travelling the world after its first performance by Hans von Bülow in America in 1875: their experience of the formal conventions of the day would have led them to expect a triumphant reappearance of that opening theme at some strategic point sooner or later.

If Tchaikovsky had contemplated recalling the D flat major introduction it would have been later rather than sooner. The first movement could not have accommodated it. The Allegro con spirito has three main preoccu­pations - the piano’s rather breathless first subject, the sighing woodwind melody in the second subject, and the Juliet-like whispered reply on muted violins (which develops an almost obsessional importance later on). It is not an expansive and confident first movement but one with a dynamic and nervy continuity which would be disrupted by any triumphant re-entry of the great D flat major melody.

Equally, the Andante simplice would not be the right place for it either. This, an intricate though delight­ful combination of slow movement and scherzo, has enough to cope with as it is. It has its own self-contained form and its own melodic integrity. The outer sections are based on the melody first presented by a flute over quietly plucked strings. The Prestissimo in the middle has a similarly innocent waltz tune - derived from a French popular song, Il faut s’amuser, danser et rire - which first appears on cellos and violas through the decorative figuration of the piano.

However, having subtly sustained expectations for so long, Tchaikovsky might well have fulfilled them by bringing back his big tune in the Allegro con fuoco last movement. It would not do, of course, to mix it up with the Ukranian dance tune which is the main rondo theme. And, surely, if he does intend to create a broad climax in this movement it will not be based on the lyrical second theme quietly introduced by violins after a delicate little transition on the piano. Anyway, towards the end of the movement, the key changes to B flat major in a thunderous passage of double octaves for piano and the tempo broadens for what is clearly going to be an expansive piano-and-orchestra climax. This is the moment. But it is not the opening theme of the work which is glorified here but, contrary to expectations, the lyrical second theme of the Allegro con fuoco surprised but happily resplendent in its heroic transformation.

Gerald Larner©