Sérénade mélancolique, Op.26

One of the curiosities of musical history is that, having been awarded the dedication of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, Leopold Auer - the leading Russian violinist of his day - refused to learn the work . He delayed its first performance for so long, in fact, that the composer had to transfer the dedication to Adolf Brodsky, who duly introduced it to the world in Vienna in 1881. The story is even more curious in that something very similar had happened before. Early in 1875, at about the time Tchaikovsky was working on his First Piano Concerto, the same Leopold Auer had asked the composer for a short piece for violin and orchestra. What he got, within a matter of weeks, was the Sérénade mélancolique - which was first performed in Moscow in January 1876 not by Leopold Auer but by Adolf Brodsky.

Auer could not long resist the Sérénade mélancolique, however. While it is not a virtuoso showpiece, it is a highly melodious composition which puts the violin in a most favourable lyrical light. There are a few modest cadenzas but they are supplied not so much for their own sake as to draw attention to the several entries of the lovely main theme. One of Tchaikovsky’s most eloquent melodic inspirations, it is first heard on the solo violin after a short woodwind introduction featuring, incidentally, a motif from his recently completed opera Vakula the Smith. Alternating with ingeniously coloured variants of the Vakula motif, it graciously makes way for a quicker and more cheerful middle section and, after a particularly effective manifestation on clarinet with violin obbligato, dies away virtually unaccompanied in the closing bars.