The immense popularity of Tchaikovsky's piano concerto in B-flat minor has caused his other two concertos to be somewhat overlooked. This has changed in the past few years as more performances and recordings of the other two concertos have been occuring. While the third concerto exists in but one movement and was published posthumously, the second concerto is a full-fledged Romantic concerto with three movements.
Tchaikovsky wrote the concerto in 1879-1880, and the world premiere was in New York City in 1881.
I. Allegro brillante e molto vivace - Tchaikovsky had told a friend years earlier that he would never write a piano concerto because he disliked the sound of the piano with orchestra, but he worked out his initial dislike of the sonority in his first piano concerto. With the second, he created an atmosphere where the piano interjects many solo sections within the framework. The orchestra opens the movement with a march-like theme that is soon taken up by the piano. This is soon followed by a virtuosic cadenza for soloist. After this, the clarinet heralds the second theme that is presented by the piano, and is developed by the piano and flute. The orchestra takes up the second theme while the piano plays accompaniment figures. The development of the second theme continues with octaves in the piano with interjections by the orchestra. The second theme is played in a variant by the orchestra, and slowly winds down to the beginning of the development section.
The piano and flute take up the second theme until the piano has another cadenza. The orchestra plays a section in the development until there is another piano cadenza, this one very virtuosic. This leads to the recapitulation which begins with the orchestra. A stunning coda brings the movement to a close.
II. Andante non troppo - The concerto was published in 1881, but Tchaikovsky was disappointed by the unpopular reception the concerto received after the first performances. He thought it was one of his best compositions. He made some cuts and alterations in it, and in 1888 his publisher suggested that it be reprinted. Alexander Siloti, one of Tchaikovsky's pupils, suggested some cuts in the work, mainly in the second movement. Tchaikovsky rejected most of these suggestions, but the concerto was reprinted after his death in 1893 with all of Siloti's cuts and edits. This edition of the concerto was the dominant version played for many years until the complete works of Tchaikovsky were printed in 1955. The sections cut in Siloti's version of the second movement were the solo sections for violin and cello, which reduced the movement to around 7 minutes duration, roughly half the time of the original.
The movement begins with a short introduction by the orchestra that leads to a solo violin that plays along until a solo cello joins it in a duet. The soloist is silent for an extended time in the beginning of the movement, so that along with the total performance time of about 45 minutes prompted Siloti to make the cuts. Why anyone would think that they knew better than the composer in this matter is a mystery, but it was a time before the more modern era of urtext editions and the thought that what the composer had written was sacrosanct. The piano enters and plays its version of the music. slowly tension builds until the cello and violin return to play a duet that brings the movement back to the mood of the beginning. The piano joins them in a mostly secondary role until it has a short solo before the orchestra and piano bring the movement to a close.
III. Allegro con fuoco - The soloist is the only star in the finale with fleet fingerwork and octaves. The movement has two main themes, the first heard straight away and the second soon after. Near the ned of the movement, the pianist thunders away, and then slowly gets softer and softer, until there is a momentary silence before the orchestra loudly begins the music anew, until with a thunder of chords and arpeggios, the soloist and orchestra end the concerto.
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