Sunday Classics: The Violin Concerto may be Tchaikovsky's happiest creation

Here's the opening movement of the September 1968 performance of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto by David Oistrakh with Gennady Rozhdestvensky conducting the Moscow Philharmonic from which we heard the finale Friday night. (Well, this is the first two-thirds of the movement. The rest is here.)

by Ken

This should be a happy week, since with the Tchaikovksy Violin Concerto, which we previewed Friday night, we're tapping into about as special a group of works as there is: the violin concertos of Beethoven, Brahms, and Tchaikovsky, all in the exceedingly violin- (and user-) friendly key of D major, and all -- without in any way being imitative -- having so much in common that they seem to me inescapably to form a little circle of their own. And an exceedingly happy as well as exclusive little circle it is.

I can't swear that you'll get the same feeling from them that I do, which I might try to describe as a sort of songfulness at the service of a joyful striving for grace, but let's listen to just the openings. (And believe me, it was hard to stop! But not to worry, we're going to hear the opening movements of all three D major concertos -- well four, actually -- complete in the click-through.)

just the opening 4½ minutes of
BEETHOVEN: Violin Concerto in D, Op. 61

Zino Francescatti, violin; Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Bruno Walter, cond. Columbia/CBS/Sony, recorded Jan. 23 and 26, 1961 [audio link]

just the opening 2½-plus minutes of
BRAHMS: Violin Concerto in D, Op. 77

Gil Shaham, violin; Berlin Philharmonic, Claudio Abbado, cond. DG, recorded May 2000 [audio link]

just the opening not quite 2½ minutes of
TCHAIKOVSKY: Violin Concerto in D, Op. 35

Erica Morini, violin; Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra of London, Artur Rodzinski, cond. Westminster/MCA, recorded Apr. 20, 1956 [audio link]


TO HEAR THE COMPLETE MOVEMENTS, AND MUCH
MORE OF THE TCHAIKOVSKY CONCERTO, CLICK HERE

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