Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto

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In late 1874, Peter Il’yich Tchaikovsky began composing one of the most well-known and frequently piano concertos, his Piano Concerto in B-minor, Op. 23. However, composing a piano concerto for piano was no easy feat for Tchaikovsky. Letters written to various piano virtuosos of the time and to his brother Modest, composing a piano part proved to be the most difficult task. In a letter he wrote to his brother, Tchaikovsky said that he was, “…submerged with all my soul in the composition of the piano concerto; the thing is advancing, but very badly." Although Tchaikovsky was able to play his composition himself, he thought it best to seek help from pianists to fins passages that may be considered impractical or ineffective. One such pianist …show more content…
Throughout the piece, the pianist has many hurdles that the pianist must navigate.
Only pianists with tremendous skill could master such things as the four octave runs and passages where there are three notes per hand. Although these passages may seem clumsy, Tchaikovsky uses them in a way that accentuates the performer. On parts with extreme difficulty, Tchaikovsky scores the orchestra thinly, or takes them out all together so that the performer demonstrates his or her mastery of the passages. In conclusion, Rubensteins comments on the piece may have had some merit, but ultimately each comment that he had made has facts supporting both sides of his argument. Even though the structure of the piece is vastly different form the normal structure of the time, it is still regarded as one of the most popular piano concertos. There are some borrowed melodies that are not originally composed Tchaikovsky himself, but he uses them in a way that they are not directly recognizable. Some of the passages in the solo piano part my have been manufactured and seem clumsy, but Tchaikovsky has a reason for writing them the way he did, thus they can bee seen being okay. Rubenstein may have had merit in his comments to Tchaikovsky about the piece, but not enough comments to justify such a forceful delivery of those
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