Tchaikovsky
www.tchaikovsky-research.net
Violin Concerto evolution
From various online resources it is plain that the concerto went through a number of editions, but none of the earlier ones seem to be documented in currently available LPs and CDs, all of which give us the later, final edition and not the original edition or the piano/violin edition. Does anyone have any further news or views on this?
Regards,
Roger Fullilove
25/12/2012 19:50
Actually the situation is more straightforward than some online sources might suggest, and there are only two significantly different editions of the concerto. The first is the one published by Jurgenson in 1879 (shortly after the work was completed) in the form of a violin-piano arrangement, which corresponds exactly to the orchestral score first issued in 1888. Then after the composer's death Leopold Auer produced out his own edition of the work, which included numerous cuts in the score and alterations to the violin part. These changes are easiest to hear in the finale, where Tchaikovsky's frequent short repetitions of the main theme were removed in Auer's edition.
Auer's is perhaps the version that was best known until the late twentieth century, but Tchaikovsky's original now tends to dominate the CD shelves. The composer didn't make any alterations to the scored during his lifetime, so the first edition can be considered 'definitive'. The orchestral score can be freely downloaded from on the IMSLP website:
http://imslp.org/wiki/Violin_Concerto,_Op.35_(Tchaikovsky,_Pyotr)
Brett Langston
26/12/2012 11:14
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