Did you knew that secret jewel: Tchaikovski 2nd piano concerto...?recently discovered on radio (without composer's name aired before listening)but except for complete sets of his piano/orch.works, when have we chance to listen to it ? :'(
There are actually several recordings of this concerto:
Fedoseyev/Philharmonia/Pletnev,
Ormandy/Philadelphia/Graffman
Rozhdestvensky/USSR/Zhukov
Vänskä/Minnesota/Hough [+ alternate 2nd Mvmnts /part of The Romantic Piano Concerto, Vol. 50]
Weller/BBC Wales/Lill
There may certainly be more, but these are those in my collection (in addition to a few live broadcast performances). No matter, it deserves to be heard more often.
for those interested (completist,me?) in PIT whole concertante works with piano:Oleg Marshev on Danacord (DACOCD586/587) added the andante & finale op.79,Concert Fantasia op.56 and Allegro in c minor (1863/64)with a danish provincial orchestra....
I've loved this "unknown" Tchaikovsky concerto ever since the Graffman/Ormandy recording came out. Back then it really was obscure, and little did I know that they used the Siloti edition. I remember the first concert that I heard it played live at. The concert commentator gave a talk before the concert and when it got to the concerto said, and I can still quote it these 50 years later, "it's horrible. I'm sure glad I didn't write it!" That commentator was a composer/teacher who had only one of his many works ever recorded - and it's never been on CD. None of his music is played anywhere, not even at the institution he taught at. I bet he was insanely jealous that such a horrible concerto would be performed and recorded many times while his works lie dormant and probably always will.
It would never occur to me that Tchaik's 2nd PC was 'unsung'. Not hugely popular like his first one, sure, but compared to something like The Snow Maiden, or Hamlet (incidental music)....how how about 'Serenade for N. G. Rubinstein's Name-Day'? Jurisprudence March? To just name the tip of the iceburg with him. Hell those piece I listed don't even compare to the even more obscure...
It's not usung, in my view. ArkvMusic lists 33 (!) recordings of this glorious piece:
http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/Drilldown?name_id1=11958&name_role1=1&genre=154&bcorder=19&comp_id=3208 (http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/Drilldown?name_id1=11958&name_role1=1&genre=154&bcorder=19&comp_id=3208)
It's just that PC1 is so ubiquitous, that PC2 suffers by comparison. More somewhat unfamiliar than unsung, I'd say...
Quote from: Alan Howe on Tuesday 25 August 2020, 09:54
It's not usung, in my view. ArkvMusic lists 33 (!) recordings of this glorious piece:
I had not realized that there are quite so many! Though, if one is deducting reissues, the number of individual recorded performances is somewhat lower; the Biret/Tabakov/Bilkent recording alone accounts for 3 of the 33.
Well, PC2's still not an unsung piece - it's just overshadowed by PC1 (sigh!) It's hardly a secret either...
I would have put the concert fantasy in the somewhat less sung category, or the Andante and Finale edited by Taneyev.
Agreed, Eric.
Yes, I know: this is Tchaikovsky; but how well-known (and appreciated) is his PC2 in its original, full version - i.e. all 42-43 minutes of it? It's a bit like the situation with Bruch: turn on the radio and the presenter will announce with a flourish 'Bruch's Violin Concerto', meaning No.1, of course. And it's the same with Tchaikovsky: is there life beyond his PC1? And the answer is 'of course' - there's PC2, which is a magnificent creation on an even more ambitious scale featuring a virtual triple concerto movement as its centrepiece. It's as moving and exciting as any PC I know.
Just wondering: how many recordings of PC2 are of the original, non-Siloti version?
Quote from: Alan Howe on Thursday 20 February 2025, 18:49Just wondering: how many recordings of PC2 are of the original, non-Siloti version?
About 50 according to the discography from Tchaikovsky-Research, though this includes some with small cuts and a couple with the second movement being Siloti's, but there's a separate section for Siloti's version.
Even if they only use his version in the slow movement, that's a lovely quasi-triple-concerto being gotten rid of.
I still recall my surprise when I finally heard the original and realized how much damage Siloti had done. Was it Ponti who first recorded the original? Back then it was always -- on the rare occasions it was played or recorded -- Siloti.
It seems to me most recordings these days have dispensed with the Siloti version.
I have just acquired Wang/Oundjian on Chandos - fab playing and spectacular recording!
I have two recordings:
- Andrej Hoteev/Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra Moscow/Vladimir Fedoseyev (Koch label), from a 4-CD box-set of all his works for piano+orchestra. The cover explicitly says "Unabridged original versions", so that seems to be clear.
The other is a Naxos CD, with Bernd Glemser/Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra/Antoni Wit. Annoyingly the website doesn't say if it's the original or the Siloti. Does anyone know off-hand? I've long since got rid of my hard-copy CDs and their booklets!
Glemser's slow movement runs to 16:22, which would suggest that it's the original version.
Quote from: Christopher on Friday 21 February 2025, 10:45The other is a Naxos CD, with Bernd Glemser/Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra/Antoni Wit. Annoyingly the website doesn't say if it's the original or the Siloti. Does anyone know off-hand? I've long since got rid of my hard-copy CDs and their booklets!
I'[ll just link it then
https://www.tchaikovsky-research.net/files/tchaikovskydisc-2024-08.pdf
It's about as thorough as it even possible.
That recording (which is one that I have as well) is fully the original.
I got to know this concerto through the Donohoe EMI recording in the 1990s, which made something of a splash back then. It was one of the first complete recordings, and featured the Bournemouth SO conducted by Rudolf Barshai, with Steven Isserliss and (the then-omnipresent) Nigel Kennedy in the trio. Ponti may well have been the first to record the complete concerto, though.
The Siloti massacre isn't entirely dead yet, and it does return from time to time. One example is the relatively recent (2012) recording by Simon Trpčeski with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under Vasily Petrenko, on Onyx. The booklet mentions how:
Quotewhen, in December 1888, Alexander Siloti (pupil of both Nikolai Rubinstein and Tchaikovsky) proposed a number of radical alterations, Tchaikovsky put his foot down, agreeing to some small changes but nothing else, writing to his publisher: 'He goes too far in his wish to make this concerto easy, and wants me literally to mutilate it for the sake of simplicity.However, Tchaikovsky died before he was able to oversee a new edition of the concerto to its conclusion. Having entrusted the task to Siloti in 1893, it was eventually published in 1897 with a small cut to the first movement, the second movement reduced from 332 bars to 141, and with the finale intact, Siloti claiming that this was all 'according to the composer's intentions'. This version was de rigueur for many years but is now rarely played. On the present recording Simon Trpčeski plays the first and last movements uncut but uses the Siloti edition for the central Andante non troppo.
Apparently, playing the Siloti version has become a kind of historical re-enactment by this point.
Albeit a fine performance in itself, I don't think the Donohoe hasn't aged all that well, I think; the recording is a bit dull, and they're so proud of playing the complete Andante with Nigel that they've chosen to do so at a positively geological pace (17:09). Among the recordings I know, I rather like the Leonskaja/Masur one. It's a display of thoughtful pianism, but avoids to wallow in sentimentalism (a lethal affliction when playing Tchaikovsky).
Of course, by no stretch of the imagination is this an unsung piece, except in comparison to its predecessor, which is among the most-played in the repertoire, if not
the most-played.
Quote from: Ilja on Friday 21 February 2025, 13:26Ponti may well have been the first to record the complete concerto, though.
Ponti did his in 1974. The piano and orchestra are nicely balanced -- for once Ponti isn't in your lap. You can hear a lot of orchestral detail, but the sound is typical for Vox before they started doing recordings with Joanna Nickrenz and Marc Aubort, who finally brought Vox sound (if not their pressings) on par with the big league labels. It's muffled and sounded pretty dated even back then, as if you were listening to a recording from the early 50s.
Ponti being Ponti, he pushes the tempos, dispensing with the complete slow movement in a little over 14 minutes, but it does add for a lot of excitement in the outer movements.
Slightly off-topic, this disc is one of two that I have (the other being the Centaur recording of the Rubinstein fifth piano concerto) where there is a spot of incomplete silvering, such that there's a little pinhole of pure transparency where you can look right through the disc, yet the playing is unaffected (nor is it on the Centaur). Because of the high summer humidity in my home, I need to gently wash my discs in lukewarm water from time to time to remove mold buildup which will easily cause skipping, so I am curious that this spot of transparency does not cause problems when playing.
The Ponti recording isn't even all that fast compared to most modern recordings, except for the first movement. For instance, Hough on Hyperion gets through the Andante and Finale quite a bit quicker.
Many thanks TerraEpon!
" On the present recording Simon Trpčeski plays the first and last movements uncut but uses the Siloti edition for the central Andante non troppo"- translation: our budget didn't extend to two string soloists :)
Quote from: eschiss1 on Friday 21 February 2025, 17:14translation: our budget didn't extend to two string soloists :)
Alternative translation: "Mr. Trpčeski declined to share the limelight with the first desk violin and cello players."
Quote from: John Boyer on Friday 21 February 2025, 17:42Quote from: eschiss1 on Friday 21 February 2025, 17:14translation: our budget didn't extend to two string soloists :)
Alternative translation: "Mr. Trpčeski declined to share the limelight with the first desk violin and cello players."
Not necessarily. Often the orchestra will provide their services for free as part of their mission to record musical heritage, but the production company pays for any additional musicians. And these people don't work for nothing. This also explains why every instrumental idiosyncracy can prevent a work from being recorded.
But who wouldn't prefer the longer, better, non-butchered version?
Yes, rather. Or: what's the point recording a piece if you can't do it properly? I don't get it either.
Is there any valid argument for retaining Siloti?
Ilja has hit on it, yes- they neither do, nor should be expected to, work for nothing.
It seems to me that any extended orchestral solo is just part of the job. The first desk violin and cello are often called upon to play solos, just as the first desk wind players are.
Quote from: Alan Howe on Friday 21 February 2025, 21:59Is there any valid argument for retaining Siloti?
Not really, I think; even the "nostalgia" argument quickly dissolves as you realize that we have recordings by heavyweights such as Gilels and Cherkassky. And it really is a poor piece of work.
To be honest, I don't particularly like this concerto or really any concertante work written by Tchaikovsky; I don't think it was his strongest genre. But what Siloti did in actually making a Tchaikovsky work sound
bad is quite an achievement. The other culprit in that arena is Bogatyryev, who thought his handiwork might pass for Tchaikovsky's "Seventh" symphony.