Andante and Finale (Tchaikovsky) - Synthetic Completion of The Third Concerto

Synthetic Completion of The Third Concerto

The single-movement Third Piano Concerto and the Andante and Finale are sometimes played together to form a synthetic "complete" three-movement concerto, but this is without any authority from the composer. Whether Tchaikovsky would have fulfilled his original conception of a standard three-movement concerto, and if so, whether he would have used the Andante and Finale music or written new music, is purely conjecture. John Warrack writes: "hat survives is a reconstruction in concerto form of some music Tchaikovsky was planning, not a genuine Tchaikovsky piano concerto." Eric Blom adds, "It is true that even Taneyev did not know for certain whether Tchaikovsky, if he actually meant to turn out a three-movement concerto, would not have preferred to scrap the Andante and Finale altogether and to replace them by two entirely new movements; so if we decide that the finale at any rate is a poor piece of work, we must blame Taneyev for preserving it rather than Tchaikovsky for having conceived it. For we cannot even be sure how far the conception may have been carried out ..."

Warrack concludes, "The kindest response is to remember that Tchaikovsky himself abandoned it. Taneyev was being over-pious: much the best solution of the problem of what to do with the music is to perform the Third Concerto as Tchaikovsky left it, in one movement; it could with advantage be heard sometimes in concerts at which soloists wish to add something less than another full-scale concerto to the main work in their program."