I must say that I’m in love with Tchaikovsky’s piano concerto number one because of the dynamic orchestral opening. It’s so bombastic and gives great weigh to the piano. It has a piano part full of humungous octave and fifth laden chords that make it an instant classic. I love Martha Argerich’s version of this but it is kind of quick. I’ve heard many other versions that are quite a bit slower in execution of tempo. This faster tempo would probably be a much more exhillerating version.
The hordes of strings are in top form. The horns are excellent. The horns really make way for the expert piano player to come in and do his thing or her thing in this case. Tchaikovsky is known for his many reverberating chromatic passages in chordal tidal waves. For instance, the minor third followed by the scale wise motion downward that repeats over and over is a trademark. It is the best in the whole piece. It adds so much tension and expectation that builds and builds throughout the whole work. Before you know it, or back into the C-sharp major piano and orchestra fanfare that dots the first few minutes of the orchestra piece.
All the sudden the fanfare clients into the dark texture of nothing. Soon there is a hopping and skipping and merry texture that gallops along at a fast jaunt. It’s a horse at the races. I learned so much about the form of this piece because I would've kept the fanfare going for three or four minutes straight and develop it out to the full potential. I guess I'm more of a minimalist as a composer because I don't move on to different parts and piece very often. But in this classic, you have to switch to it up. It's a piano concerto after all is said and done, complete with the solo cadenzas and chromatic switches that show the virtuosity that is the classical music of the day. I love how the low register of the piano is kept in a low chromatic state. The orchestra comes in and envelopes the piano and then a brief C minor passage ensues. In the strings, then an A-flat major tonality briefly dots the landscape. With many romantic era pieces, the total centers shift quite often, almost too often to tell which key the piece is in at any given moment. The chromatic nature of the piano accentuates this to the nth degree and ends with octave chromaticism that is the pinnacle of the drama of many a Romantic era piece. Through all of this, I see were pieces like Suwanee and the Cyane (The Swan) would later come in as part of the orchestral literature of the day. All of the chromatic material pulling out all the stops is the starting point for all of those later works. Bravo to Tchaikovski for such a spell-binding work. Well done!
