11.12.2022
Like no other composer, Pyotr Ilyich has works that officially have two editions – one by the composer and one with other people’s alterations.
And the changes made are significant. It is known that today, due to the established performing tradition, some of the works most often do not quite sound like Tchaikovsky. For example, Variations on a Rococo Theme for orchestra and solo cello.
There are not many concert works for traditionally “orchestral” instruments; any instrumentalist dreams of showing the beauty of the sound of his instrument separately from the orchestra. In 1876-77 the “Variations” were born. It was a long-awaited gift for the Moscow cellist Wilhelm Fitzegagen, a close friend of the composer and also the first cellist of the Russian Musical Society. He participated in all the premieres of Tchaikovsky’s music as a soloist and first-part performer. He was Pyotr Ilyich’s chief trusted musician.
The premiere of the Variations took place in November 1877, and it took place without Tchaikovsky, who was at the time abroad rehearsing and performing his other works. After the premiere, Fitzenhagen took the sheet music to Tchaikovsky’s publisher Peter Jurgenson with his corrections. Thus he removed one of the eight variations entirely, swapped some of them and changed the coda. In this form the sheet music went to print.
The changes, in the opinion of “editor” Fitzenhagen, enabled the most virtuoso section of the work to be included in the finale, where he could shine as a performer. Pyotr Ilyich was touring a lot at the time and did not answer the “editor’s” letters. But not because he agreed with the editorial. And soon there was no one to object – Nikolai Vasilyevich died. A few more years later, so did Pyotr Tchaikovsky himself.
For many years the confusion with the editorial boards remained in obscurity. Artists during this time became accustomed to performing the edited version. It was in this version that, starting in 1962, Variations on a Rococo Theme became a must-play piece in the third round of the Tchaikovsky Competition. The last three dozen bars are technically very difficult for all performers and almost impossible to play cleanly. But the long practice of performing this particular variant of the sheet music created a peculiar aura of virtuosity and particular complexity of the work that not every performer can achieve. Now if anyone wishes to perform it in the composer’s version, he will immediately be recognized as chickenshit or lacking in technique.
