The ‘Unplayable’ Concerto That We Can’t Live Without

Despite initial criticism—and without altering a single note—Tchaikovsky’s first piano concerto remains popular today.

Tchaikovsky in 1893, as painted by Nikolai Kuznetzov. Public Domain

On Christmas Eve 1874, in a room at the Moscow Conservatory, a piano concerto that would become one of the most popular and highly regarded works of its kind was premiered by its composer for an audience of two: the finest pianist, then alive in Russia and his housemate, who was a professor of music theory.

Its sweeping, three-beat melody in the orchestra and crashing chords in the piano have come to mean the very essence of Romantic-era piano concerto, as opposed to Classical-era concertos, which feature the trading of themes back-and-forth between orchestra and soloist.