Everyone has their off days, and geniuses are no exception. Some of our most venerated composers have proudly presented the world with pieces only they could love. The works remain safely in hiding until someone comes along to champion them, at which point their failings become glaringly evident.
Tchaikovsky's Second Piano Concerto is one such piece. Everyone knows Tchaikovsky must have written more than one piano concerto, since the popular B flat minor is always referred to as "the First". Yet who has stopped to wonder about the possible Second, or even speculated about the existence of others? In fact, Tchaikovsky wrote three piano concertos. So why don't we hear the other two more often?
With regard to the Second, the answer is that, despite a solo part of irresistible flamboyance and virtuosity, the orchestral writing - which also means the thematic material itself - is as dead as a dodo. The orchestral introduction alone is stultifying. Yet Lilya Zilberstein and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra played as though it was the most exciting piece in the world. Zilberstein played down the first movement's more garish moments, occasionally helping things along with dynamic shaping, in wise contravention of Tchaikovsky's instructions.
While this work doesn't show soloist or orchestra to best advantage, technique like Zilberstein's can go a long way; coupled with unflaggingly dedicated orchestral playing (in particular from leader Thelma Handy and Jonathan Aasgaard), Tchaikovsky's ugly duckling came very close to becoming a beautiful swan.
If Tchaikovsky seemed over-indulgent towards some works, he was harshly self-critical with regard to his symphonies. Despite his private misgivings, the Fifth Symphony is undeniably a masterpiece, albeit one that demands sensitive handling if it is not to sound overblown and hollow. Where Tchaikovsky treads an uneasy path between manic over-confidence and inner collapse, conductor Owain Arwel Hughes so favoured the confident side that the brashness quickly wore very thin - going some way to explaining why the composer felt nauseated by his symphony after the premiere, damning it as insincere and horrible. Anyone not previously familar with it might well have formed the same impression.
