Guildhall Symphony Orchestra
Richard Farnes - Conductor
Ke Ma - Piano

Unlike Rachmaninov (or, later still, Shostakovich or Prokofiev) Tchaikovsky did not follow in the line of titanic composer-pianists that stretched back to Mozart and Beethoven: composers whose keyboard prowess prompted them to write concertos that would showcase their own virtuosity.

It was perhaps in recognition of this shortcoming that, on Christmas Eve 1874, Tchaikovsky played his First Piano Concerto to the pianist and composer Nikolay Rubinstein (who had appointed Tchaikovsky to a position at the Moscow Conservatory, where Rubinstein was director). Instead of offering advice on the piano writing, Rubinstein tore the piece to shreds, as Tchaikovsky recalled three years later in a letter to his patroness Nadezhda von Meck:

‘It appeared that my concerto was worthless, that it was unplayable, that passages were trite, awkward and so clumsy that it was impossible to put them right, that as a composition it was bad and tawdry, that I had filched this bit from here and that bit from there, that there were really only two or three pages that could be retained, and that the rest would have to be scrapped or completely revised.’

Tchaikovsky would make some revisions, Rubinstein told him, and once he had done so, Rubinstein would play the work at one of his concerts. ‘I won’t change a single note,’ Tchaikovsky replied, ‘and I’ll print it just as it is now’.

Rubinstein must have softened towards the piece, though, as before the end of 1875 he conducted the concerto’s Moscow premiere, and a few months later performed it as pianist. Indeed, as pianist, he became one of the concerto’s notable early proponents.

Guildhall Symphony Orchestra
Violin 1
Yuriko Matsuda*
Melanie Gruwez
Pauline Herold
Evie Rogers
Reonel Rafols
Sofía Muñiz Mejuto
Susanna Griffin
Maja Uzarska
Jasper Noack
Damian Dimitrov
Ella Paterson-Fox
Maria Jimenez Valles

Violin 2
Eliette Harris*
Amelia Harding
Imogen Brewer
Aleksandra Lenkiewicz
Alex Collins
Ludwika Borowska
Ines Soltwedel
Malena Benavent Gimeno
Rebecca Pelta
Nia Lecheva
Clement Lebourgeois
Leon Human

Viola
Anna Pape*
Dominic Stokes
Clara-Monika Schmid
Holly Woods
Ruby Bowler
Hugo Haag
Hui Pang Lee
Joshua Law
Sirma Baramova
Jake Montgomery-Smith

Cello
Alicja Kozak*
Laura MacDonald
James McBeth
Joseph Barker
Andrew Everitt
Vasco Ferrão Dias
Kalina Videnova
Alexander Scott-Brown

Double bass
Ben Du Toit*
Yat Hei Lee
Kornel Koncos T
Elena Calvo Bravo
Chiu Yung Chan
Melisande Lochak

Flute
Sophie McLaughlin*
Karen Wong

Oboe
Elen Morgan-Williams*
Sooyeon Park

Clarinet
Jonathan Willett*
Fresca David

Bassoon
Hazalen Tang*
Ruby Collins

Horn
Zac Hayward*
Alexander Grinyer
Leonardo Pinho
Jake Parker
Lizzie Baumberg

Trumpet
Thomas Nielsen*
Adam Meyer

Trombone
James Thomas*
Sam Dye

Bass trombone
Alexander Froggatt

Tuba
Charles Jones

Timpani
Charlie Hodge

Percussion
Jonathan Akerman*
Cameron Gorman

This concert was performed live across four venues at Guildhall School on 25 September 2020. It was recorded and produced live by Guildhall School’s Recording & Audio Visual department utilising the School's award winning low latency Dante and NDI network