According to Tchaikovsky Research only part of the first movement was
actually orchestrated by the composer...but the whole symphony was sketched
out....Tchaikovsky reworked movements 1,2 and 4 as a piano
concerto....finishing only the first movement...the rest being completed by
Taneev as Andante and Finale....the second movement is an especially lovely
work as you mention...the finale is the weakest....a bit too sketchy....the
symphony was reconstructed in the 1950's based on the composer's
sketches....the scherzo was turned into the piano piece Scherzo Fantasie by
the composer in his set of 18 piano pieces op 72......
AL Gasparo
02/09/2011 15:26
I agree with you. The second movement is first class Tchaikovsky. In this
site (
http://www.tchaikovsky-research.net/en/Works/Unfinished/TH241/index.html
) there is the following information by Taneev:
"I have copied out from Petr Il’ich’s notebooks sketches for two
movements of a future piano piece. To start with I made a clean copy, and
then began to orchestrate them. The Andante is delightful, but
unfortunately Petr Il'ich did not leave it for orchestra, but arranged it
as a piano piece"
This words seems to indicar that the original andante exists as a piano
piece but this piece is unknown to me (the Symphony third movement original
for piano solo is the Scherzo-fantasie Op 72 No 10).
The theme of the piece for piano "Moment lyrique" is similar to the
central section of the andante from the symphony.
Manuel Blanca
02/09/2011 17:59