Cello Concerto (Tchaikovsky/Leonovich)

The fragment Tchaikovsky left after his death, found in the Cajkovskij-Symposium and published by Schott Music,[4] is more than 60 bars long. Much of the material has been crossed out. Since it was found on four sides of the rough draft of the Sixth Symphony, it has been previously thought to be the original opening of the symphony's finale. The music is notated on three systems, with the melody being noted on the upper system with the bass clef. The style is of genuine violin music. Nevertheless, the general character of this music, with orchestral accompaniment written on the two systems below it, infers that this fragment actually belongs to the cello concerto Tchaikovsky had promised to write.

No letters or commentary are currently available to show how Tchaikovsky would have structured this work. As Brett Langston has mentioned, however, in other works such as the Pathétique, Tchaikovsky's sketches often began with the main theme or themes, with the introductory material added at a later stage.

As for the central andante, though Tchaikovsky's friend Sergei Taneyev arranged it for piano and orchestra after the composer's death, Tchaikovsky himself had left no indication as to how or whether to use this music; it was simply a discard from his abandoned Symphony in E flat, written prior to the Pathétique. Both Taneyev and Modest Tchaikovsky questioned at some length how the work should be presented—as an independent concert piece, as part of a two-movement concerto-type work, or in purely orchestral form. Also, once he and Modest decided how to proceed, Taneyev employed a solo cello in concert with the piano soloist, reminiscent of the "triple concerto" passages in the Second Piano Concerto. Therefore, using this music for solo cello and orchestra might not seem against the composer's intent.

Though there is no idea whether Tchaikovsky would have used the Russian folk song "Our Wine Cellar" [Винный нашь колодезь] which opens this movement, he was at least familiar with it, having arranged it for piano four hands as No. 29 of his Fifty Russian Folk-Songs (1868–69).

An eight-bar theme in G major, found in one of the composer's notebooks, became the second theme of the concluding rondo. Headed "Allegro (idea for sonata with cello)", this theme is dated 24 November 1891.

While Tchaikovsky wrote the first theme of the Allegro maestoso, Leonovich precedes it with a 12-bar introduction of his own inspiration. Leonovich also wrote an erotic and suggestive second theme inspired by his family to complement the opening motive. The second theme is in G major, assuming that Leonovich remembers F-sharps, which Leonovich considers an unlikely key relationship for Tchaikovsky to have used since Tchaikovsky wrote the first theme in B minor.

Ignoring the apparent clues left by Tchaikovsky as to how he would have developed this movement, Leonovich also takes the development into his own hands, following a linear pattern similar to that in the Fourth Symphony and Second Piano Concerto. Exploring the mediant area Leonovich calls typical of Romantic composers, he allows the music to move to D major instead of B major in the recapitulation. He says he also made this decision for practical reasons.

Leonovich says he develops the concluding rondo in typical Tchaikovsky style, with key areas of B minor and G major and, in the recapitulation, B minor and A major. The coda restates the second theme in B major, in a much slower tempo, (resulting from the inability to perform a tempo) but then accelerates to round off the piece quoting the "Allegro maestoso" theme. The cadenza may be repeated as an encore.