MUSIC : The Russians Are Coming

Tchaikovsky’s music is so melodious and so popular today that we can scarcely imagine why so much of it was panned when it was new.

Consider the Violin Concerto in D, which 17-year-old Maxim Vengerov will play with the Moscow Philharmonic led by Jasug Kakhidze Friday at the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

Tchaikovsky offered the dedication of the concerto to the great Hungarian violinist Leopold Auer, who went on to found a dynasty of stellar Russian violinists. But Auer refused to play the work because he considered the solo writing a horror. The composer had to delay the premiere for more than three years, until he found a willing partner in the Viennese violinist Adolf Brodsky.

But when Brodsky played the premiere in 1881, the influential Viennese critic Eduard Hanslick flew into a rage. “The violin is no longer played, but torn apart, pounded black and blue,” Hanslick wrote.

Strong stuff considering the noble, aristocratic theme that opens the work and the Cossack dancelike fireworks that close it.

Hanslick did allow that he admired the “tender and Slavic melancholy” of the second movement, however.

Actually, that movement was an afterthought. Tchaikovsky had sketched out the work in 11 days in March of 1878 and scored it within two weeks.

Although he admired the work as a whole, the composer’s brother, Modest, expressed reservations about the second movement (a Meditation). He didn’t think it was as good as the other two movements.

So Tchaikovsky amiably replaced it, writing the present Canzonetta, which Hanslick so admired, in a single day.

Auer subsequently changed his opinion and became one of the work’s champions, and the concerto became a standard in the international repertory.

The latest issue of Opus--a guide to CD, cassette and laser disc recordings--lists 56 recordings of the work. And that’s only the current list of what’s available. It does not include a recording by Vengerov, although the violinist played the work last March on an American tour with the Israel Philharmonic under the direction of Zubin Mehta. The Friday program is sponsored by the Orange County Philharmonic Society.

Who: Maxim Vengerov will be soloist for Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto with the Moscow Philharmonic led by Jasug Kakhidze.

When: Friday, April 10, at 8 p.m.

Where: Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa.

Whereabouts: San Diego (405) Freeway to Bristol Street exit. North to Town Center Drive. (Center is one block east of South Coast Plaza.)

Wherewithal: $14 to $40.

Where to Call: (714) 646-6277.