Everyone’s a critic. Music history is littered with stories of now-famous compositions that were initially dismissed or excoriated at their premieres. César Cui derided Rachmaninoff’s first symphony as comparable to all 10 plagues of Egypt rolled into one and suggested that it was only fit to be heard by the inmates of a conservatory in hell. Reviews of the premiere of Beethoven’s late string quartet, Op. 130, referred to the last movement, Grosse Fuge, as “a confusion of Babel” and “an indecipherable, uncorrected horror.” More recently, a Boston music critic in 1900 suggested that egresses in the new Boston Symphony Hall should be labeled “Exit in Case of Brahms.” While each of these criticisms is memorable to be sure, none compares to the reception that Tchaikovsky received when “test driving” his new piano concerto for his colleague, famed pianist Nicolas Rubinstein. Rubinstein had been supportive of Tchaikovsky’s music in the past, and the 34-year-old secretly hoped to dedicate the concerto to Rubinstein and have him premiere the work.

It was Christmas Eve 1874 when Tchaikovsky proudly played the concerto for Rubinstein. Tchaikovsky described the experience in a letter a few years later: “I played the first movement. Never a word, never a single remark. Do you know the awkward and ridiculous sensation of putting before a friend a meal which you have cooked yourself, which he eats—and then holds his tongue? Oh, for a single word, for friendly abuse, for anything to break the silence! For God’s sake say something! But Rubinstein never opened his lips.”

When Rubinstein eventually spoke, he didn’t hold back. Tchaikovsky continued” ‘“Well?’ I asked, and rose from the piano. Then a torrent broke from Rubinstein’s lips, gentle at first, gathering volume as it proceeded, and finally bursting into the fury of a Jupiter. My concerto was worthless, absolutely unplayable; the passages so broken, so disconnected, so unskillfully written, that they could not even be improved; the work itself was bad, trivial, common; here and there I had stolen from other people; only one or two pages were worth anything; all the rest had better be destroyed. I left the room without a word. Presently Rubinstein came to me and, seeing how upset I was, repeated that my concerto was impossible but said if I would suit it to his requirements, he would bring it out at his concert. ‘I shall not alter a single note,’ I replied.”

To his credit, Tchaikovsky did not alter a single note. Rather, he looked for another pianist willing to tackle what he had written. The German pianist/conductor Hans von Bülow eagerly accepted the challenge, and agreed to premiere the work on an upcoming American tour. Thus, on October 25, 1875, the concerto was premiered in Boston with von Bülow at the keyboard. The performance was a triumph, and marked the beginning of a succession of American performances that served to increase Tchaikovsky’s popularity on this side of the Atlantic.

The first movement, marked Allegro non troppo e molto maestoso, is a majestic masterpiece. Heroic horns boldly get our attention before the piano enters with thunderous chords. This short, yet dramatic introduction leads to a glorious theme presented by the unison string section. This unapologetic, heart-on-the-sleeve melody has become one of the most beloved in the repertoire. Following the string presentation, the piano takes center stage with its own version of the tune, culminating in a dramatic cadenza. The orchestra then returns with the theme as the pianist embellishes dramatically. Oddly enough, this gorgeous opening melody is not heard again, and the movement continues with completely different melodic material. After an almost funereal chant by the brass, the first of three additional themes is presented: a chirpy tune based on a Ukrainian folk song. Following this nervous melody, the clarinet introduces a more tender theme, which is then taken up by the soloist. There is a third melancholy theme first introduced by the strings, and the remainder of the movement is devoted to orchestra and soloist trading these three melodies back and forth as the pianist is pushed to ever greater feats of virtuosity. Stormy orchestral interludes lead to tender solo piano episodes as Tchaikovsky takes these three melodies and presents them in myriad ways. A final, lengthy piano cadenza gives the soloist a chance to show off both their lyrical and technical skills before the orchestra rejoins in a dramatic and muscular conclusion.

Following this grandiose opening movement, the second movement is arresting in its simplicity. Hushed pizzicato strings introduce a solo flute playing a tender melody. The piano takes up the tune, eventually sharing it with cello and woodwind solos. There is a skittish middle section where the pianist’s technical skills are pushed to ever-increasing heights while the orchestra plays a new melody beneath the acrobatics. Eventually the opening tender music returns, played gently by the soloist, then shared with the oboe. The movement ends like a lullaby, gently soothing us to sleep.

The final movement opens with a jaunty tune full of syncopations that rather quickly leads to a more regal melody introduced by the violins. These two contrasting themes alternate, putting the soloist through their paces with almost non-stop racing up and down the keyboard. A short orchestral interlude gives the soloist a brief respite before the grandest of finales, full of pianistic fireworks and almost guaranteed to elicit an enormous reaction from a breathless audience.

The audience at the Boston premiere responded as one would expect, with thunderous applause and demanding an immediate encore of the last movement (which must have left von Bülow exhausted)! The reception at subsequent performances was equally enthusiastic, and eventually even Rubinstein grudgingly came to admire the work. Tchaikovsky, despite his initial defiance, also did eventually revise the concerto a bit, completing the final version in 1889. Two years later, Tchaikovsky himself conducted the piece before a rapt and appreciative audience at the inaugural concert that opened Carnegie Hall. Tchaikovsky stuck to his guns and found success, reminding us of the wisdom of composer Jean Sibelius’ advice, “Pay no attention to what the critics say. A statue has never been erected in honor of a critic.”

One of the hallmarks of greatness in any field must certainly be a continual urge to push outside of one’s comfort zone. Our most celebrated artists, athletes, and scientists seem to constantly keep exploring, risking failure and damage to their reputations by trying new and unfamiliar things. Benjamin Franklin did not need to stand outside with a kite and key; Jonas Salk could have been successful without spending the better part of a decade searching for a polio vaccine; Michael Jordan did not have to try his hand at baseball; and George Gershwin certainly did not need to write a piano concerto. By 1924, when Walter Damrosch approached Gershwin about writing a “classical concerto” for piano and orchestra, Gershwin was already a household name in the popular music realm, having enjoyed tremendous success with his 1919 song “Swanee” and “I’ll Build a Stairway to Paradise” in 1920. Lady Be Good, which would become George and brother Ira’s first major Broadway success, was already in production. Gershwin had just premiered his Rhapsody in Blue with bandleader Paul Whiteman at a concert called “An Experiment in Modern Music,” but the orchestration for that work had been done by classical composer Ferde Grofé. Although it meant taking a professional risk, Gershwin was determined to complete this new concerto on his own. He wrote: “Many persons had thought that the Rhapsody was only a happy accident. Well I went out, for one thing, to show them that there was more where that had come from. I made up my mind to do a piece of absolute music. The Rhapsody was a blues impression. The Concerto would be unrelated to any program.”

Composed in a secluded “practice shack” at the Chautauqua Institution during the summer of 1925, Gershwin completed his “New York Concerto,” as he initially called it, without assistance, and the work was premiered in Carnegie Hall on December 3, 1925. The piece was well received by the public but largely dismissed by the New York critics as unworthy of serious attention. Olin Downes of The New York Times called the concerto “a dubious experiment” and noted that Gershwin had “neither the instinct nor the technical equipment to be at ease in … a work of symphonic dimensions.” But Samuel Chotzinoff of NBC understood that the work represented an important melding of classical tradition and popular culture. He wrote: “But all [Gershwin’s] shortcomings are nothing in the face of the one thing he alone, of all those writing the music of today, possesses. He alone actually expresses us … He writes without the smallest hint of self-consciousness, and with unabashed delight in the stridency, the gaucheries, the joy and excitement of life as it is lived right here and now.”

The work, infused with the rhythms and harmonies of jazz, is in the classical three-movement format. The first movement, Allegro, opens noisily with percussion giving way to the main theme based on a Charleston rhythm, which Gershwin said represented “the young, enthusiastic spirit of American life.” The movement alternates between episodes of high-energy jazz and more delicate, improvisatory interludes for the soloist. The second movement is firmly rooted in the blues tradition, opening with a lengthy, dark, and smoky solo for the trumpet, full of as much longing and pathos as any nightclub standard. The soloist offers an upbeat interlude, as if we’ve left the club and headed out onto the street for a bit, only to eventually return to the melancholy mood of the opening music and a nostalgic conclusion. The final Allegro agitato bristles with the urban energy that pervades so much of Gershwin’s orchestral music. Based loosely on the stride piano style of the ragtime era, Gershwin called the movement “an orgy of rhythms.” Energetic, virtuosic writing for both soloist and orchestra builds to a triumphant conclusion, providing a truly grand finale to a work that marked a major victory not only for its composer but for music lovers everywhere.

Born in 1941 in Rochester, New York, Adolphus Cunningham Hailstork III began his composition studies at Howard University and at the American Institute at Fontainebleau, where he studied with Nadia Boulanger, arguably the most important composition pedagogue of the 20th century. He would go on to receive bachelor's and master’s degrees from Manhattan School of Music and his doctorate in composition from Michigan State University. He has composed a wide variety of works for orchestra, chorus, opera, chamber ensembles, band, voice, and piano, and his music has been performed and recorded by major American orchestras, including The Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, and Detroit Symphony, among others. Hailstork resides in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and is a professor of music and Eminent Scholar at Old Dominion University in Norfolk.

Several of Hailstork’s works are centered on American history or events, including Rise for Freedom, an opera about the Underground Railroad, premiered in the fall of 2007, Set Me on a Rock, regarding Hurricane Katrina, for orchestra and chorus, and the requiem cantata A Knee on a Neck, composed in 2021 in response to the murder of George Floyd. An American Port of Call was composed in 1985 for the Virginia Symphony. Hailstork has provided the following description of the work:

“The concert overture, in sonata-allegro form, captures the strident (and occasionally tender and even mysterious) energy of a busy American port city. The great port of Norfolk, Virginia, where I live, was the direct inspiration.”