This violin concerto in D major, Op.35, was completed in 1878 by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840 - 1893). The piece is in three movements, with no break between the second and the third. It is generally seen as one of the best violin concertos of all time, although the influential critic Eduard Hanslick called the concerto "long and pretentious", "music that stinks to the ear", and wrote that "the violin was not played but beaten black and blue." I love it. The average playing time is 34 minutes (AllMusic). My version is by Nathan Milstein and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Orchestra under Claudio Abbado on a Deutsche Grammophon CD.
