Tchaikovsky scholar David Brown notes that the middle section of the quasi Rondo of the Fantasia, written for piano solo, "was the logical goal toward which this precedent had pointed".
[1] The Fantasia is scored for piano solo plus the following: Woodwinds Brass Percussion Strings Tchaikovsky returned from abroad at the beginning of March 1884, determined to spend the spring months with his sister at Kamenka.
Captivated by the playing of the famed Liszt pupil Eugen d'Albert, who had given concerts in Moscow during the 1883/84 season, his thoughts turned to a new piano concerto.
In June, after completing the sketches and piano arrangement of what would become the Third Orchestral Suite while staying at Grankino, Tchaikovsky returned to composing the Concert Fantasia.
At the end of the Quasi rondo opening movement, he added an optional coda for the soloist which was both technically showy and rhetorically empty.
Tchaikovsky, who attended the concert, wrote to Modest on 25 February, "I heard a superb performance of the Fantasia by Taneyev and the orchestra, with which I was delighted.
[8] While Quasi sonata might have proved a more fitting title, what actually matters here is that the music is a manner of charm, elegant craftsmanship and a high entertainment value.
[9] One important note is that the counterpoint for solo cello added to the slow tune being played by the piano is not the contrasting idea to which the title of the piece refers.
It is merely an episode, Neither is the quiet melody that follows over an accompaniment embodying one of those inner pedal points which are a characteristic trick of Tchaikovsky's musical style.
)[10] The first hint that something in a new, quick rhythm is going to be contrasted with the slow theme is when the soloist plays rapid ascending scales to its restatement by the oboe.
Follow these is a cleverly contrived transition where the arpeggios act as though mutual friends, introducing the two different rhythmic elements to each other in a passage where these patterns not meet but overlap.
[10] Tchaikovsky biographer and music writer David Brown has commented, "[The Concert Fantasia's] crippling weakness is that it contains not one really strong idea, yet its very original structure suffices to show that Tchaikovsky was concerned to fashion something more than a mere showpiece to gratify a virtuoso pianist or inflame a lionizing audience".
[11] He adds, "For all its melodic shortcomings, the Concert Fantasia has some engaging qualities and a structural freshness which should win it the occasional hearing".