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{{Infobox_Biography |
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|subject_name=Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky<BR>Пётр Ильич Чайковский |
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|image_name=tchaikovsky-11.jpg |
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|image_caption=Tchaikovsky in 1874. |
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|dead=dead |
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|date_of_birth={{OldStyleDate|7 May|1840|25 April}} |
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|place_of_birth=[[Votkinsk]] |
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|date_of_death={{OldStyleDate|6 November|1893|25 October}} |
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|place_of_death=}} |
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{{redirect|Tchaikovsky}} |
{{redirect|Tchaikovsky}} |
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[[Image:tchaikovsky-11.jpg|thumb|right|Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky]] |
[[Image:tchaikovsky-11.jpg|thumb|right|Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky]] |
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'''Pyotr (Peter) Ilyich Tchaikovsky''' ({{lang-ru|Пётр Ильич Чайкoвский}}, ''Pjotr Il’ič Čajkovskij''; {{Audio|Ru-Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.ogg|listen}})<ref>''Note'': His names are also transliterated Piotr, Petr, or Peter; Ilitsch, Ilich, Il'ich or Illyich; and Tschaikowski, Tschaikowsky, Chajkovskij and Chaikovsky (as well as many other versions as Russian transliteration can be vary much between different languages)</ref> ({{OldStyleDate| May 7|1840|April 25}} – {{OldStyleDate|November 6|1893|October 25}}) was a [[Russia]]n [[composer]] of the [[Romantic music|Romantic]] era. While not part of the [[nationalism|nationalistic]] music group "[[The Five|The Russian Five]]", Tchaikovsky wrote music now known and loved for its distinctly [[Russian music|Russian]] melodies: plangent, introspective, often [[musical mode|modal]]-sounding.<ref>Schonberg, 366.</ref> His [[List of compositions by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky|works]], however, are much more western in structure and form than those of his Russian contemporaries. |
'''Pyotr (Peter) Ilyich Tchaikovsky''' ({{lang-ru|Пётр Ильич Чайкoвский}}, ''Pjotr Il’ič Čajkovskij''; {{Audio|Ru-Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.ogg|listen}})<ref>''Note'': His names are also transliterated Piotr, Petr, or Peter; Ilitsch, Ilich, Il'ich or Illyich; and Tschaikowski, Tschaikowsky, Chajkovskij and Chaikovsky (as well as many other versions as Russian transliteration can be vary much between different languages)</ref> ({{OldStyleDate| May 7|1840|April 25}} – {{OldStyleDate|November 6|1893|October 25}}) was a [[Russia]]n [[composer]] of the [[Romantic music|Romantic]] era. While not part of the [[nationalism|nationalistic]] music group "[[The Five|The Russian Five]]", Tchaikovsky wrote music now known and loved for its distinctly [[Russian music|Russian]] melodies: plangent, introspective, often [[musical mode|modal]]-sounding.<ref>Schonberg, 366.</ref> His [[List of compositions by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky|works]], however, are much more western in structure and form than those of his Russian contemporaries. |
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==Early life== |
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As biographer [[Anthony Holden]] maintains, no indigenous tradition of Russian music existed before Tchaikovsky's birth in 1840 other than [[Folk music|folk tunes]] and ''[[a cappella]]'' music for the [[Russian Orthodox Church]]. Twenty years after Tchaikovsky's death, in 1913, [[Igor Stravinsky]]'s ''[[The Rite of Spring]]'' erupted onto the musical scene, signalling Russia's arrival into [[20th century]] [[20th century music|music]]. Between these two very different worlds Tchaikovsky's music became the sole bridge.<ref>Holden, Anthony, ''Tchaikovsky: A Biography'' (New York: Random House, 1995), xxi)</ref> |
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Peter (Pyotr) Tchaikovsky was born on [[April 25]], [[1840]] ([[Julian calendar]]) or [[May 7]] ([[Gregorian calendar]]) in [[Votkinsk]], a small town in present-day [[Udmurtia]] (at the time the [[Vyatka]] [[Guberniya]] under [[Imperial Russia]]), the son of a mining engineer in the government mines and the second of his three wives, Alexandra, a Russian woman of [[French people|French]] ancestry. He was the older brother (by some ten years) of the [[dramatist]], [[librettist]], and [[translator]] [[Modest Ilyich Tchaikovsky]]. Musically precocious, Pyotr began [[piano]] lessons at the age of five, and in a few months he was already proficient at [[Friedrich Kalkbrenner]]'s composition ''Le Fou''. In [[1850]], his father was appointed director of the [[Saint Petersburg State Institute of Technology|St Petersburg Technological Institute]]. There, the young Tchaikovsky obtained an excellent general education at the [[School of Jurisprudence]], and furthered his instruction on the piano with the director of the music library. Also during this time, he made the acquaintance of the [[Italian people|Italian]] master [[Luigi Piccioli]], who influenced the young man away from [[German people|German]] music, and encouraged the love of [[Gioacchino Rossini|Rossini]], [[Vincenzo Bellini|Bellini]], and [[Gaetano Donizetti|Donizetti]]. His father indulged Tchaikovsky's interest in music by funding studies with [[Rudolph Kündinger]], a well-known piano teacher from [[Nuremberg]]. Under Kündinger, Tchaikovsky's aversion to German music was overcome, and a lifelong affinity with the music of [[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart|Mozart]] was seeded. When his mother died of [[cholera]] in [[1854]], the 14-year-old composed a [[waltz]] in her memory. |
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Tchaikovsky left school in [[1858]] and received employment as an under-secretary in the Ministry of Justice, where he soon joined the Ministry's choral group. In [[1861]], he befriended a fellow civil servant who had studied with [[Nikolai Zaremba]], who urged him to resign his position and pursue his studies further. Not ready to give up employment, Tchaikovsky agreed to begin lessons in musical theory with Zaremba. The following year, when Zaremba joined the faculty of the new [[Saint Petersburg Conservatory|St Petersburg Conservatory]], Tchaikovsky followed his teacher and enrolled, but still did not give up his post at the ministry, until his father consented to support him. From [[1862]] to [[1865]], Tchaikovsky studied [[harmony]], [[counterpoint]] and the [[fugue]] with Zaremba, and instrumentation and composition under the director and founder of the Conservatory, [[Anton Rubinstein]], who was both impressed by and envious of Tchaikovsky's talent. |
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Tchaikovsky was perhaps the first Russian composer to think seriously about his country's place in European musical culture.<ref>Volkov, Solomon, ''St. Petersburg: A Cultural History'' (New York: The Free Press, A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1995)126.</ref> As he wrote to his patroness, [[Nadezhda von Meck]], from [[Paris]], "How pleasant it is to be convinced firsthand of the success of our literature in France. Every book ''étalage'' displays translations of [[Leo Tolstoy|Tolstoy]], [[Ivan Turgenev|Turgenev]], and [[Fyodor Dostoevsky|Dostoevsky]].... The newspapers are constantly printing rapturous articles about one or another of these writers. Perhaps such a time will come for Russian music as well!"<ref name="volkov126">Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich, ''Polnoe sobranie sochinenii. Literaturnye proizvedeniia i perepiska'' (Complete Collected Works. Literary Works and Correspondence), vol 13 (Moscow, 1971), 349. As quoted in Volkov, 126.</ref> |
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==Musical career== |
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With this in mind, Tchaikovsky became the first Russian composer to personally acquaint foreign audiences with his own works, as well as those of other Russian composers, after conquering an initial fear of [[conducting]].<ref>Warrack, 209</ref> He also formed close business and personal ties with many of the leading musicians of Europe and the United States. For Russians, this was all something new and unusual.<ref name="volkov126" /> |
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After graduating, Tchaikovsky was approached by Anton Rubinstein's younger brother [[Nikolai Grigoryevich Rubinstein|Nikolai]] to become professor of harmony, composition, and the [[history of music]]. Tchaikovsky gladly accepted the position, as his father had retired and lost his property. The next ten years were spent teaching and composing. Teaching proved taxing, and in [[1877]] he suffered a breakdown. After a year off, he attempted to return to teaching, but retired his post soon after. He spent some time in [[Switzerland]], but eventually took residence with his sister, who had an estate just outside [[Kiev]]. |
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Tchaikovsky took to orchestral [[conducting]] after filling in at a performance in [[Moscow]] of his [[opera]] ''[[The Enchantress]]'' ({{lang-ru|Чародейка}}) (1885-7). Overcoming a life-long [[glossophobia|stage fright]], his confidence gradually increased to the extent that he regularly took to conducting his pieces. |
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== Life == |
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Tchaikovsky visited [[United States|America]] in [[1891]] in a triumphant tour to conduct performances of his works. On [[May 5]], he conducted the [[New York Symphony Orchestra|New York Music Society's]] [[orchestra]] in a performance of ''[[Marche Solennelle]]'' on the opening night of [[New York City|New York's]] [[Carnegie Hall]]. That evening was followed by subsequent performances of his ''Third Suite'' on [[May 7]], and the [[a cappella]] choruses ''[[Pater Noster]]'' and ''[[Legend]]'' on [[May 8]]. The US tour also included performances of his ''[[Piano Concerto No. 1 (Tchaikovsky)|First Piano Concerto]]'' and ''[[Serenade for Strings (Tchaikovsky)|Serenade for Strings]]''. |
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Just nine days after the first performance of his [[Symphony No. 6 (Tchaikovsky)|Sixth Symphony]], ''Pathétique'', in [[1893]], in St Petersburg, Tchaikovsky died (see section below). |
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=== Childhood === |
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Some musicologists (e.g. Milton Cross, David Ewen) believe that he consciously wrote his Sixth Symphony as his own Requiem. In the development section of the first movement, the rapidly progressing evolution of the transformed first theme suddenly "shifts into neutral" in the strings, and a rather quiet, harmonized chorale emerges in the trombones. The trombone theme bears absolutely no relation to the music that preceded it, and none to the music which follows it. It appears to be a musical "non sequitur", an anomaly — but it is from the Russian Orthodox Mass for the Dead, in which it is sung to the words: "And may his soul rest with the souls of all the saints." Tchaikovsky was interred in [[Tikhvin Cemetery]] at the [[Alexander Nevsky Monastery]] in St Petersburg. |
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Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born on [[May 7]], [[1840]] in [[Votkinsk]],<ref>Although never its official name, Votkinsk is often referred to both colloquially and in some reference works as "Kamsko-Votkinsk". Votkinsk was built around the Kamsko-Votkinsky mining and metallurgical works [http://kt.sarapul.biz/chaikovsky.php], of which the composer's father was Chief Inspector. "Kamsko-" refers to the Kama River, and "Votkinsky-" refers to the Votka River, a tributary of the Kama. "Votkinsk" is derived from the river Votka.</ref> a small town in present-day [[Udmurtia]] (at the time the [[Kirov Oblast|Vyatka]] [[Guberniya]] under [[Russian Empire|Imperial Russia]]). He was the son of Ilya Petrovich Tchaikovsky, a mining engineer in the government mines, and the second of his three wives, Alexandra Andreyevna Assier, a Russian woman of [[French people|French]] ancestry. He was the older brother (by some ten years) of the [[playwright|dramatist]], [[libretto|librettist]], and [[translation|translator]] [[Modest Ilyich Tchaikovsky]]. |
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His music included some of the most renowned pieces of the romantic period. Many of his works were inspired by events in his life. |
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Tchaikovsky began [[piano]] lessons at age five with a local woman, Mariya Palchikova, and within three years could read music as well as his teacher. Another person to whom he became musically indebted was a Polish amateur pianist named Maszewski, whose skill in performing [[Frédéric Chopin|Chopin]] [[mazurka]]s was considered outstanding. Tchaikovsky prepared two Chopin mazurkas for one of the Pole's visits, impressing Maszewski enough for the Pole to bestow a kiss upon him.<ref>Brown, ''Tchaikovsky: The Early Years'', 28.</ref> |
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==Personal life== |
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In 1850, Tchaikovsky was enrolled in the preparatory class for the [[School of Jurisprudence]] in St. Petersburg. He would graduate from the school in 1859, obtaining an excellent general education. Though music was not considered a high priority on the curriculum, Tchaikovsky was taken with classmates on regular visits to the theater and the opera. He was thus able to better know the work of [[Gioacchino Rossini|Rossini]], [[Vincenzo Bellini|Bellini]], [[Giuseppe Verdi|Verdi]] and [[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart|Mozart]].<ref>Holden, 24.</ref> The only music instruction he received at school was some piano tuition from Franz Becker, a piano manufacturer who made occasional visits as a token music teacher.<ref>Holden, 24.</ref> |
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[[Image:Tchaikovsky.jpg|frame|Tchaikovsky in later life]] |
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During his education at the School of Jurisprudence, he was infatuated with a soprano, but she married another man. One of his conservatory students, [[Antonina Miliukova]], began writing him passionate letters around the time that he had made up his mind to "marry whoever will have me." He did not even remember her from his classes, but her letters were very persistent, and he hastily married her on [[July 18]], [[1877]]. Within days, while still on their honeymoon, he deeply regretted his decision. Two weeks after the wedding the composer supposedly attempted suicide by putting himself into the freezing Moscow River. Once recovered from the effects of that, he fled to [[Saint Petersburg|St Petersburg]] his mind verging on a nervous breakdown. He never returned to his wife after that but did send her a regular allowance through the years. Though they never again cohabitated with each other, they remained legally married until his death. |
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The composer's [[homosexuality]], as well as its importance to his life and music, has long been recognized, though any proof of it was suppressed during the Soviet era.<ref>http://www.glbtq.com/arts/tchaikovsky_pi.html</ref> Although some historians continue to view him as heterosexual, many others — such as [[Rictor Norton]] and Alexander Poznansky — accept that some of Tchaikovsky's closest relationships may have been homosexual, (citing his servant Aleksei Sofronov and perhaps even his nephew, Vladimir "Bob" Davydov.) Evidence that Tchaikovsky was homosexual is drawn from his letters and diaries, as well as the letters of his brother, Modest, who was also a homosexual. |
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In the midst of his studies, in June 1854, his mother died of [[cholera]]. The 14-year-old Tchaikovsky was devastated, and for two years could not write about his loss.<ref>Warrack, 29.</ref> He reacted by turning to music. Within a month of her death, he was making his first serious efforts at composition.<ref>Warrack, 31</ref> |
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A far more influential woman in Tchaikovsky's life was a wealthy widow, [[Nadezhda von Meck]], with whom he exchanged over 1,200 letters between [[1877]] and [[1890]]. At her insistence they never met; they did encounter each other on two occasions, purely by chance, but did not converse. As well as financial support in the amount of 6,000 [[Russian ruble|ruble]]s a year, she expressed interest in his musical career and admiration for his music. However, after 13 years she ended the relationship unexpectedly, claiming bankruptcy. During this period, Tchaikovsky had already achieved success throughout Europe and by [[1891]], even greater accolades in the [[United States]]. In fact, he was the [[Conducting|conductor]], on [[May 5]]th, [[1891]], at the official opening night of [[Carnegie Hall]]. |
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Tchaikovsky's father indulged his interest in music, funding studies with Rudolph Kündinger, a well-known piano teacher from [[Nuremberg]], beginning in 1855. But when Tchaikovsky's father consulted Kündinger about prospects for a musical career for his son, the answer was not encouraging. Tchaikovsky, Kündinger wrote, possessed a good ear and memory plus a talent for improvisation. Otherwise, nothing suggested a potential composer or even a fine performer. Tchaikovsky was told to finish his course work, then try for a post in the Ministry of Justice.<ref>Brown, ''Tchaikovsky: The Early Years'', 45-46; Warrack, 31</ref> |
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[[Image:Nadezhda young01.jpg|thumb|200px|Tchaikovsky's benefactress, Nadezhda von Meck]] |
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Meck's claim of financial ruin is disregarded by some who believe that she ended her patronage of Tchaikovsky because she supposedly discovered the composer's homosexuality. The two were related by marriage in their families-- one of her sons, Nikolay, was married to Tchaikovsky's niece Anna Davydova. |
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=== Bureaucrat and music student === |
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[[Image:Youngtchaik.jpg|thumb|left|Tchaikovsky as bureaucrat.]] |
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Tchaikovsky graduated on May 25, 1859 with the rank of titular counselor, the lowest rung of the civil service ladder.<ref>Brown, ''Tchaikovsky: The Early Years'', 49</ref> On June 15, the Ministry of Justice appointed him. Six months later the Ministry made him a junior assistant to his department and a senior assistant two months after that, where he remained.<ref>Brown, ''Tchaikovsky: The Early Years'', 51</ref> |
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Tchaikovsky's life is the subject of [[Ken Russell]]'s poorly researched and highly fictionalized motion picture ''[[The Music Lovers]]'' ([[1970]]). Two other motion pictures were based on his life - the low-budgeted, sanitized and also highly fictionalized [[Song of My Heart]], released in 1948, and the 1972 Russian-language "Tchaikovsky" , which was nominated for an [[Academy Award]] for [[Best Foreign Language Film]]. |
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Modest Tchaikovsky writes that "[Tchaikovsky's] career was uncomplicated", yet he also suspected that Tchaikovsky's superiors suffered a good deal.<ref>Brown, ''Tchaikovsky: The Early Years'', 51</ref> Tchaikovsky's general performance in school had degenerated into competent mediocrity.<ref>Brown, ''Tchaikovsky: The Early Years'', 40</ref> While he had been well liked by staff and fellow students alike,<ref name="brown42">Brown, ''Tchaikovsky:: The Early Years'', 42</ref> as one school friend phrased it, "it needed all the exceptional, ineffable charm of his personality to make you forget Tchaikovsky's absent-mindedness, carelessness and slovenliness."Tchaikovsky, M., 98. As quoted in Brown.<ref name="brown42" /> Tchaikovsky made the minimum effort necessary to keep his job. He showed no real interest in his new profession or much else other than his social life—a busy one for someone who was basically shy and retiring.<ref>Holden, 30</ref> |
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His last name derives from the word ''chaika'' (чайка), meaning [[seagull]] in a number of Slavic languages. His family origins may not have been entirely Russian. In an early letter to [[Nadezhda von Meck]], Tchaikovsky wrote that his name was [[Poland|Polish]] and his ancestors were "probably [[Poland|Polish]]." (In fact, the Polish equivalent of his name, Czajkowski, is a not uncommon Polish surname.) |
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Nevertheless, nearing his 21st birthday and three years in civil service, Tchaikovsky still considered a career in music. He wrote to his sister Sasha, "At supper my musical talent was discussed. Papa assures me that it isn't too late for me to become a professional musician. It would be splendid if that were so—but the point is this: if there is talent in me, it is still most likely that's impossible to develop it by now. They've made a civil servant out of me—and a bad one at that. I try to improve the best I can, to do my job more seriously—and suddenly at the same time I am studying [[thorough-bass]]..."<ref>Brown, ''Tchaikovsky: The Early Years'', 54.</ref> |
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{{clear}} |
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After a trip to Western Europe, translating for an engineering friend of his father's, Tchaikovsky started studying music in earnest on his off-hours. He also played piano, eight hands, at a friend's house, learning much of the standard musical literature.<ref>Brown, ''Tchaikovsky: The Early Years'', 58</ref> |
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== Tchaikovsky's death == |
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[[Image:DSC00133.JPG|thumb|200px|Tchaikovsky's tomb at the [[Alexander Nevsky Monastery]]]] |
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Until recent years it had been generally assumed that Tchaikovsky died of [[cholera]] after drinking contaminated water. However, a controversial theory published in 1980 by Aleksandra Orlova and based only on oral history (''i.e.,'' without documentary evidence), explains Tchaikovsky's death as a suicide. |
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In this account, Tchaikovsky committed suicide by consuming small doses of [[arsenic]] following an attempt to blackmail him over his homosexuality. His alleged death by cholera (whose symptoms have some similarity with arsenic poisoning) is supposed to have been a cover for this suicide. According to the theory, Tchaikovsky's own brother Modest Tchaikovsky, also homosexual, helped conspire to keep the secret. There are many circumstantial events that some say lend credence to the theory, such as wrong dates on the death certificate, conflicting testimony from Modest and the doctor about the timeline of his death, the fact that Tchaikovsky's funeral was open casket, and that the sheets from his deathbed were merely laundered instead of being burned. There are also passages in Rimsky-Korsakov's autobiography years later about how people at the funeral kissed Tchaikovsky on the face, even though he had died from cholera. These passages were deleted by Russian authorities from later editions of Rimsky-Korsakov's book. |
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Modest notes the change wrought by his brother's new, serious preoccupation with music: |
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The suicide theory is hotly disputed by others, including Alexander Poznansky, who argues that Tchaikovsky could easily have drunk tainted water because his class regarded cholera as a disease that afflicted only poor people, or because restaurants would mix boiled water with cool, unboiled water; that the circumstances of his death are entirely consistent with cholera; and that homosexuality ("gentlemanly games") was widely tolerated among the upper classes of Tsarist Russia. To this day, no one knows how Tchaikovsky truly died. |
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<blockquote>I can attribute to this period two striking discoveries: first, that brother Pyotr and work were two comparable concepts, and second, that besides pleasant and interesting music, there existed also an uncommonly unpleasant and boring kind which was much more important than the former. I remember perfectly my brother's relentless playing for several hours on end, not of operas and the melodious pieces pieces I liked so much, but of certain abominable preludes and fugues which were beyond my comprehension.... My surprise was boundless when he explained to me that he was "solving problems." It seemed strangely absurd to me that such a nice entertainment as music had something in common with hateful mathematics. At the same time I learned that Beethoven was not such a bore as I had thought, because his symphonies, which Pyotr began to perform as piano duets with various companions from the courses at the Mikhailovsky Palace, not only pleased me, but one of them, [[Symphony No. 5 (Beethoven)|the fifth]], straightway delighted me.<ref>Brown, ''Tchaikovsky: The Early Years'', 59</ref></blockquote> |
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The English composer [[Michael Finnissy]] has composed a short opera, ''Shameful Vice'', about Tchaikovsky's last days and death. |
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The [[Mikhailovsky Palace]] was where music classes were held by the [[Russian Musical Society]] (RMS).<ref>Brown, ''Tchaikovsky: The Early Years'', 60</ref> Tchaikovsky learned of these classes purely by accident. According to Tchaikovsky's friend Nikolay Kashkin, Tchaikovsky enjoyed a friendly rivalry with a music-loving cousin, an officer in the Horse Grenadiers. This cousin boasted one day that he could make the transition from one key to any other in no more than three chords. Tchaikovsky took up this challenge and lost. His cousin told him that he had learned to do this at the RMS classes.<ref>Holden, 36</ref> |
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==Musical works== |
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The RMS tutor in [[music theory]], [[Nikolai Zaremba]], held conservative musical views but imposed the discipline Tchaikovsky needed<ref>Holden, 38</ref>. The following year, Zaremba joined the faculty of the new [[Saint Petersburg Conservatory|St Petersburg Conservatory]]. Tchaikovsky followed his teacher and enrolled, but did not give up his post at the ministry until his father consented to support him. From 1862 to 1865, Tchaikovsky studied [[harmony]], [[counterpoint]] and [[fugue]] with Zaremba, and [[orchestration]] and [[music composition|composition]] under director and founder [[Anton Rubinstein]]. |
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{{main|Compositions by Pyotr Tchaikovsky}} |
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===Ballets=== |
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Tchaikovsky is well known for his [[ballet]]s, although it was only in his last years, with his last two ballets, that his contemporaries came to really appreciate his finer qualities as [[ballet (music)|ballet music]] composer. |
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* ([[1875]]–[[1876]]): ''[[Swan Lake]]'', Op. 20. Tchaikovsky's first ballet, it was first performed (with some omissions) at the [[Bolshoi Theatre]] in [[Moscow]] in [[1877]]. It was not until [[1895]], in a revival by [[Marius Petipa]] and [[Lev Ivanov]] that the ballet was presented in the definitive version it is still danced in today (the music for this revival was much revised by the composer [[Riccardo Drigo]] in a version still used by most ballet companies today). |
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* ([[1888]]–[[1889]]): ''[[The Sleeping Beauty Ballet|Sleeping Beauty]]'', Op. 66. This work Tchaikovsky considered to be one of his best. Commissioned by the director of the Imperial Theatres, [[Ivan Vsevolozhsky]], its first performance was in January,[[1890]] at the [[Mariinsky Theatre]] in [[St Petersburg]]. |
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[[Image:Sleeping beauty cast.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Original cast of Tchaikovsky's ballet, The Sleeping Beauty, St Petersburg, 1890]] |
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* ([[1891]]–[[1892]]): ''[[The Nutcracker]]'', Op. 71. Tchaikovsky himself was less satisfied with this, his last ballet. Though he accepted the commission (again granted by [[Ivan Vsevolozhsky]]), he did not particularly want to write it (though he did write to a friend while composing the ballet: "I am daily becoming more and more attuned to my task.") <!--quote needs citation--> This ballet premiered on a double-bill with his last opera, ''[[Iolanthe (Tchaikovsky)|Iolanta]]''. Among other things, the score of ''Nutcracker'' is noted for its use of the [[celesta]], an instrument that the composer had already employed in his much lesser known [[symphonic poem]] ''The Voyevoda'' (premiered [[1891]]).{{note|voy}} Although well-known in ''Nutcracker'' as the featured solo instrument in the "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" from Act II, it is employed elsewhere in the same act. |
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**Note: This was the only ballet from which Tchaikovsky himself derived a [[suite]] (the "suites" from the other ballets were devised by other hands). ''The Nutcracker Suite'' is often mistaken by novice listeners as the ballet itself, but it consists of only eight selections from the [[Sheet music|score]] intended for concert performance. |
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===Operas=== |
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After Tchaikovsky graduated, Rubinstein's younger brother [[Nikolai Grigoryevich Rubinstein|Nikolai]] asked him to become professor of harmony, composition, and [[history of music|music history]] at the then-opening [[Moscow Conservatory]]. He accepted, as his father had retired and lost his property.<ref>Brown, ''Tchaikovsky: The Early Years'', Page cit. needed.</ref> |
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Tchaikovsky completed ten [[opera]]s, although one of these is mostly lost and another exists in two significantly different versions. In the West his most famous are ''[[Eugene Onegin (opera)|Eugene Onegin]]'' and ''[[The Queen of Spades (opera)|The Queen of Spades]]''. |
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* ''[[Voyevoda (opera)|Voyevoda]]'' (''Воевода – The Voivode'', Op. 3, [[1867]] – [[1868]]) |
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=== Tchaikovsky and the Five === |
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::Full score destroyed by composer, but posthumously reconstructed from sketches and orchestral parts |
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* ''[[Undina (Tchaikovsky)|Undina]]'' (''Ундина'' or ''Undine'', [[1869]]) |
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{{main article|Tchaikovsky and the Five}} |
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::Was not completed. Only a march sequence from this opera saw the light of day, as the second movement of his [[Symphony #2 in C Minor]] and a few other segments are occasionally heard as concert pieces. Interestingly, while Tchaikovsky revised the Second symphony twice in his lifetime, he did not alter the second movement (taken from the Undina material) during either revision. The rest of the score of Undina was destroyed by the composer. |
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* ''[[The Oprichnik (opera)|The Oprichnik]]'' (''Опричник''), [[1870]]–[[1872]] |
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As Tchaikovsky studied with Zaremba, the critic [[Vladimir Stasov]] and the composer [[Mily Balakirev]] formed a nationalistic school of music, recruiting what would be known as [[The Five|The Russian Five]] in St. Petersburg.<ref>Hanson and Hanson, 63-63</ref> As he became Anton Rubinstein's best known student, Tchaikovsky was also seen as representing the conservative opposition—a natural target especially for [[Cesar Cui]]'s scathing reviews.<ref>Holden, 52</ref> However, when Rubinstein exited the St. Petersburg musical scene in 1867, Tchaikovsky entered into a working relationship with Balakirev that, over the next two years, allowed him to grow into his true musical maturity.<ref>Holden, 63</ref> |
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::Premiere [[April 24]] [OS April 12], [[1874]], [[Saint Petersburg|St Petersburg]] |
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* ''[[Vakula the Smith]]'' (''Кузнец Вакула – Kuznets Vakula''), Op. 14, [[1874]]; |
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Tchaikovsky remained ambivalent about The Five's music and goals, and his relationship with its members cordial but never close. With the "New Russians" who followed The Five, matters improved. Tchaikovsky enjoyed close relations with [[Alexander Glazunov]], [[Anatol Lyadov]] and, at least on the surface, the elder [[Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov]].<ref>Brown, David, ''Tchaikovsky: The Final Years, 1885-1893'' (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1991), 90-91.</ref> |
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:: Revised later as ''Cherevichki'', premiere [[December 6]] [OS November 24], [[1876]], [[Saint Petersburg|St Petersburg]] |
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* ''[[Eugene Onegin (opera)|Eugene Onegin]]'' (''Евгений Онегин – Yevgeny Onegin''), Op. 24, [[1877]]–[[1878]] |
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=== Homosexuality, marriage and "hidden passion" === |
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::Premiere [[March 29]] [OS March 17] [[1879]] at the [[Moscow Conservatory]] |
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* ''[[The Maid of Orleans]]'' (''Орлеанская дева – Orleanskaya deva''), [[1878]]–[[1879]] |
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Russian composer [[Dmitri Shostakovich]] reportedly told [[Solomon Volkov]], "Really, musicians do like to talk about [[Mussorgsky]], in fact I think that it's the second favorite topic after Tchaikovsky's love life."<ref>Volkov, Solomon (tr. Bouis, Antonina W.), ''Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich'' (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1979), 235.</ref> Tchaikovsky's [[homosexuality]], as well as its importance to his life and music, has been known to the West for at least 75 years. Suppressed in Russia by the Soviets, it has only recently become widely known in post-Soviet Russia.<ref>Holden, xx.</ref><ref>Some historians still consider evidence to this effect scant or non-existent. Dr. Petr Beckmann claims Tchaikovsky's homosexuality has been asserted "not without bias ... too often ... done by tone setters who had a stake in the outcome." (Petr Beckmann, ''Musical Musings'', Golem Press, August 1989.) Others, such as Rictor Norton and Alexander Poznansky, conclude some of Tchaikovsky's closest relationships were homosexual, citing Tchaikovsky's servant Aleksei Sofronov and his nephew, Vladimir "Bob" Davydov, as romantic interests.</ref> |
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::Premiere [[February 25]] [OS February 13], [[1881]], [[Saint Petersburg|St Petersburg]] |
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* ''[[Mazeppa (opera)|Mazepa (or Mazeppa)]]'' (''Мазепа''), [[1881]]–[[1883]] |
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[[Image:Tchaik3.jpg|thumb|right|Tchaikovsky (left) with his nephew, Vladimir "Bob" Davidov.]] |
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::Premiere [[February 15]] [OS February 3] [[1884]], [[Moscow]] |
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More controversial is how comfortable Tchaikovsky might have been with his sexual nature. Alexander Poznansky surmises that the composer "eventually came to see his sexual peculiarities as an insurmountable and even natural part of his personality ... without experiencing any serious psychological damage."<ref>As quoted in Holden, 394.</ref> Holden claims British musicologist and scholar Henry Zajaczkowski's research "along psychoanalytical lines" points instead to "a severe unconscious inhibition by the composer of his sexual feelings": |
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* ''[[Cherevichki]]'' (''Черевички''; revision of ''Vakula the Smith'') [[1885]] |
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<blockquote>One consequence of it may be sexual overindulgence as a kind of false solution: the individual thereby persuades himself that he does accept his sexual impulses. Complementing this and, also, as a psychological defense mechanism, would be precisely the idolization by Tchaikovsky of many of the young men of his circle [the self-styled "Fourth Suite"], to which Poznansky himself draws attention. If the composer's response to possible sexual objects was either to use and discard them or to idolize them, it shows that he was unable to form an integrated, secure relationship with another man. That, surely, was [Tchaikovsky's] tragedy.<ref>Zajaczkowski, Henry, ''The Musical Times'', cxxxiii, no. 1797, November 1992, 574. As quoted in Holden, 394.</ref></blockquote> |
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::Premiere January 31 [OS January 19], [[1887]], [[Moscow]]) |
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* ''[[The Enchantress]]'' (or ''The Sorceress'', ''Чародейка – Charodeyka''), [[1885]]–[[1887]] |
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Regardless of which camp may truly be right, music became an imperative and increasingly intense psychic outlet for Tchaikovsky, especially after the [[Symphony No. 4 (Tchaikovsky)|Fourth Symphony]], As biographer Edward Garden suggests, "All the frustrations of his endemic homosexuality and bottled-up emotions, further engendered rather than released by the fiasco of his marriage, are let loose in this symphony—the first and perhaps least important in a line of masterpieces or near-masterpieces in this vein which included the [[Manfred Symphony|''Manfred'' Symphony]] and the last two [numbered] symphonies, the symphonic ballad ''The Voyevoda'' and [the opera] ''[[The Queen of Spades (opera)|The Queen of Spades]]''."<ref>Garden, Edward, ''Tchaikovsky'' (London, 1993, 1973), 75-76. As quoted in Holden, 171.</ref> |
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::Premiere [[November 1]] [OS October 20] [[1887]], [[Saint Petersburg|St Petersburg]] |
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* ''[[The Queen of Spades (opera)|The Queen of Spades]]'' (''Пиковая дама'' - ''Pikovaya dama''), Op. 68, [[1890]] |
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[[Image:Tchaikovsky with wife Antonina Miliukova.jpg|left|thumb|Tchaikovsky with his wife [[Antonina Miliukova]].]] |
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::Premiere December 19 [OS December 7] [[1890]], [[Saint Petersburg|St Petersburg]] |
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Tchaikovsky's marriage began as a classic case of life imitating art. He received a passionate love letter from one his former conservatory students, [[Antonina Miliukova]], at the time he was hard at work on the "Letter Scene"<ref>In this scene, the young country girl Tatyana spends all night writing a long, passionate and deeply personal love letter to Eugene Onegin, a friend of her sister's fiance. She has only just met Onegin but had fallen madly in love with him at first sight: however, Onegin rejects her, saying that he is such a man that could never be the kind of devoted husband she deserves.</ref> in his opera ''[[Eugene Onegin (opera)|Eugene Onegin]]''. A second letter followed, then a third, in which she threatened suicide if he did not answer.<ref>Holden, 123-124</ref> |
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* ''[[Iolanthe (Tchaikovsky)|Iolanta]]'' (''Иоланта'' – ''Iolanthe''), Op. 69, [[1891]] |
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He met with Antonina, doing his best to explain why he could not love her—an explanation which appears to have fallen on deaf ears. He married her on July 18, 1877 and within days deeply regretted his decision; by the time the couple returned to Moscow on July 26, he was a state of near-collapse. He attempted suicide by wading into the freezing Moscow River, hoping to catch his death of [[pneumonia]], then rushed to St. Petersburg and promptly suffered a nervous breakdown. A mental specialist recommended Tchaikovsky make no attempt to renew his marriage, nor try to see his wife again. Tchaikovsky followed this specialist's advice.<ref>Holden asserts that Antonina may not have been "the crazed half-wit" Modest portrayed after Tchaikovsky's death. She may have been a simpleton, "even, perhaps, 'an incarnation of the commonplace,' as she has recently been dismissed," but the responsibility for how the marriage turned out was more Tchaikovsky's doing than hers. "In truth," Holden concludes, "Antonina was as much the right woman for Tchaikovsky as any other. It was marriage which was the wrong institution" (Holden, 126).</ref> |
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:: First performance: [[Maryinsky Theatre]], [[Saint Petersburg|St Petersburg]], [[1892]]. Originally performed on a double-bill with ''[[The Nutcracker]]'' |
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(Note: A "Chorus of Insects" was composed for the projected opera ''Mandragora'' [''Мандрагора''] of [[1870]]). |
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Tchaikovsky's marital débacle forced him to face the truth concerning his sexuality. He never again considered matrimony as a camouflage or escape. Neither would he consider himself capable of loving women in the same manner as men. He wrote to his brother Anatoly that there was "nothing more futile than wanting to be anything other than what I am by nature."<ref>Letter to Anatoly Tchaikovsky, February 25, 1878, as quoted in Holden, 172</ref> |
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===Symphonies=== |
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Moreover, the composer's abortive marriage enhanced rather than endangered his creativity. Despite some interruptions, the six months between Tchaikovsky's engagement to Antonina and his "rest cure" in [[Clarens, Switzerland|Clarens]], [[Switzerland]], following his marriage saw him complete two of his finest works, the Fourth Symphony and the opera ''Eugene Onegin''.<ref>Holden, 156, 157</ref> |
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Tchaikovsky's earlier [[symphony|symphonies]] are generally optimistic works of |
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nationalistic character, while the later symphonies are more intensely dramatic, particularly in the Sixth, a clear declaration of despair. The last three of his numbered symphonies (the fourth, fifth and sixth) are recognized as highly original examples of symphonic form and are frequently performed. |
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* ([[1866]]): [[Symphony No. 1 (Tchaikovsky)|No. 1 in G minor]], Op. 13, ''Winter Daydreams'' |
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* ([[1872]]): [[Symphony No. 2 (Tchaikovsky)|No. 2 in C minor]], Op. 17, ''Little Russian'' |
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* ([[1875]]): [[Symphony No. 3 (Tchaikovsky)|No. 3 in D major]], Op. 29, ''Polish'' |
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* ([[1877]]–[[1878]]): [[Symphony No. 4 (Tchaikovsky)|No. 4 in F minor]], Op. 36 |
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* ([[1885]]): [[Manfred Symphony]], B minor, Op. 58. Inspired by [[Byron]]'s poem [[Manfred]] |
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* ([[1888]]): [[Symphony No. 5 (Tchaikovsky)|No. 5 in E minor]], Op. 64 |
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* (Symphony No. 7: see [[#Concerti|below]], Piano Concerto No. 3) |
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* ([[1893]]): [[Symphony No. 6 (Tchaikovsky)|No. 6 in B minor]], Op. 74, ''Pathétique'' |
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He also wrote four orchestral [[suite]]s in the ten years between the 4th and 5th symphonies. He originally intended to designate one or more of these as a "symphony" but was persuaded to alter the title. The four suites are nonetheless symphonic in character, and, compared to the last three symphonies, are undeservedly neglected. |
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Tchaikovsky's need to convey the true extent of his suffering, relieved by occasional moments of optimism, makes the Fourth Symphony a more remarkable combination of angst and serenity than it might have turned out otherwise. Likewise, without his confused feelings for Antonina, ''Eugene Onegin'' "might not be the affecting imbroglio it is of love lost, promise betrayed."<ref>Holden, 156, 157</ref> |
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=== Concerti === |
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[[image:Dostoevsky.jpg|thumb|right|Fyodor Dostoyevsky.]] |
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* ([[1874]]–[[1875]]): Of his three [[piano concerto|piano concerti]], it is [[Piano Concerto No. 1 (Tchaikovsky)|No.1]] in [[B-flat minor]], Op. 23, which is best known and most highly regarded, and one of the most popular piano concertos ever written. It was initially rejected by its dedicatee, the pianist [[Nikolai Grigoryevich Rubinstein|Nikolai Rubinstein]], as poorly composed and unplayable, and subsequently premiered by [[Hans von Bülow]] (who was delighted to find such a piece to play) in [[Boston, Massachusetts]] on [[25 October]], [[1875]]. Rubinstein later admitted his error of judgement, and included the work in his own repertoire. |
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Given the intensity and emotional directness which now poured through Tchaikovsky's music, it was perhaps inevitable that, in Russia, his name would be placed alongside that of Russian novelist [[Fyodor Dostoyevsky]].<ref>Volkov, 115-116.</ref> A typical passage about the two reads, "With a hidden passion they both stop at moments of horror, total spiritual collapse, and finding acute sweetness in the cold trepidation of the heart before the abyss, they both force the reader to experience those feelings, too."<ref name="volkov116">Osoovskii, A.V., ''Muzykal'no-kritcvheskie stat'i, 1894-1912'' (Musical Criticism articles, 189401912) (Lenningrad, 1971), 171. As quoted in Volkov, 116.</ref> |
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* ([[1876]]): [[Variations on a Rococo theme]] for [[violoncello]] and orchestra The piece was written between December 1876 and March 1877, for and with the help of the German cellist Wilhelm Fitzenhagen (a professor at the Moscow Conservatory). The dedicatee revised and reordered it somewhat, but the composer allowed the changes to stand. It was well received at its first performances and Fitzenhagen himself took the piece with him on a tour of Europe. Though not really a concerto, it was the closest Tchaikovsky ever came to writing a full concerto for cello. |
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* ([[1878]]): His [[Violin Concerto (Tchaikovsky)|Violin Concerto]] in [[D major]], Op. 35, was composed in less than a month during March and April [[1878]], but its first performance was delayed until [[1881]] because [[Leopold Auer]], the violinist to whom Tchaikovsky had intended to dedicate the work, refused to perform it: he stated that it was unplayable. Instead it was first performed by the relatively unknown Austrian violinist Adolf Brodsky, who received the work by chance. This violin concerto is one of the most popular concertos for the instrument and is frequently performed today. |
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Beginning with the Fourth, Tchaikovsky's younger contemporaries equated his symphonies with Dostoyevsky's psychological novels. This was because, for the first time in Russian music, at the heart of these works was an ambivalent, suffering personality. Like Dostoyevsky's characters, Tchaikovsky's hero persisted in exploring the meaning of life while trapped in a fatal love-death-faith triangle in the best Dostoyevskian fashion<ref name="volkov116" /> |
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* (1879): Tchaikovsky's [[Piano Concerto No. 2 (Tchaikovsky)|Piano Concerto No. 2]], Op. 44, is an eloquent, less extroverted piece with a violin and cello added as soloists in the second movement. |
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* ([[1892]]): The so-called "Piano Concerto No. 3" has a curious and complicated history. Commenced after the Symphony No. 5, it was intended initially to be the composer's next (i.e., sixth) symphony. However, after nearly finishing the sketches and some orchestration of the first movement, Tchaikovsky abandoned work on this score as a symphony. However, in 1893, after beginning work on what is now known as Symphony No. 6 (''Pathétique''), he reworked the sketches of the first movement and completed the instrumentation to create a piece for piano and orchestra known as ''Allegro de concert'' or ''Konzertstück'' (published posthumously as Op. 75). Tchaikovsky also produced a piano arrangement of the slow movement (Andante) and last movement (Finale) of the symphony. He turned the scherzo into another piano piece, the "Scherzo-fantasie" in E-flat minor, Op. 72, No. 10. After Tchaikovsky's death, the composer [[Sergei Taneyev]] completed and orchestrated the Andante and Finale, published as Op. 79. A reconstruction of the original symphony from the sketches and various reworkings was accomplished during 1951–1955 by the Soviet composer [[Semyon Bogatyrev]], who brought the symphony into finished, fully orchestrated form and issued the score as Tchaikovsky's Symphony No 7 in E-flat major.<ref>Wiley, Roland. 'Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Il′yich, §6(ii): Years of valediction, 1889–93: The last symphony'; Works: solo instrument and orchestra; Works: orchestral, Grove Music Online (Accessed [[07 February]] 2006), <http://www.grovemusic.com> (subscription required). Brown, David. ''Tchaikovsky: the Final Years (1885-1893).'' New York: W.W. Norton, 1991, pp. 388-391, 497.</ref> |
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In these symphonies, Tchaikovsky's music conveys a Dostoyevskian confusion about the mysteries and contradictions of life. Tchaikovsky does this by using the musical equivalent of techniques characteristic of Dostoyevsky's novels. These techniques include the writer's—and composer's—favorite piling up of events and emotions leading to a catastrophic, climactic explosion.<ref name="volkov116" /> |
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A frenzied longing for love also saturates many pages of Tchaikovsky's symphonies and Dostoyevsky's novels alike. The other pole of the same passion—a fascination with and fear of death, combined with the need to confront it—is also typical of both composer and novelist. For both Tchaikovsky and Dostoyevsky, the most perplexing mystery was death, not life.<ref name="volkov116" /> |
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Tchaikovsky's notes concerning the hidden "program" of the Fifth Symphony are a case in point: "The fullest submission before fate, or, which is the same thing, before the inexplicable predestination of Providence." A reader, Volkov writes, could almost feel the pain Tchaikovsky suffers as fatalism and pessimism bring down upon him. Then Tchaikovsky adds, in a note relating to the second movement of the same symphony, "Should one throw oneself into the arms of faith??"<ref name="volkov116b">Quoted in ''Muzykal'noe nasledie Chaikovskogo: Iz istorii ego proizvedenii'' (Tchaikovsky's Musical Heritage: From the History of His Works) (Moscow, 1958), 239. As quoted in Volkov, 116.</ref> |
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For Dostoyevsky leaping into the arms of faith was both natural and profound. Tchaikovsky could not make such a leap.<ref name="volkov116b" /> John Warrack phrases Tchaikovsky's dilemma this way: |
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<blockquote>Lonely, desperately unhappy and, for all the fictions he consciously assumed, fundamentally honest with himself, he turned to composition for consolation and delight, and gradually, as his art grew to maturity, for the release into music of his frustrated personality. It is not until we understand his threefold isolation—a man feeling himself cut off from the ordinary world, an exceptional talent projected into a young musical tradition struggling to form itself, and a Russian of intense patriotism ambitious for his isolated country's artistic and intellectual maturity—that we shall fully appreciate the scope of his achievement.<ref>Warrack, John, ''Tchaikovsky'' (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973) 30.</ref></blockquote> |
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=== |
===Other works=== |
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====For orchestra==== |
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[[Image:1812 overture.jpg|thumb|250px|The 1812 overture complete with cannon fire was performed at the 2005 Classical Spectacular]] |
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*([[1869]] revised [[1870]], [[1880]]): [[Romeo and Juliet (Tchaikovsky)|''Romeo and Juliet'' Fantasy Overture]]. This piece contains one of the world's most famous melodies. The tremendously famous love theme in the middle of this long symphonic poem has been used countless times in commercials and movies, frequently as a spoof to traditional love scenes. |
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*([[1873]]): [[The Tempest (Tchaikovsky)|''The Tempest'' Symphonic Fantasia After Shakespeare]], Op. 18 |
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*([[1876]]): [[Slavonic March]]/''Marche Slave'', Op. 31. This piece is another well-known Tchaikovsky piece and is often played in conjunction with the [[1812 Overture]]. This work uses the Tsarist National Anthem. It is mostly in a [[minor key]] and is yet another very recognisable piece, commonly referenced in cartoons, commercials and the media. The piece is much in the style of a [[Capriccio (music)|capriccio]]. |
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*([[1876]]): ''[[Francesca da Rimini (Tchaikovsky)|Francesca da Rimini]]'', Op. 32. This piece has been described as "pure melodrama" similar to stretches of Verdi operas; [http://www.shepherd-express.com/3_2_06/review_concerts.htm] some passages are similar to sword-fight clashes in ''Romeo and Juliet''. |
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*([[1880]]): ''[[Capriccio Italien]]'', Op. 45. This piece is a traditional caprice or [[Capriccio (music)|capriccio]] (in Italian) in an Italian style. Tchaikovsky stayed in [[Italy]] in the late [[1870s]] to early [[1880s]] and throughout the various festivals he heard many themes, some of which were played by trumpets, samples of which can be heard in this caprice. It has a lighter character than many of his works, even "bouncy" in places, and is often performed today in addition to the [[1812 Overture]]. |
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::The title used in English-speaking countries is a linguistic hybrid: it contains an Italian word ("Capriccio") and a French word ("Italien"). A fully Italian version would be ''Capriccio Italiano''; a fully French version would be ''Caprice Italien''. |
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*([[1880]]): ''[[Serenade in C for String Orchestra]]'', Op. 48. The first movement, ''In the form of a sonatina,'' was an homage to Mozart. The second movement is a ''Waltz,'' followed by an ''Elegy'' and a spirited Russian finale, ''Tema Russo.'' In his score, Tchaikovsky supposedly wrote, "The larger the string orchestra, the better will the composer's desires be fulfilled." |
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*([[1880]]): ''[[1812 Overture]]'', Op. 49. This piece was reluctantly written by Tchaikovsky to commemorate the Russian victory over [[Napoleon]] in the [[Napoleonic Wars]]. It is known for its traditional [[Music of Russia|Russian]] themes (such as the old Tsarist National Anthem) as well as its famously triumphant and bombastic coda at the end which uses 16 cannon shots and a chorus of church bells. Despite its popularity, Tchaikovsky wrote that he "did not have his heart in it". |
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*([[1883]]): ''[[Coronation March]]'', Op. 50. The mayor of Moscow commissioned this piece for performance in May 1883 at the coronation of Aleksandr III. Tchaikovsky's arrangement for solo piano and [[E. L. Langer]]'s arrangement for piano duet were published in the same year. |
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====For orchestra, choir and vocal soloists==== |
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[[Image:MmevonMeck3.jpg|thumb|right|[[Nadezhda von Meck]], Tchaikovsky's patroness and confidante from 1877 to 1890.]] |
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* ([[1873]]) ''[[Snegurochka|The Snow Maiden]]'' , [[incidental music]] for [[Alexander Ostrovsky]]'s play of the same name. Ostrovsky adapted and dramatized a popular Russian [[fairy tale]], (http://clover.slavic.pitt.edu/~tales/snow_maiden.html) and the score that Tchaikovsky wrote for it was always one of his own favorite works. It contains much [[vocal music]], but it is not a [[cantata]], nor an [[opera]]. |
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One who was especially taken with Tchaikovsky's music was [[Nadezhda von Meck]], the wealthy widow of a Russian railway tycoon. Herself a keen amateur musician, she was well-known as a discriminating patroness of the arts and a generous benefactress.<ref>Holden, 135-136</ref> |
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====For orchestra, soprano, and baritone==== |
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Von Meck had commissioned some minor works from Tchaikovsky and begun an ongoing correspondence just before his marital episode. Tchaikovsky in turn had asked her for loans to cover his marital and living expenses. Now von Meck suggested paying Tchaikovsky an annual subsidy of 6,000 [[Russian ruble|ruble]]s a year, in monthly installments, to avoid any embarrassment of asking for future loans.<ref>Holden, 157</ref> This would also allow Tchaikovsky to resign from the Moscow Conservatory in October 1878 and concentrate primarily on composition.<ref>Holden, 180-182</ref> |
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* ([[1891]]) ''[[Hamlet]]'' , [[incidental music]] for [[Shakespeare]]'s play. The score uses music borrowed from Tchaikovsky's overture of the same name, as well as from his Symphony No. 3, and from ''The Snow Maiden'', in addition to original music that he wrote specifically for a stage production of ''Hamlet''. The two vocal selections are a song that [[Ophelia]] sings in the throes of her madness, and a song for the First Gravedigger to sing as he goes about his work. |
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====For choir, songs, chamber music, and for solo piano and violin ==== |
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Von Meck and Tchaikovsky's correspondence would grow to over 1,200 letters between 1877 and 1890. Holden comments that the details of these letters, after a formality in the initial few, is extraordinary for two people who would never even meet, let alone become lovers.<ref>Holden, 159</ref> |
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* ([[1871]]) [[String Quartet No. 1 in D major]], Op. 11 |
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* ([[1876]]) [[Variations on a Rococo theme]] for cello and orchestra, Op. 33. |
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* ([[1876]]) Piano suite ''[[The Seasons (Tchaikovsky)|The Seasons]]'', Op. 37a |
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* ([[1878]]) Souvenir de un lieu cher for violin and piano, Op. 42: Meditation, Scherzo and Melody |
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* ([[1881]]) [[Russian Vesper Service]], Op. 52 |
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* ([[1882]]) [[Piano Trio (Tchaikovsky)|Piano trio in A minor, Op. 50]] |
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* ([[1886]]) ''[[Dumka (Tchaikovsky)|Dumka]]'', Russian rustic scene in C minor for piano, Op. 59 |
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* ([[1890]]) String sextet ''[[Souvenir de Florence]]'', Op. 70 |
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For a complete list of works by opus number, see [http://w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/cmp/tchaikovsky_works.html]. For more detail on dates of composition, see [http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/5648/DCalend.htm]. |
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From their letters, we may glimpse a good deal of Tchaikovsky's inner self and more. Tchaikovsky was also prepared to be more openly and abundantly confiding to his patroness about some of his attitudes to life and about his creative processes than to any other person.<ref>Brown, ''Tchaikovsky: The Crisis Years'', 220.</ref> |
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=== Rumors and wandering === |
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In the wake of Tchaikovsky's marital disaster, a deluge of rumors circulated in Moscow. In an urgent attempt at damage control, the composer's family and friends circulated the story that he and Antonina would be reunited abroad, then Anatoly and Nikolai Rubinstein gave Antonina money and sent her to Odessa. Later, realizing what mischief she could make of Tchaikovsky's reputation while on the loose, Tchaikovsky's sister Sasha tracked her down and brought her to Kamenka, where she could be supervised, at least for a short time.<ref name="brown174">Brown, ''Tchaikovsky: The Man and His Music'', 174.</ref> |
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Meanwhile Rubinstein, realizing that Tchaikovsky's stay abroad might be prolonged, nominated him as a delegate to the Paris International Exhibition of 1878. The nomination was approved.<ref>Brown, David, ''Tchaikovsky: The Man and His Music'' (New York: Pegasus Books, 2007), 171.</ref> When the official notification of the approval came, however, Tchaikovsky changed his mind and withdrew his acceptance, claiming he was in no condition to take up the appointment. Rubinstein was furious.<ref name="brown174" /> |
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After a year away from his post, Tchaikovsky returned to Moscow Conservatory in the fall of 1879. Shortly into that term, however, he resigned. He also received an offer from the director of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, Karl Davidov, for half the work load of his Moscow post at twice his current salary. Tchaikovsky turned down this position<ref>Holden, 180-181.</ref>. |
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Tchaikovsky eventually settled at his sister's estate in Kamenka, just outside [[Kiev]]. Even with this base, he travelled incessantly; David Brown's subtitle for the volume dealing with this period, "The Years of Wandering," is particularly apt. With the assurance of a regular income from von Meck, he took advantage of open-ended wandering, living a restless, rootless life at favorite locations around Europe and rural Russia.<ref>Holden, 183.</ref> He did not stay long in any one place, living mainly solitary, avoiding social contact.<ref>Struttle, 85.</ref> |
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He may have also lived in fear of Antonina's revealing his sexual orientation to the public. She had already written him wild letters during her stay at Kamenka, sometimes accusing him, sometimes cajoling him.<ref>Brown, ''Tchaikovsky: The Man and His Music'', 172.</ref> The question of divorce arose in 1878 and 1879. Since the only legal grounds for divorce in Russia at that time was adultery, the possibility of unwanted revelations may have led him to drop the matter—even, in 1878, with a 10,000-ruble incentive for Antonina's cooperation from von Meck, payable through Tchaikovsky's publisher Jurgenson once a divorce had been finalized.<ref name="brown230">Brown, ''Tchaikovsky: The Man and His Music'', 230.</ref> In July 1880 Antonina wrote, accusing him of spreading rumors about her throughout Moscow and threatening the worst: "Why didn't you start with yourself, telling ... about your own terrible vice?"<ref name="brown232">Brown, ''Tchaikovsky: The Man and His Music'', 232.</ref> |
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However, in March 1881, Tchaikovsky received news that Antonina had given birth to a child out of wedlock. This gave him grounds for divorce. Still, he did not act.<ref name="brown230" /> He never divorced her, as legal action might drag up matters he hoped were forgotten or at least buried. He continued to send her a regular allowance, which may have helped buy her silence. Divorce would have meant Tchaikovsky's freedom from any further financial responsibility for her.<ref name="brown232" /> |
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=== Celebrity and return === |
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During these rootless years, Tchaikovsky's reputation as a composer grew rapidly beyond Russia. Having previously been merely respected, now he was developing a popular following. His friend [[Sergei Taneyev]] gently chided him for coyness, even hypocrisy, about his growing reputation.<ref>Holden, 206-207.</ref> Tchaikovsky replied: |
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<blockquote>I compose, i.e. express my moods and feelings via the language of music. So of course, like anyone with something to say, or pretensions to saying something, I need people to listen to me—and the more they do listen, the more gratifying it is. In that sense I love ''fame'', naturally, and hope for it with my whole heart.... But it does not follow that I love the trappings of ''fame'' as manifested in all those dinners, suppers and musical soirées which I find completely alien, and at which I always suffer mightily.<ref>Letter to Taneyev, August 12, 1880. As quoted in Holden, 207.</ref></blockquote> |
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[[Image:Strastnoy.jpg|thumb|left|The Pushkin Monument in Moscow. Dostoyevsky's speech during its 1880 commemoration would affect Tchaikovsky directly.]] |
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A reevaluation and consequent upswing for Tchaikovsky's music took place in Russia, as well. In 1880, during the commemoration of the Pushkin Monument in Moscow, Dostoyevsky gave a famous speech on [[Alexander Pushkin|Pushkin]], in which he called for the Russian "to become brother to all men, ''uniman'', if you will." While Dostoyevsky had been a fervent nationalist, like Tchaikovsky he also had a trait that Osip Mendelstam would call "a longing for world culture." The conclusion he gave in his speech on the "European" essence of Pushkin's work was that the poet had given a prophetic call to Russia for "universal unity" with the West<ref name="volkovsp126">Volkov, ''St. Petersburg'', 126.</ref> |
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Reaction to this speech was unprecedented. Near its end, the audience was virtually hysterical, with people weeping and embracing one another. Cries of "prophet," "saint" and "genius" rang out. Dostoyevsky received a 30-minute ovation, and the speaker scheduled to follow him refrained from giving his address, even after an hour's interim.<ref>Mochulsky, Konstantin, tr. Minihan, Michael A., ''Dostoyevsky: His Life and Work'' (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967), 640.</ref> Acclaim for Dostoyevsky's message spread quickly throughout Russia.<ref name="volkovsp126" /> |
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Most of all, the [[nationalism|cultural nationalism]] espoused by The Five and its followers was suddenly considered a dead end.<ref name="volkovsp126" /> |
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The benefit of the ''uniman'' speech for Tchaikovsky was overwhelming. Before the speech, [[Alexandre Benois]] writes in his memoirs, "it was considered obligatory [in progressive musical circles] to treat Tchaikovsky as a renegade, a master overly dependent on the West." Now he was seen as an idol for expanding and renewing Russian artistry.<ref>Volkov, ''St. Petersburg'', 126.</ref> He also drew a cult following among the young intelligentsia of St. Petersburg, including Benois, [[Leon Bakst]] and [[Serge Diaghilev]].<ref>Volkov, ''St. Petersburg'', 122-123.</ref> |
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Tchaikovsky realized the power of Dostoyevsky's words on foreigners for both their acceptance of Russian culture in general and of his music in particular. In his notebook for 1888-1889, amid addresses and other notations, is a note he made to himself before a trip to Prague, where he would appear at frequent receptions held in his honor. The note reads, "Start speech with Dostoyevsky's ''uniman''." <ref name="volkovsp126" /> |
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Something in Dostoyevsky's address might have also reminded Tchaikovsky of his rootlessness. Dostyevsky describes Pushkin as the first, in ''Aleko'' and ''Eugene Onegin'', to depict the "historical Russian wanderer," torn away from his native soil, oppressed and suffering. He then challenges, "Humble yourself, proud man, and above all dissolve your pride. Humble yourself, idle man, and first of all, exert yourself on your native field."<ref>Mochulsky, 640.</ref> |
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[[Image:TchaikhomeKlin.jpg|thumb|Tchaikovsky's final house, in Klin, now a museum.]] |
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Regardless of what he may have taken from the speech, by the early 1880's, Tchaikovsky wondered why his feelings for homeland, while extremely powerful, were also highly ambiguous. He loved the Russian countryside, Russian people and their folk culture, but he had never laid any real roots there<ref>Holden, 241.</ref>. He had also begun seeing himself as a parasite, sponging off of friends and his sister's family by constantly staying with them while in Russia. It was time, he felt, to settle in a place of his own.<ref>Holden, 241-242.</ref> |
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A summons to St. Petersburg from [[Tsar]] [[Alexander III of Russia|Alexander III]] in 1885 may have cemented Tchaikovky's decision. There, the Tsar conferred upon him the [[Order of St. Vladimir]] (fourth class). This gave the composer the right of [[Russian nobility|hereditary nobility]].<ref>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_St._Vladimir.</ref> Tchaikovsky had lived nearly seven years haunted by public knowledge of his failed marriage and a gnawing sense of public humiliation. He may have seen the Tsar's honor as a sign of rehabilitation, especially since the regent had bestowed it upon him personally. The public might never forget what had happened or stop wondering why it had happened, but at least they would now forgive and wagging tongues be quieted.<ref>Brown, ''Tchaikovsky: The Man and His Music'', 268-269.</ref> |
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In 1885, Tchaikovsky settled in a country house in Maidenovo, near [[Klin]].<ref>Warrack, ''Tchaikovsky'', 184, 189.</ref> In 1888, craving increased solitude, he moved to Frolovskoye, also near Klin. Upon his return from his American tour three years later, he found that in his absence the forest around his home had been felled totally.<ref>Warrack, ''Tchaikovsky'', 251.</ref> At first moving back to Maidenovo, <ref>Warrack, ''Tchaikovsky'', 251.</ref> he finally settled at Klin, in a house he found less suitably located but with comparatively large rooms both for guests to stay and for him to compose.<ref>Warrack, ''Tchaikovsky'', 260.</ref> After Tchaikovsky's death, his brother Modest and his nephew Vladimir "Bob" Davydov converted this house into a museum in the composer's honor.<ref>Holden, 402-403.</ref> |
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=== Conductor in demand === |
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Tchaikovsky took to orchestral [[conducting]] after leading the first four performances of his [[opera]] ''[[The Enchantress]]'' in [[St. Petersburg]] in 1887.<ref>Holden, 265</ref> Within a year, he was as much in demand as any veteran ''maestro''.<ref>Holden, 266</ref> He overcame a life-long [[glossophobia|stage fright]], gaining confidence to regularly lead orchestras in his pieces, those of other Russian composers and, on one occasion, [[Ludwig van Beethoven|Beethoven]]'s [[Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven)|Ninth Symphony]].<ref>Warrack, 232</ref> |
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Tchaikovsky's friend Nikolay Kashkin had witnessed the composer's early fumblings at the podium (with Tchaikovsky keeping one hand firmly on his chin because he was afraid his head would literally fall off). Kashkin writes this of Tchaikovsky's more assured conducting later in life: |
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<blockquote>He has all the essential attributes for conducting an orchestra: total self-control, extreme clarity and definition in his beat ... His direction of the orchestra is distinctive for its utter simplicity ... If he had few of the conductor's virtuoso gestures which are acquired only with years of experience, he has instead a quality which cannot be learnt: that inner fire, that animation which communicate themselves to the players, and which irresistibly impress the audience with the integrity and inspiration of the performance.<ref>Holden, 266</ref></blockquote> |
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Though more assured, Tchaikovsky never became a virtuoso on the podium. A violinist who played under him in a concert in Kharkov writes, |
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<blockquote>He did not hold the baton in his fingers, as most conductors do, but clasped it firmly in his fist. He then raised it above his head, on the first beat brought it down sharply, on the second beat to his left shoulder, on the third to his right shoulder, and on the fourth again raised it. The players were not accustomed to such a way of conducting. Everyone glanced around, but the sense that the composer himself was conducting the piece mde us quickly forget this initial awkwardness, and we tried our best—and by the end of the rehearsal we were already accustomed to Pyotr Ilyich's idiosyncratic way of conducting.<ref>Brown, ''Tchaikovsky: The Man and His Music'', 320-321.</ref></blockquote> |
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Apparently, as happened similarly with Sir [[Edward Elgar]] and the [[London Symphony Orchestra]] some 50 years later, it was the respect with which the players held Tchaikovsky that made them cooperate more fully than they might have with a lesser composer.<ref>Brown, ""Tchaikovsky: The Man and His Music'', 321.</ref> Nevertheless, Tchaikovsky's conducting appearances boosted his self-confidence hugely. He wrote to von Meck, "Would you now recognize in this Russian musician travelling across Europe that man who, only a few years ago, had absconded from life in society and lived in seclusion abroad or in the country!!!"<ref>Brown, ''Tchaikovsky: The Man and His Music'', 329.</ref> |
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Among those Tchaikovsky met on his conducting tours were composers [[Johannes Brahms]], [[Antonin Dvořák]] and [[Edvard Grieg]]. He invited both Brahms and Dvořák to conduct their works in Moscow during the 1890 season. Brahms refused. Dvořák insisted on coming no sooner than March 1890 for fear of Russian frosts.<ref>Brown, ''Tchaikovsky: The Man and His Misoc'', 344, 346.</ref> |
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=== American tour === |
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Through his Berlin concert agent, Tchaikovsky received an invitation for a conducting tour of the [[United States]]. This tour would have as its centerpiece a concert of his music at the inaugural concert of [[Carnegie Hall]] in [[New York City]].<ref>Holden, 296.</ref> Tchaikovsky accepted, arriving in New York on April 27, 1891.<ref>Holden, 299.</ref> |
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"I was greeted with dignity and honor," he writes to his brother Anatoly, "My picture is in all the papers, accompanying reports of my arrival. It transpires that I am far more famous in America than in Europe. Here I am a big shot."<ref>Letter to Anatoly, from New York, April 27, 1891. As quoted in Holden, 300.</ref> He adds this, in a letter to Bob Davydov: |
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<blockquote>Everyone here flatters, honors and celebrates me. It turns out that I am ''ten times'' better known in America than in Europe. At first, when people told me this, I assumed it was an exaggerated compliment. But now I see it is the truth. Works of mine that are still unknown in Moscow are performed here several times a season, and are the subject of whole reviews and commentaries (''Hamlet'', for example).<ref>Letter to Bob Davydov, April 30, 1891. As quoted in Holden, 300.</ref></blockquote> |
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[[Image:Carnegie_Hall_Wikipedia.jpg|thumb|Carnegie Hall. Tchaikovsky conducted at its inaugural concert.]] |
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During this time he met [[Walter Damrosch]], the conductor who had convinced [[Andrew Carnegie]] that New York needed a new concert hall, as well as Carnegie himself. Tchaikovsky liked both men, appreciating in particular a warm impromptu speech Damrosch gave the [[New York Symphony Orchestra|New York Music Society's orchestra]] at Tchaikovsky's first rehearsal.<ref>Holden, 300.</ref> Carnegie, to the composer's surprise, was "a modest and simple man, never one to turn up his nose," inspiring in Tchaikovsky "unusually warm feelings, probably because he displays such warmth toward me."<ref>Holden, 303.</ref> |
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On May 5, Carnegie Hall opened. Tchaikovsky's presence was largely symbolic, with his leading just his ''[[Slavonic March|Marche Slave]]''. Two days later, however (on his 51st birthday), he took New York by storm, conducted his Third Suite The reporter for the ''Morning Journal'' calling Tchaikovsky's performance "Wonderful .. a power that at once enchains and charms us. "Genius" agreed the writer from the ''New York Daily Tribune''. The reporter from the ''Evening Telegram'' added, "It would be impossible for an orchestra to play badly under such a conductor. Tchaikovsky's leading was a perfeect revelation. He inspires his orchestra with his nervous force, and seems to hold every musician at the end of his baton.".<ref>Holden, 301.</ref> |
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The fourth and final of Tchaikovsky's New York concerts, on May 9, proved the most successful. He conducted his [[Piano Concerto No. 1 (Tchaikovsky)|First Piano Concerto]] with [[Franz Liszt|Liszt]] pupil Adele aus der Ohe as soloist. He called aus der Ohe's performance "perfect" and wrote, "There was greater enthusiasm than I have ever before managed to achieve, even in Russia...."<ref>Diary entry, May 9, 1891. As quoted in Holden, 303.</ref> |
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=== Cambridge === |
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[[Image:Tchai Cambridge.jpg|thumb|left|Tchaikovsky at Cambridge, 1893.]] |
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In 1893, [[University of Cambridge|Cambridge University]] awarded Tchaikovsky an honorary [[Doctor of Music]] degree. Other composers honored included [[Camille Saint-Saëns]], [[Max Bruch]] and [[Arrigo Boito]]; [[Edvard Grieg]] had also been scheduled to attend but could not due to illness.<ref>Holden, 328-329.</ref> |
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At Cambridge, Tchaikovsky led the British premiere of his tone poem ''[[Francesca da Rimini (Tchaikovsky)|Francesca da Rimini]]''.<ref>Holden, 330, 340</ref> Tchaikovsky wrote that the audience received the piece with such enthusiasm that it completely overshadowed Saint-Saëns' music in the same program.<ref>Warrack, 264-265</ref> |
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Saint-Saëns' impression was equally vivid: |
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<blockquote>Bristling with difficulties, Tchaikovsky's ''Francesca da Rimini'', which lacks neither pungent flavors nor fireworks, shrinks from no violence. In it the gentlest and most kindly of men has unleashed a fearful tempest, and has no more pity for his performers and listeners than Satan for the damned. But such was the talent and supreme skill that one takes pleasure in this damnation and torture.<ref>[[Camille Saint-Saëns|Saint-Saëns, Camille]], "Docteur à Cambridge," ''Portraits et Souvenirs'' (1899), as quoted in Brown, ''Tchaikovsky: The man and His Music'', 428</ref></blockquote> |
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At the commemorative dinner in King's College, Tchaikovsky was pleased to be seated next to Walter Damrosch.<ref>Holden, 341</ref> He told Damrosch he had just finished a new symphony, "different in form from anything he had written." Pressed for more details, Tchaikovsky replied, "The last movement is an ''[[List of musical terminology|adagio]]'' and the whole work has a program." When Damrosch asked what this program was, Tchaikovsky said, "No, that I shall never tell...."<ref>Damrosch, Walter, ''My Musical Life'' (New York, 1923), 144-145. As quoted in Holden, 344.</ref> It was one of many such occasions that Tchaikovsky let slip that his Sixth Symphony had a program. Even with Rimsky-Korsakov at the work's premiere, he withheld further details. As he phrased it to Bob Davidov, "Let them guess."<ref>Holden, 344.</ref> |
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=== Death === |
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[[Image:P3264416 tchaikovsky lg.jpg|right|thumb|Tchaikovsky's tomb at the [[Alexander Nevsky Monastery]]]] |
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{{main article|Tchaikovsky's death}} |
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Tchaikovsky died nine days after the premiere of his [[Symphony No. 6 (Tchaikovsky)|Sixth Symphony]], the ''Pathétique'', on November 6, 1893. |
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Most biographers of Tchaikovsky's life have considered his death to have been caused by [[cholera]], most probably contracted through drinking contaminated water several days earlier. In recent decades, however, theories have been advanced that his death was a suicide. According to one variation of the theory, a sentence of suicide was imposed in a "court of honor" by Tchaikovsky's fellow alumni of the St. Petersburg School of Jurisprudence, as a censure of the composer's homosexuality. |
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== Musical style == |
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{{main article|List of compositions by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky}} |
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Tchaikovsky wrote several works well known among the general classical public—''[[Romeo and Juliet (Tchaikovsky)|Romeo and Juliet]]'', the ''[[1812 Overture]]'' and ''[[Slavonic March|Marche Slave]]''. These, along with two of his concertos and three of his latter symphonies, are probably his most familiar works, thanks in great part to what former [[New York Times]] music critic [[Harold C. Schonberg]] called "a sweet, inexhaustible, supersensuous fund of melody."<ref>Schonberg, Harold C. ''Lives of the Great Composers'', 3rd ed. (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 3rd ed 1997), 366.</ref> [[Solomon Volkov]] concurs, writing that it is the lushness of Tchaikovsky's melodies, along with the emotional accessibility of his music, that has helped make it so popular.<ref>Volkov, 98.</ref> |
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Some of those melodies have proved popular enough for [[Tin Pan Alley]] song composers to re-use. The love theme from ''Romeo and Juliet'' reappeared in the song ''Our Love'' in 1939, and the melody for the 1941 song ''Tonight We Love'' was taken from the [[Piano Concerto No. 1 (Tchaikovsky)|Piano Concerto No. 1]]. Another 1939 song, ''Moon Love'', also incorporates a melody by Tchaikovsky.<ref>Steinberg, Michael, ''The Symphony'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 633.</ref> |
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Second only to Tchaikovsky's gift for melody was his sense of orchestral color. Perhaps one of his best-known touches is his use of the [[celesta]] as a solo instrument in the "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" from Act II of ''[[The Nutcracker]]'', but on the whole his ear for novel combinations of instruments was highly refined. Schonberg calls Tchaikovsky's orchestration "dark-colored yet brilliant sounding and perfectly-calculated scoring."<ref>Schonberg, 367.</ref> |
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=== "Surcharged emotion" === |
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Add to this mix of elements what Schonberg termed "surcharged emotion"<ref>Schonberg, p. 367.</ref>, a "neuroticism, as emotional as a scream from a window on a dark night"<ref>Schonberg, 366.</ref> Western form was analytical and architectural; it simply was not designed to handle personal expression of such magnitude. Nor was this challenge exclusively Tchaikovsky's. The Romantics in general were never natural symphonists because music was to them primarily evocative and biographical—generally autobiographical. <ref>Cooper, Martin, ed Abraham, Gerald, ''Music of Tchaikovsky'' (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1946), 24-25.</ref>. |
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With Tchaikovsky the challenge was not simply emotion in music, but ''intensity'' of emotion. The turbulent changes in the composer's personal life, including his marital crisis, led him to write down in the Fourth Symphony meant that structural matters could not stay as they had been<ref>Brown, ''Tchaikovsky: The Final Years'', 441.</ref> |
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Two changes came to pass. One was melodic. Here, Tchaikovsky's greatest single gift could be more freely deployed than it had previously. The second change would alter completely the nature of the symphony. As the Fourth Symphony shows, the symphony had become a human document—dramatic, autobiographical, concerned not with everyday things but with things psychological. This was because Tchaikovsky's creative impulses had become invaded with an element that was unprecedentedly personal, urgent, capable of enormous expressive forcefulness, even violence<ref>Brown, ''Tchaikovsky: The Final Years'', 441-442.</ref>. |
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Tchaikovsky described this new element to von Meck: |
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<blockquote>You ask me if this symphony [the Fourth] has a definite programme. Usually when asked this question about a symphonic piece, I reply: ''none''. And indeed it is difficult to answer such a question. How can one express those inexpressible sensations which pass through one when writing an instrumental work without a definite subject? It is a purely lyrical process. It is a musical confession of the soul, which is full to the brim and which, true to its essential nature, pours itself out in sound, just as the lyric poet expresses himself in verse. The difference is that music possesses incomparably more powerful means and is a subtler language for the articulation of the thousand different moments of the soul's moods.....<ref>As quoted in Warrack, ''Tchaikovsky'', 129-130.</ref></blockquote> |
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This new element could be as disruptive structurally as it could be disconcerting expressively. Once unleashed, it could prove uncontainable, devouring musical space voraciously until it had for the moment expended itself.<ref>Brown, ''Tchaikovsky: The Final Years'', 442.</ref>. |
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=== Russianness === |
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Volkov maintains that, as emotive as Tchaikovsky could be on his own, he may have been further encouraged by hearing a popular form of St. Petersburg [[song]] called ''romansy'': |
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<blockquote>They were beautiful, darkly erotic flowers that grew in fashionable [[salon (gathering)|salons]] after a complex cross-fertilization of Russian folk tunes and Italian [[aria]]s. Glinka and a group of Russian amateur composers had worked over the creation of this strange and attractive hybrid. Spicy notes of anguish and passion, borrowed from Gypsy songs that filled Petersburg at that time, were added to their refined creations.</blockquote> |
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<blockquote>The Petersburg ''romansy'', shaded with Gypsy idiom, lost their hothouse tenderness when they boldly crossed the threshold from the fashionable salons to real life. And yet, they became the delight of the broad masses of Russian music lovers, the Russian pop music of the time. The comfortably sentimental and sad or sensually passionate formulas of the ''romansy'' appeared more than once—reworked and ennobled—in Tchaikovsky's music<ref>Volkov, 112.</ref></blockquote> |
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Schonberg calls Tchaikovsky's melody "peculiarly Russian ... plangent, introspective, often [[musical mode|modal]]-sounding<ref>Schonberg, 366.</ref>." Michael Steinberg adds, in technical terms about that melody, that "[w]hen [Boston Symphony Orchestra program annotator William Foster] Apthorp wrote about the 'peculiar [Russian] character' of Tchaikovsky's melodies, he must refer to the way they droop<ref>Steinberg, 630, 632 footnote 9.</ref>." This "drooping" quality, David Brown explains, is Tchaikovsky's tendency to let a melody fall or love lower on the musical scale as it comes to its end. This can lend it a melancholy or bittersweet tinge which can heighten its emotional content. |
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Musicologist and Tchaikovsky specialist Dr. [[David Brown]] writes that, unlike [[The Five]]'s work, folk songs and folk-like melodies appear only sporadically in Tchaikovsky's work, except for a brief period in the 1870's when he placed himself squarely in line with The Five's ideals and practices. (The 1872 version of the [[Symphony No. 2 (Tchaikovsky)|Second Symphony]] and the opera ''[[Vakula the Smith]]'' are from this period.) He writes that the sources of Tchaikovsky's most characteristic melody are elusive, though Italian operatic [[cantilena]] is clearly one. In these themes the melodic line unwinds broadly, is expressively full, and presents a clear periodic structure. This structure, however, can be disguised by the theme's own expansiveness; it can also be hidden by the [[sequence (music)|sequences]] extending the melody, which in Tchaikovsky's case can be long. The love theme in ''[[Romeo and Juliet (Tchaikovsky)|Romeo and Juliet]]'' is a perfect example<ref>Brown, ''Tchaikovsky: The Final Years'', 427.</ref>. |
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Yet, Brown continues, even while crafting melodies that in themselves are totally unrelated to folk song, Tchaikovsky shows something akin to the Russian folk-composer's instinct of using one version of a theme in the musical foreground while keeping another version of the same theme in the background as an accompaniment or general musical shape. In the slow movement of the [[Symphony No. 1 (Tchaikovsky)|First Symphony]], a phrase taken from the center of a melody played by oboe solo is also used to create still another theme. In ''Romeo and Juliet'', a swift series of restructurings show that two otherwise totally dissimilar tunes have a common element in their contours. When the central theme of ''Francesca da Rimini'' turns back on itself, Tchaikovsky unfurls a new formation of that theme's notes against its old shape—the theme essentially accompanying itself, acting as its own backdrop<ref>Brown, ''Tchaikovsky: The Final Years'', 430-431.</ref>. |
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=== Imperial style === |
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Tchaikovsky's musical [[cosmopolitanism]] made him especially adept in writing in an "Imperial style" favored by Tsar Alexander III and the Russian upper classes, as opposed to the "Russian" harmonies of Mussorgsky, Borodin and Rimsky-Korsakov. Imperial style, historian Orlando Figis writes, was symbolized by the [[polonaise]]. Imported into Russia by the Polish composer [[Jozek Kozlowski]] near the end of the 18th century, the polonaise "became the supreme courlly form and the most brilliant of all the ballroom genres." The polonaise also came to symbolize the European brilliance of 18th-century Petersburg itself. Pushkin and Tchaikovsky both use this dance for Tatiana's climactic entry in the ball scene of ''Eugene Onegin''. [[Leo Tolstoy]] also uses it at the climax of the ball in ''[[War and Peace]]'', where the Emperor makes his appearance and Natasha dances with Andrei.<ref>Figis, Orlando, ''Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia'' (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2002), 274.</ref> |
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[[Image:Napoleons retreat from moscow.jpg|right|thumbnail|''Napoleon's retreat from Moscow'', painted by [[Adolph Northen]] in the 19th century]] |
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Tchaikovsky's wriuting in Imperisl style echoed a theme traditional in Russian culture and first sounded by [[Alexander Pushkin|Pushkin]]. This theme was glorification of the Russian empire and the victories of Russian arms. The rapid expansion of the empire following the defeat of [[Napoleon I of France|Napoleon]], the ethnic vareity of its peoples and the capital's growing appetite for conquests wss reflected especially in Russian music.<ref>Volkov, ''St. Petersburg'', 100-101.</ref> |
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Volkov suggests that the finales of Tchaikovsky's first three symphonies could be read as imperial anthems or apotheoses. A Russian folk song is heard in the finale of the First Symphony, a Ukranian folk song in the finale of the Second, and a polonaise in the finale of the Third. At the time Tchaikovsky wrote these works, Poland and the Ukraine were parts of the Russian Empire. Therefore, by including those themes into the framework of his symphonies, Volkov claims, Tchaikovsky may have signified his support for various nations being under the rulership of the Russian Tsar.<ref>Volkov, ''St. Petersburg'', 113.</ref> |
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Tchaikovsky also made full use of the emotional and symbolic possibilities of the Russian anthem, "God save the Tsar," in several commemorative works—including two of his most popular compositions, the ''[[Slavonic March|Marche Slave]]'' and the ''[[1812 Overture]]''. Tchaikovsky wrote ''Marche Slave'' in support of one of the most cherished ideas of imperial Russia—[[Pan-Slavism]]. When [[Serbia]] rebelled against Turkish rule in 1876, the atmosphere in Russia toward the Serbs became so electric that performances of the ''Marche Slave'', with its Serbian folk melodies, inevitably elicited outbursts of patriotism. This was something the equally patriotic composer did not mind one bit. The ''1812 Overture'' likewise glorified the greatest miliitary and political victory of the Romonov dynasty, in the Patriotic War against Napoleon.<ref>Volkov, ''St. Petersburg'', 113.</ref> |
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=== "Captivating nightmares" === |
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In ''[[The Sleeping Beauty (ballet)|The Sleeping Beauty]]'' and ''[[The Nutcracker]]'', Tchaikovsky conjures a "world of captivating nightmares" of [[E.T.A. Hoffmann]], as Alexandre Benois phrases it, "a mixture of strange truth and convincing invention."<ref>Benois, Alexandre, ''Moi vospominaniia'' (My Reminiscences), vol. 1 (bks. 1-3), 603. As quoted in Volkov, 124.</ref> Another glimpse of this world comes earlier, with the Second Orchestral Suite. The unsuspecting would not expect a radical musical adventure in a movement titled ''Rêves d'enfennt'' (A Child's Dream). Nothing in the movement's opening hints at the strange, even unnerving sounds that Tchaikovsky will conjure.<ref>Brown, ''Tchaikovsky: The man and His Music'', 260.</ref> |
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Yet at the center section of this music come strange, delicate, fragmented textures, with no recognizable harmonic foundation. Fleeting [[harp]] [[arpeggio]]s. An [[oboe]] melody spun from a tiny repeated seven-note fragment. A fragment that, set on high [[piccolo]], will flutter above a low, nagging [[clarinet]]-[[viola]] phrase, against a backdrop of ever louder ''tremololando'' strings. Not even the music of enchantment Tchaikovsky would write for ''The Sleeping Beauty'' will come close to what seems here the kingdom of sleep itself.<ref>Brown, ''Tchaikovsky: The Man and His Music'', 260.</ref> |
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As for ''The Nutcracker'', the music setting the scene in Act One once the guests have left shows Tchaikovsky's skill at orchestrating [[dark fantasy]]; none of his other works is the scoring so important in setting the tone. Especially striking is the use of harp and wind instruments. All becomes dark, spooky, unstable and unsafe; against a gently quivering muted string background come snatches of melody, harp washes, sometimes little chains of rapidly repeated notes, sudden brief interruptions. Then the clock strikes midnight.<ref>Brown, ''Tchaikovsky: The Man and His Music'', 405.</ref> |
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=== Whimsy and delicate fantasy === |
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Tchaikovsky also had a lighter side. He could be whimsical, such as in the Chacteristic Dances that make up most of Act Two of ''The Nutcracker'' and, several years earlier, the ''Marche miniature'' (originally titled ''March of the [[Lilliputian]]s'') from the First Orchestral Suite. He could also be good-natured, almost tongue-in-cheek, such as in the scherzo and [[gavotte]] which follow the ''Marche miniature'' in the First Orchestral Suite and the ''Danse baroque'' which concludes the Second Orchestral Suite. |
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Then there are moments of delicate, almost ethereal fantasy. The scherzo of the ''[[Manfred Symphony]]'' is subtitled "The Alpine Fairy appears before Manfred in a rainbow." Tchaikovsky had explored fresh possibilities in orchestration throughout his musical career. In previous years, this had allowed him to present his music with new colors and more refined contrasts, but the music being orchestrated had still been made with tunes and harmonies as before. The music had come first, then the orchestration, with the music dictating the orchestration<ref>Brown, ''Tchaikovsky: The Man and His Music'', 295-296.</ref> |
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In the ''Manfred'' scherzo, the positions are reversed. Now the orchestration dictates the music, as though Tchaikovsky has thought directly in terms of colors and textures to move us, like magic, into a world that is alluring, fragile and elusive. There is no tune at first, and little definition of any harmonic base. We hear, at most, the tiniest of melodic fragments and the lightest film of harmony; and where those things slip in, they very quickly melt away.<ref>Brown, ''Tchaikovsky: THe Man and His Music'', 296.</ref> |
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When an actual tune arrives to fill out the movement's central section—the musical semblance of the Alpine fairy—the contrast to what we have already heard is perfectly judged, as though the fairy ''has'' just appeared to us in sound. This new melody is partnered with Manfred's theme, now tempered by the graceful companion, while slivers of the scherezo music which preceded this slip in from time to time. If, when the movement's rainbow music is about to return, Manfred's theme returns far less gracefully, it will sound almost wistful at the movement's end while the Alpine fairy flickers upward and disappears.<ref>Brown, ''Tchaikovsky: The Man and His Music'', 296.</ref> |
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=== "Passé-ism" === |
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[[Image:Dore__sleepingbeauty.jpg|thumb|left|"Reclining upon a bed was a princess of radiant beauty." Illustration by [[Gustave Dore]].<ref>This illustration was commissioned for "Les Contes de Perrault" (Paris: J. Hetzel, 1867), Tchaikovsky's source for the story of ''The Sleeping Beauty''.</ref>]] |
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In ''The Sleeping Beauty'' and ''[[The Queen of Spades (opera)|The Queen of Spades]]'', Tchaikovsky reconstructs the imperial grandeur of the 18th-Century world. Tchaikovsky sets ''The Sleeping Beauty'' in the realm of Louis XIV, a nostalgic tribute to the French influence of 18th-century Russian music and culture. This may have been dictated at least in part by the source of the story, [[Charles Perrault]]'s fairy tale ''La Belle au bois dormant''. Nevertheless, the Francophilia Benois and his friends heard in the music made them embrace it all the more readily.<ref>Volkov, ''St. Petersburg'', 123-124).</ref> |
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''The Queen of Spades'', based on the Pushkin story, evokes the St. Petersburg of Catehrine the Great—an era where the Russian capital was fully integrated with, and played a major role, in the culture of Europe. Infusing the opera with [[rococo]] elements (Tchaikovsky himself describes the ballroom scenes as a "slavish imitation" of 18th-Century style), he uses the story's layers of ghostly fantasy to conjure up a dream world of the past.<ref>Figis, 274.</ref> |
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At the same time, Benois emphasized, Tchaikovsky's talent for writing in this vein was more than simply stylization. (Tchaikovsky was, however, also highly gifted at stylization, as shown by his [[Serenade for Strings (Tchaikovsky)|Serenade for Strings]] and Fourth Orchestral Suite, subtitled ''Mozartiana''.) Tchaikovsky's evocative powers gave timelessness and immediacy, making the past seem as though it were the present. Benois calls this quality "passé-ism."<ref>Volkov, ''St. Petersburg'', 124.</ref> |
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== Musical form == |
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=== Russian versus Western === |
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Tchaikovsky's studies at the St. Petersburg Conservatory made him a true musical professional. He learned European principles and forms of organizing musical material while gaining a sense of belonging to world culture.<ref>Volkov, 111.</ref> However, in using these principles for himself, Tchaikovsky's Rusianness could work as much or more against him as it did for him. The result was a continual struggles with Western [[sonata form]]. One major block for Tchaikovsky in this department, David Brown suggests, may have been cultural: |
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<blockquote>... a cardinal flaw in the Russian character: inertia. It is a flaw that has conditioned every sector of the nation's life. It has dogged its history, which has tended to unfold as long periods of stasis, followed by short, sometimes very violent periods of activity when the state has been convulsed into progress<ref>Brown, ''Tchaikovsky: The Final Years'', 421.</ref>....</blockquote> |
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<blockquote>Inertia of a kind is also intrinsic to Russian creativity. In literature it produces the novel that proceeds as a succession of self-contained sections, even set-piece scenes....Indeed, such tableau organization is fundamental to the most Russian of operatic scenarios.... [T]he most characteristic Russian scenario is like a strip cartoon, each scene presenting a crucial incident or stage in the plot, leaving the spectator to supply in his imagination what has happened in the gaps between these incidents<ref>Brown, ''Tchaikovsky: The Final Years'', 422.</ref>....</blockquote> |
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Using a series of self-contained sections is also at the heart of the most characteristic structures of Russian composers—one that would occur as a natural fall-back, since many Russian folk songs are actually a series of variations on one basic shape or pattern of a few notes. Constant repetition of this pattern means the song remains essentially static; noting truly moves forward or progresses as in Western music<ref>Brown, ''Tchaikovsky: The Final Years'', 422-423.</ref>. |
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Brown gives the example of [[Mikhail Glinka]]'s ''Kamarinskaya'' as "a Russian folksong write large." Glinka uses the principle from folk song of unfolding around a thematic constant—or actually two constants, since he uses two folk songs. Glinka varies the material surrounding these tunes more than the tunes themselves. Also, as in Russian folk song, the music does not evolve or progress toward an all-embracing point. Instead, it repeats itself over and over with ever new significances. By doing this the music does not expand the listening experience, but instead consolidates it. It remains a decorative rather than an organic creation, remaining static while elaborating on itself instead of moving forward<ref>Brown, ''Tchaikovsky: The Final Years'', 423-424.</ref>. |
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This static quality is at the heart of Russian creativity. It is also a paradox. Russian practice would have a musical theme essentially stay in place. Western practice would have two contrasting themes interacting like a conversation or an argument—discussing, agreeing and disagreeing, but always building toward an inevitable and hopefully persuasive conclusion<ref>Brown, ''Tchaikovsky: The Final Years'', 424.</ref>. |
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By these working definitions, Russian and Western practice would seem to work at cross-purposes, against instead of alongside each other. Russian working methods would seem totally unsuitable for building large-scale, evolving Western-style structures due to the nature of their own reflectiveness. Making the two systems work in consort toward one united goal would seem insoluble<ref>Brown, ''Tchaikovsky: The Final Years'', 424.</ref>. |
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=== Melody versus form === |
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An equally large challenge facing Tchaikovsky was, paradoxically, his greatest compositional gift—his own sense of melody. Beethoven, for example, did not think melodically but architecturally; he could construct a complete movement from musical material of which anyone could have thought because he could look at and work on that material in terms of how to structure it effectively<ref>Warrack, ''Tchaikovsky Symphonies and Concertos'', 8.</ref> |
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Tchaikovsky's problem by thinking melodically was that a melody is complete on its own terms. Because it is already complete, that melody is not amenable to development. As Taneyev points out, a composer can do little more with a melody than repeat it, though it can be repeated and modified in the hands of a master such as Tchaikovsky to create interest, tension and satisfaction over a large span<ref>Warrack, ''Tchaikovsky Symphonies and Concertos'', 8-9.</ref>. |
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Tchaikovsky was well aware of his limits in terms of traditional Western classical structure and writes about it to von Meck: |
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<blockquote>All my life I have been much troubled by my inability to grasp and manipulate form in music. I have fought hard against this defect and can say with pride that I have achieved some progress, but I shall end my days without having ever written anything that is perfect in form. What I write has always a mountain of padding: an experienced eye can detect the thread in the seams and I can do nothing about it<ref>As quoted in Warrack, ''Tchaikovsky Symphonies and Concertos'', 11.</ref>.</blockquote> |
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Imagination and invention were never a problem for Tchaikovsky. Ideas he generally had in abundance. However, as Cooper writes, the principle of sonata form is both a study in contrast and one of unity in diversity. First and second subjects must be contrasted and united. They must be capable of coming into organic growth and development, meaning they can come into direct contact with each other, coalesce and separate. They must contrast yet remain fundamentally at unity with each other<ref>Cooper, 28-29.</ref>. |
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A melody of great individuality, such as many of the ones Tchaikovsky wrote, is impatient of this process. By its very individuality, instead of interacting with any other themes with which it is placed, that melody can dominate an entire movement. This refuses equal rights to any other melody, ruining the balance and proportion considered the proper beauties of sonata form<ref>Cooper, 29.</ref>. |
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Because of his penchant for such melodies, Tchaikovsky went through pain and grief in attempting to force his ideas to develop and grow organically. This would also mean curbing the natural Romantic tendency to improvise, to force a free [[fantasia]] into sonata form. To use Tchaikovsky's analogy, when he attempts to sew together a movement in the traditional Western manner, the seams are often highly visible<ref>Cooper, 29.</ref>. |
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The true successor of the symphony for the Romantics was the [[symphonic poem]]. Dramatic turns of phrase, highly colored melodies and "atmospheric" harmony—all things the Romantics loved—were primarily opposed to the nature of the symphony. With the symphonic poem, large-scale orchestral writing could be combined with the strong emotions and brilliant color of Romanticism. <ref>Cooper, 24-25.</ref>. With a new range of emotions meeting the old classical symphony, the symphony's whole nature was changed and widened. However, the same principles do not apply to both genres. A symphonic poem is not simply a bad symphony<ref>Cooper, 27.</ref>. |
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Tchaikovsky admitted to von Meck that his Fourth Symphony was [[program music]]. By implication, Cooper suggests, the same could be said for his other symphonies, as well. Taneyev commented to Tchaikovsky that to him the Fourth "gives the effect of a symphonic poem to which the composer has slapped on three other movements and called it a symphony." Tchaikovsky replied: |
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<blockquote>As to your remark about my symphony being programmatic, I quite agree, but don't see why you consider this a deficit. On the contrary I should be sorry ''if symphonies that mean nothing'' should flow from my pen, consisting solely of a progression of harmonies, rhythms and modulations. Most assuredly my symphony has a program, but one that cannot be expressed in words: the very attempt would be ludicrous. But is this not proper for the symphony, ''the most purely lyrical of musical forms?'' Should not a symphony reveal those wordless urges that hide in the heart, asking earnestly for expression?... As a matter of fact the work is patterned after Beethoven's Fifth Symphony—not as to musical content but as to the basic idea. Don't you see a programme in the Fifth?<ref>As quoted in Cooper, 27 (italics Cooper)</ref>..</blockquote> |
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To Tchaikovsky, the only difference between a symphony and a symphonic poem lay in the vagueness of the program underlying the one and the explicitly literary programme of the other<ref>Cooper, 27.</ref>. |
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Perhaps even more revealing is Tchaikovsky's description of the symphony as "the most purely lyrical of forms." "Lyrical," Cooper suggests, could be that emotion or mood which can be expressed only on music—the spontaneous expression in sound of those fears, longings and desires both too vague and too violently definite for expression in words<ref>Cooper, 28.</ref>. |
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Whether that lyrical expression could be expressed naturally in sonata form is not implausible. This would only be true, he counters, if that form is so natural to a composer, both by instinct and habit, to become second nature, and Tchaikovsky was never that kind of composer<ref>Cooper, 28</ref>. |
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Instead, Tchaikovsky learned to adapt the form to fit the music he wished to pour into it — a process sounding like Cooper's description mentioned above of the workings of the symphonic poem. Tchaikovsky described his method, again about the Fourth Symphony, to von Meck: |
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<blockquote>You ask if I keep to established forms. Yes and no. There are certain kinds of compositions which imply the use of familiar forms, for example ''symphony''. Here I keep in general outline to the usual traditional forms, but only in general outline, i.e. the sequence of the work's movements. The details can be treated very freely, if this is demanded by the development of the ideas. For instance, in ''our'' symphony the first movement is written with very marked digressions. The second subject, which should be in the relative major, is minor and remote. In the recapitulation of the main part of the movement the second subject does not appear at all, etc. The finale, too, is made up of a whole row of derivations from individual forms<ref>As quoted in Warrack, ''Tchaikovsky'', 132.</ref>....</blockquote> |
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Tchaikovsky had already written three well-crafted but comparatively minor symphonies in which his concern for good form conflicted with his ability to express himself. This was a challenge he may or may not have recognized but was definitely not equipped or ready to meet. When he discovered a method to put his emotional life to work in large-scale abstract structures, Tchaikovsky was able to match his temperament fully to his talent. By doing so, he successfully enlarged the scope of his talent to its fullest potential<ref>Warrack, ''Tchaikovsky'', 133.</ref>. |
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Warrack adds, "Out of the crisis that nearly wrecked his life in 1877 came the strengthened belief in himself as a composer, and with it cane the still more powerful need for expression of what he had seriously come to believe was a personal Fate that dogged his life and would always wish upon him the most profound unhappiness<ref>Warrack, ''Tchaikovsky'', 133.</ref>." |
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=== Tchaikovsky's solution === |
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The compromise Tchaikovsky makes with sonata form is as follows: |
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In each of his symphonies except the [[Symphony No. 1 (Tchaikovsky)|First]], he begins with a slow introduction , setting the atmosphere for the mood of the listener instead of alerting him that a piece of musical action is going to take place. The ensuing sonata movement follows basically the same pattern. A first subject or melody is introduced. This subject cannot be developed readily, so it is repeated with new orchestration and changes in emotional emphasis taking the place for musical development. A second, more lyrical subject follows and is similarly extended. After a second long transition, both melodies are [[recapitulation (music)|recapitulated]] and the movement ends with a [[coda]]<ref>Warrack, ''Tchaikovsky Symphonies and Concertos'', 11.</ref>. |
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What has taken place in this movement has been an ingenious [[episodic]] treatment of two contrasting melodies. Because these melodies are self-sufficient in themselves, they do not act upon each other in an organic, evolutionary progress. Instead, they impose a comparatively mechanical role upon those passages where the substance of a symphonic movement should properly reside<ref>Warrack, ''Tchaikovsky Symphonies and Concertos'', 11.</ref>. |
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To keep this mechanism going, and to give the impression that something is actually happening, Tchaikovsky falls back on a number of musical devices mainly for the sake of generating listener expectation for the next entry of a melody. He employs [[ostinato]] figures, dramatic [[pedal point]]s, [[sequence (music)|sequences]] to fuel anticipation. The melody being re-introduced must therefore live up to this expectation being created. It must be more sensationally scored, perhaps made more intense by a passionately throbbing [[accompaniment]] figure or anguished fluctuations of [[tempo]] from bar to bar<ref>Warrack, ''Tchaikovsky Symphonies and Concertos, 11-12.</ref>. |
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The fact that there may be as many essentially repetitive sequences as there are in Tchaikovsky's work—or Russian symphonic works of the period in general, for that matter—does not mean they are boring. On the contrary, Brown writes that there is rarely a lack of ingenuity in the development sections of Russian symphonic works when it comes to manipulating musical material. Very often, however, this ingenuity can seem a game played according to a well-learned method instead of a stage-by-stage musical argument moving logically toward its conclusion<ref>Brown, ''Tchaikovsky: The Final Years'', 425.</ref>. In this sense, Brown admits there may be much truth in Mussorgsky's dictum: "The German, when he thinks, will first ''examine and explore'', then ''make his conclusion'': our [Russian] brother will first ''make his conclusion'', then amuse himself with examination and exploration<ref>M.P. Mussorgsky, ''Pisma'', ed. E. Gordeyeva (Moscow, 1981), 75. As quoted in Brown, ''Tchaikovsky: The Final Years'', 425-426.</ref>." |
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=== Synthesis === |
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While Brown admits such an approach can rarely produce totally satisfactory results, he warns it would be a mistake to discount the Russian symphony. The best of these works, including Tchaikovsky's last three numbered ones, are totally different conceptions from their Western counterparts, despite their indebtedness to the same structural scheme and many elements of the same method.<ref>Brown, ''Tchaikovsky: The Final Years'', 426.</ref>. |
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Also, whole all these traits are fundamental to Tchaikovsky's work, Tchaikovsky's training was thoroughly Western, and the problem of marrying the arsenal of techniques he had learned to the St. Petersburg Conservatory with the kind of invention his native instincts drew from him was to be a formidable problem.<ref>Brown, ''Tchaikovsky: The Final Years'', 426.</ref>. |
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Nevertheless, as Schonberg writes, |
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<blockquote>Analysis who use as a criterion the German symphonic form as laid down by Mozart and Beethoven have been citing "defects" in the Tchaikovsky symphonies since they were written. But strict application of formalistic criterion misses the point. Tchaikovsky's symphonies, even the first three, have such personality and such melodic appeal that they continue to sound emotionally fresh. Despite the frequent naïveté of such works as the [[Symphony No. 3 (Tchaikovsky)|''Polish'']] and [[Symphony No. 2 (Tchaikovsky)|''Little Russian'']] symphonies, they are full of color, originality and a very personal kind of speech. The last three [numbered] Tchaikovsky symphonies break all the rules as laid down by the textbooks, but here Tchaikovsky achieved a kind of synthesis that makes them as convincing structurally as any Brahms symphony—waltzes, march movements, and free forms notwithstanding. For they have a consistent emotional line and a consistency of workmanship, and the ideas progress surely and naturally<ref>Schonberg, 371.</ref>....</blockquote> |
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Martin Cooper adds about this formal synthesis, |
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<blockquote>If [Tchaikovsky's] symphonies are be judged ... by the strict academic tests, by his manipulation of sonata form in the appropriate movements, then they may be fine music but they are poor symphonies. If, on the other hand, they are judged as a hybrid species, a cross between the primarily architectural form of the symphony and the primarily "literary" or "poetic" form of the symphonic poem, they are completely successful<ref>Cooper, 30.</ref>.</blockquote> |
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Judging Tchaikovsky's music strictly by the rules of sonata form, Cooper continues, would be on the par with the once-popular viewpoint that since no more beautiful or satisfactory churches than the Gothic cathedrals have been built, all churches should therefore be built in the [[Gothic style]]. However, if a person accepts sonata form as one proved successful in a number of great compositions, and Gothic as an architectural style proved successful by the same test, then he could find a parallel development in each art<ref>Cooper, 26-27.</ref>. |
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From uniting Gothic style with the new ideals of the [[Renaissance]] and the [[Reformation]], Cooper explains, [[Baroque style]] was created. Baroque style was not merely a decadent form of Gothic style but a genuinely new architectural style. It was related to Gothic yet as individual as a child from its father. Likewise, the symphonic poem grew from the Classical symphony by cross-fertilization with Romantic ideals of color, emotional expressiveness and dramatic intensity. Judging a symphonic poem by the same standards as those of a symphony would be like judging Baroque style with Gothic standards. The two styles may be related, but each one by itself is distinct, with each having its proper excellence<ref>Cooper, 27.</ref> |
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Moreover, as John Warrack points out, Tchaikovsky is finally able in the finale of the Fourth Symphony to fuse many elements of his style into a single symphonic experience—his love of dance and folk music, his feeling for the atmosphere of the Russian countryside and people, his personal sense of Fate looming over him. Warrack adds that if Tchaikovsky remained no Beethoven after writing the Fourth Symphony (as Tchaikovsky would be the first to admit) he still succeeded in rallying his creative gifts, giving them new power in what would become the first of three landmark subjective symphonies<ref>Warrack, ''Tchaikovsky'', 137.</ref>. |
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== Media == |
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==Media== |
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== |
==See also== |
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* [[Nadezhda von Meck]] |
* [[Nadezhda von Meck]] |
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* [[Antonina Miliukova]] Tchaikovskaya |
* [[Antonina Miliukova]] Tchaikovskaya |
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* [[Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra of Moscow Radio]] |
* [[Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra of Moscow Radio]] |
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* [[:Category:Compositions by Pyotr Tchaikovsky]] |
* [[:Category:Compositions by Pyotr Tchaikovsky]] |
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* |
*''[[Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians]]'' |
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== |
==Citations== |
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<references /> |
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* Brown, David, ''Tchaikovsky: The Early Years, 1840-1874'' (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1978). |
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* Brown, David, ''Tchaikovsky: The Crisis Years, 1874-1878'', (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1983). |
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* Brown, David, ''Tchaikovsky: The Final Years, 1885-1893'', (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1991). |
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* Brown, David, ''Tchaikovsky: The Man and His Music'' (New York: Pegasus Books, 2007). |
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* Cooper, Martin, ed Abraham, Gerald, ''Music of Tchaikovsky'' (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1946). |
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* Figes, Orlando, ''Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia''(New York: Metropolitan Books, 2002). |
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* Hanson, Lawrence and Hanson, Elisabeth, ''Tchaikovsky: The Man Behind the Music'' (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company) |
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* Holden, Anthony, ''Tchaikovsky: A Biography'' (New York: Random House, 1995). |
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* Mochulsky, Konstantin, tr. Minihan, Michael A., ''Dostoyevsky: His Life and Work'' (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967). |
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* Poznansky, Alexander ''Tchaikovsky: The Quest for the Inner Man'' (New York: Schirmer Books, 1991) |
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* Rimsky-Korsakov, Nikolai, ''Letoppis Moyey Muzykalnoy Zhizni'' (St. Petersburg, 1909), published in English as ''My Musical Life'' (New York: Knopf, 1925, 3rd ed. 1942). |
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* Schonberg, Harold C. ''Lives of the Great Composers'' (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 3rd ed. 1997). |
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* Steinberg, Michael, ''The Symphony'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995). |
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* Stravinsky, Igor, "An Open Letter to Diaghilev," ''The Times'', London, October 18, 1921. |
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* Tchaikovsky, Modest, ''Zhizn P.I. Chaykovskovo'' [Tchaikovsky's life], 3 vols. (Moscow, 1900-1902). |
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* Tchaikovsky, Pyotr, ''Perepiska s N.F. von Meck'' [Correspondence with Nadzehda von Meck], 3 vols. (Moscow and Lenningrad, 1934-1936). |
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* Tchaikovsky, Pyotr, ''Polnoye sobraniye sochinery: literaturnïye proizvedeniya i perepiska'' [Complete Edition: literary works and correspondence], 17 vols. (Moscow, 1953-1981). |
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* Volkov, Solomon, tr. Bouis, Antonina W., ''Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich'' (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1979). |
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* Volkov, Solomon, tr. Bouis, Antonina W., ''St. Petersburg: A Cultural History'' (New York: The Free Press, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1995). |
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* Warrack, John, ''Tchaikovsky Symphonies and Concertos'' (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1969). |
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* Warrack, John, ''Tchaikovsky'' (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973). |
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== Further reading == |
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==References and further reading== |
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* Brown, David. ''Tchaikovsky: The Man and his Music''. London: Faber & Faber, 2006 (hardcover, ISBN 0-571-23194-2); New York: Pegasus Books, 2007 (hardcover, ISBN 1-933648-30-9). |
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** [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2006/10/29/bobro22.xml Reviewed] by Jonathan Keates in [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ ''The Telegraph], October 29, 2006. |
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* Greenberg, Robert "[http://www.teach12.com/store/course.asp?id=753&d=Great+Masters%3A+Tchaikovsky%97His+Life+and+Music Great Masters: Tchaikovsky -- His Life and Music]" |
* Greenberg, Robert "[http://www.teach12.com/store/course.asp?id=753&d=Great+Masters%3A+Tchaikovsky%97His+Life+and+Music Great Masters: Tchaikovsky -- His Life and Music]" |
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* Holden, Anthony ''Tchaikovsky: : A Biography'' Random House; 1st U.S. ed edition ([[February 27]], [[1996]]) ISBN 0-679-42006-1 |
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* Kamien, Roger. ''Music : An Appreciation''. Mcgraw-Hill College; 3rd edition ([[August 1]], [[1997]]) ISBN 0-07-036521-0 |
* Kamien, Roger. ''Music : An Appreciation''. Mcgraw-Hill College; 3rd edition ([[August 1]], [[1997]]) ISBN 0-07-036521-0 |
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* ed. John Knowles Paine, Theodore Thomas, and Karl Klauser (1891). ''Famous Composers and Their Works'', J.B. Millet Company. |
* ed. John Knowles Paine, Theodore Thomas, and Karl Klauser (1891). ''Famous Composers and Their Works'', J.B. Millet Company. |
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* Poznansky, Alexander & Langston, Brett ''The Tchaikovsky Handbook: A guide to the man and his music''. (Indiana University Press, 2002) Vol. 1. Thematic Catalogue of Works, Catalogue of Photographs, Autobiography. 636 pages. ISBN 0-253-33921-9. Vol. 2. Catalogue of Letters, Genealogy, Bibliography. 832 pages. ISBN 0-253-33947-2. |
* Poznansky, Alexander & Langston, Brett ''The Tchaikovsky Handbook: A guide to the man and his music''. (Indiana University Press, 2002) Vol. 1. Thematic Catalogue of Works, Catalogue of Photographs, Autobiography. 636 pages. ISBN 0-253-33921-9. Vol. 2. Catalogue of Letters, Genealogy, Bibliography. 832 pages. ISBN 0-253-33947-2. |
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* Poznansky, Alexander, ''Tchaikovsky's Last Days'', Oxford University Press (1996), ISBN 0-19-816596-X |
* Poznansky, Alexander, ''Tchaikovsky's Last Days'', Oxford University Press (1996), ISBN 0-19-816596-X |
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* Poznansky, Alexander |
* Poznansky, Alexander ''Tchaikovsky: the Quest for the Inner Man'' Lime Tree (1993) ISBN 0-413-45721-4 (hb), ISBN 0-413-45731-1 (pb) |
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* Poznansky, Alexander. ''Tchaikovsky through others' eyes''. (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1999). ISBN 0-253-35545-0{{Please check ISBN|Calculated check digit (1) doesn't match given.}}. |
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* Tchaikovsky, Modest ''The Life And Letters Of Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky'' University Press of the Pacific (2004) ISBN 1-4102-1612-8 |
* Tchaikovsky, Modest ''The Life And Letters Of Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky'' University Press of the Pacific (2004) ISBN 1-4102-1612-8 |
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* [http://www.panartist.com/valerypolyansky.htm Tchaikovsky's sacred works by Polyansky] |
* [http://www.panartist.com/valerypolyansky.htm Tchaikovsky's sacred works by Polyansky] |
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* [http://www.kennedy-center.org/calendar/index.cfm?fuseaction=showIndividual&entity_id=3651&source_type=C Biography of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky] at the [http://www.kennedy-center.org John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts] |
* [http://www.kennedy-center.org/calendar/index.cfm?fuseaction=showIndividual&entity_id=3651&source_type=C Biography of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky] at the [http://www.kennedy-center.org John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts] |
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== |
==External links== |
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*[http://www.tchaikovsky-research.net/ Tchaikovsky research] (active site) |
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* |
*[http://phonoarchive.org/Tchaikovsky/ Collection of music of Tchaikovsky] (active site) |
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*[http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/5648/Tchaikovsky.htm Tchaikovsky] (inactive site) |
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*[http://www.tchaikovsky.host.sk Tchaikovsky page] (inactive site) |
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*[http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/education/tchaikovsky.html PBS Great Performances biography of Tchaikovsky] |
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*[http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?query=+Tchaikovsky&queryType=%40attr+1%3D1 Tchaikovsky cylinder recordings], from the [[Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project]] at the [[University of California, Santa Barbara]] Library. |
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* [http://orlabs.oclc.org/SRW/search/NameFinder?query=local.pnkey+exact+%22tchaikovsky,%20peter%20ilich$1840%201893%22 WorldCat Identities page for 'Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilich 1840-1893'] |
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* [http://www.nureyev.org/choregraphies.php Tchaikovsky's great ballets choreographied by Rudolf Nureyev] |
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'''Public Domain Sheet Music:''' |
'''Public Domain Sheet Music:''' |
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*{{IMSLP | id = Tchaikovsky%2C_Pyotr_Ilyich | cname = Tchaikovsky}} |
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*[http://www.mutopiaproject.org/cgibin/make-table.cgi?Composer=TchaikovskyPI Mutopia Project] Tchaikovsky Sheet Music at Mutopia |
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*[http://icking-music-archive.org/ByComposer/Tchaikovsky.html WIMA] Tchaikovsky Sheet Music at Werner Icking Music Archive |
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* [http://www.bh2000.net/score/orchtcha/ Sheet music in PDF format] |
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* {{IckingArchive|idx=Tchaikovsky|name=Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky}} |
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==References== |
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[[ar:بيتر إليتش تشايكوفسكي]] |
[[ar:بيتر إليتش تشايكوفسكي]] |
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[[an:Piotr Ilich Chaikovski]] |
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[[bs:Petar Iljič Čajkovski]] |
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[[ko:표트르 일리치 차이콥스키]] |
[[ko:표트르 일리치 차이콥스키]] |
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[[hy:Պյոտոր Իլյիչ |
[[hy:Չայկովսկի Պյոտոր Իլյիչ]] |
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[[hr:Petar Iljič Čajkovski]] |
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[[ka:ჩაიკოვსკი, პეტრე]] |
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[[la:Petrus Tchaikovski]] |
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[[lv:Pēteris Čaikovskis]] |
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Revision as of 18:17, 3 September 2007
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky |
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Pyotr (Peter) Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильич Чайкoвский, Pjotr Il’ič Čajkovskij; )[1] ( May 7 [O.S. April 25] 1840 – November 6 [O.S. October 25] 1893) was a Russian composer of the Romantic era. While not part of the nationalistic music group "The Russian Five", Tchaikovsky wrote music now known and loved for its distinctly Russian melodies: plangent, introspective, often modal-sounding.[2] His works, however, are much more western in structure and form than those of his Russian contemporaries.
Early life
Peter (Pyotr) Tchaikovsky was born on April 25, 1840 (Julian calendar) or May 7 (Gregorian calendar) in Votkinsk, a small town in present-day Udmurtia (at the time the Vyatka Guberniya under Imperial Russia), the son of a mining engineer in the government mines and the second of his three wives, Alexandra, a Russian woman of French ancestry. He was the older brother (by some ten years) of the dramatist, librettist, and translator Modest Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Musically precocious, Pyotr began piano lessons at the age of five, and in a few months he was already proficient at Friedrich Kalkbrenner's composition Le Fou. In 1850, his father was appointed director of the St Petersburg Technological Institute. There, the young Tchaikovsky obtained an excellent general education at the School of Jurisprudence, and furthered his instruction on the piano with the director of the music library. Also during this time, he made the acquaintance of the Italian master Luigi Piccioli, who influenced the young man away from German music, and encouraged the love of Rossini, Bellini, and Donizetti. His father indulged Tchaikovsky's interest in music by funding studies with Rudolph Kündinger, a well-known piano teacher from Nuremberg. Under Kündinger, Tchaikovsky's aversion to German music was overcome, and a lifelong affinity with the music of Mozart was seeded. When his mother died of cholera in 1854, the 14-year-old composed a waltz in her memory.
Tchaikovsky left school in 1858 and received employment as an under-secretary in the Ministry of Justice, where he soon joined the Ministry's choral group. In 1861, he befriended a fellow civil servant who had studied with Nikolai Zaremba, who urged him to resign his position and pursue his studies further. Not ready to give up employment, Tchaikovsky agreed to begin lessons in musical theory with Zaremba. The following year, when Zaremba joined the faculty of the new St Petersburg Conservatory, Tchaikovsky followed his teacher and enrolled, but still did not give up his post at the ministry, until his father consented to support him. From 1862 to 1865, Tchaikovsky studied harmony, counterpoint and the fugue with Zaremba, and instrumentation and composition under the director and founder of the Conservatory, Anton Rubinstein, who was both impressed by and envious of Tchaikovsky's talent.
Musical career
After graduating, Tchaikovsky was approached by Anton Rubinstein's younger brother Nikolai to become professor of harmony, composition, and the history of music. Tchaikovsky gladly accepted the position, as his father had retired and lost his property. The next ten years were spent teaching and composing. Teaching proved taxing, and in 1877 he suffered a breakdown. After a year off, he attempted to return to teaching, but retired his post soon after. He spent some time in Switzerland, but eventually took residence with his sister, who had an estate just outside Kiev.
Tchaikovsky took to orchestral conducting after filling in at a performance in Moscow of his opera The Enchantress (Russian: Чародейка) (1885-7). Overcoming a life-long stage fright, his confidence gradually increased to the extent that he regularly took to conducting his pieces.
Tchaikovsky visited America in 1891 in a triumphant tour to conduct performances of his works. On May 5, he conducted the New York Music Society's orchestra in a performance of Marche Solennelle on the opening night of New York's Carnegie Hall. That evening was followed by subsequent performances of his Third Suite on May 7, and the a cappella choruses Pater Noster and Legend on May 8. The US tour also included performances of his First Piano Concerto and Serenade for Strings.
Just nine days after the first performance of his Sixth Symphony, Pathétique, in 1893, in St Petersburg, Tchaikovsky died (see section below).
Some musicologists (e.g. Milton Cross, David Ewen) believe that he consciously wrote his Sixth Symphony as his own Requiem. In the development section of the first movement, the rapidly progressing evolution of the transformed first theme suddenly "shifts into neutral" in the strings, and a rather quiet, harmonized chorale emerges in the trombones. The trombone theme bears absolutely no relation to the music that preceded it, and none to the music which follows it. It appears to be a musical "non sequitur", an anomaly — but it is from the Russian Orthodox Mass for the Dead, in which it is sung to the words: "And may his soul rest with the souls of all the saints." Tchaikovsky was interred in Tikhvin Cemetery at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery in St Petersburg.
His music included some of the most renowned pieces of the romantic period. Many of his works were inspired by events in his life.
Personal life
During his education at the School of Jurisprudence, he was infatuated with a soprano, but she married another man. One of his conservatory students, Antonina Miliukova, began writing him passionate letters around the time that he had made up his mind to "marry whoever will have me." He did not even remember her from his classes, but her letters were very persistent, and he hastily married her on July 18, 1877. Within days, while still on their honeymoon, he deeply regretted his decision. Two weeks after the wedding the composer supposedly attempted suicide by putting himself into the freezing Moscow River. Once recovered from the effects of that, he fled to St Petersburg his mind verging on a nervous breakdown. He never returned to his wife after that but did send her a regular allowance through the years. Though they never again cohabitated with each other, they remained legally married until his death.
The composer's homosexuality, as well as its importance to his life and music, has long been recognized, though any proof of it was suppressed during the Soviet era.[3] Although some historians continue to view him as heterosexual, many others — such as Rictor Norton and Alexander Poznansky — accept that some of Tchaikovsky's closest relationships may have been homosexual, (citing his servant Aleksei Sofronov and perhaps even his nephew, Vladimir "Bob" Davydov.) Evidence that Tchaikovsky was homosexual is drawn from his letters and diaries, as well as the letters of his brother, Modest, who was also a homosexual.
A far more influential woman in Tchaikovsky's life was a wealthy widow, Nadezhda von Meck, with whom he exchanged over 1,200 letters between 1877 and 1890. At her insistence they never met; they did encounter each other on two occasions, purely by chance, but did not converse. As well as financial support in the amount of 6,000 rubles a year, she expressed interest in his musical career and admiration for his music. However, after 13 years she ended the relationship unexpectedly, claiming bankruptcy. During this period, Tchaikovsky had already achieved success throughout Europe and by 1891, even greater accolades in the United States. In fact, he was the conductor, on May 5th, 1891, at the official opening night of Carnegie Hall.
Meck's claim of financial ruin is disregarded by some who believe that she ended her patronage of Tchaikovsky because she supposedly discovered the composer's homosexuality. The two were related by marriage in their families-- one of her sons, Nikolay, was married to Tchaikovsky's niece Anna Davydova.
Tchaikovsky's life is the subject of Ken Russell's poorly researched and highly fictionalized motion picture The Music Lovers (1970). Two other motion pictures were based on his life - the low-budgeted, sanitized and also highly fictionalized Song of My Heart, released in 1948, and the 1972 Russian-language "Tchaikovsky" , which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
His last name derives from the word chaika (чайка), meaning seagull in a number of Slavic languages. His family origins may not have been entirely Russian. In an early letter to Nadezhda von Meck, Tchaikovsky wrote that his name was Polish and his ancestors were "probably Polish." (In fact, the Polish equivalent of his name, Czajkowski, is a not uncommon Polish surname.)
Tchaikovsky's death
Until recent years it had been generally assumed that Tchaikovsky died of cholera after drinking contaminated water. However, a controversial theory published in 1980 by Aleksandra Orlova and based only on oral history (i.e., without documentary evidence), explains Tchaikovsky's death as a suicide.
In this account, Tchaikovsky committed suicide by consuming small doses of arsenic following an attempt to blackmail him over his homosexuality. His alleged death by cholera (whose symptoms have some similarity with arsenic poisoning) is supposed to have been a cover for this suicide. According to the theory, Tchaikovsky's own brother Modest Tchaikovsky, also homosexual, helped conspire to keep the secret. There are many circumstantial events that some say lend credence to the theory, such as wrong dates on the death certificate, conflicting testimony from Modest and the doctor about the timeline of his death, the fact that Tchaikovsky's funeral was open casket, and that the sheets from his deathbed were merely laundered instead of being burned. There are also passages in Rimsky-Korsakov's autobiography years later about how people at the funeral kissed Tchaikovsky on the face, even though he had died from cholera. These passages were deleted by Russian authorities from later editions of Rimsky-Korsakov's book.
The suicide theory is hotly disputed by others, including Alexander Poznansky, who argues that Tchaikovsky could easily have drunk tainted water because his class regarded cholera as a disease that afflicted only poor people, or because restaurants would mix boiled water with cool, unboiled water; that the circumstances of his death are entirely consistent with cholera; and that homosexuality ("gentlemanly games") was widely tolerated among the upper classes of Tsarist Russia. To this day, no one knows how Tchaikovsky truly died.
The English composer Michael Finnissy has composed a short opera, Shameful Vice, about Tchaikovsky's last days and death.
Musical works
Ballets
Tchaikovsky is well known for his ballets, although it was only in his last years, with his last two ballets, that his contemporaries came to really appreciate his finer qualities as ballet music composer.
- (1875–1876): Swan Lake, Op. 20. Tchaikovsky's first ballet, it was first performed (with some omissions) at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow in 1877. It was not until 1895, in a revival by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov that the ballet was presented in the definitive version it is still danced in today (the music for this revival was much revised by the composer Riccardo Drigo in a version still used by most ballet companies today).
- (1888–1889): Sleeping Beauty, Op. 66. This work Tchaikovsky considered to be one of his best. Commissioned by the director of the Imperial Theatres, Ivan Vsevolozhsky, its first performance was in January,1890 at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg.
- (1891–1892): The Nutcracker, Op. 71. Tchaikovsky himself was less satisfied with this, his last ballet. Though he accepted the commission (again granted by Ivan Vsevolozhsky), he did not particularly want to write it (though he did write to a friend while composing the ballet: "I am daily becoming more and more attuned to my task.") This ballet premiered on a double-bill with his last opera, Iolanta. Among other things, the score of Nutcracker is noted for its use of the celesta, an instrument that the composer had already employed in his much lesser known symphonic poem The Voyevoda (premiered 1891).^ Although well-known in Nutcracker as the featured solo instrument in the "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" from Act II, it is employed elsewhere in the same act.
- Note: This was the only ballet from which Tchaikovsky himself derived a suite (the "suites" from the other ballets were devised by other hands). The Nutcracker Suite is often mistaken by novice listeners as the ballet itself, but it consists of only eight selections from the score intended for concert performance.
Operas
Tchaikovsky completed ten operas, although one of these is mostly lost and another exists in two significantly different versions. In the West his most famous are Eugene Onegin and The Queen of Spades.
- Full score destroyed by composer, but posthumously reconstructed from sketches and orchestral parts
- Was not completed. Only a march sequence from this opera saw the light of day, as the second movement of his Symphony #2 in C Minor and a few other segments are occasionally heard as concert pieces. Interestingly, while Tchaikovsky revised the Second symphony twice in his lifetime, he did not alter the second movement (taken from the Undina material) during either revision. The rest of the score of Undina was destroyed by the composer.
- The Oprichnik (Опричник), 1870–1872
- Premiere April 24 [OS April 12], 1874, St Petersburg
- Vakula the Smith (Кузнец Вакула – Kuznets Vakula), Op. 14, 1874;
- Revised later as Cherevichki, premiere December 6 [OS November 24], 1876, St Petersburg
- Eugene Onegin (Евгений Онегин – Yevgeny Onegin), Op. 24, 1877–1878
- Premiere March 29 [OS March 17] 1879 at the Moscow Conservatory
- The Maid of Orleans (Орлеанская дева – Orleanskaya deva), 1878–1879
- Premiere February 25 [OS February 13], 1881, St Petersburg
- Mazepa (or Mazeppa) (Мазепа), 1881–1883
- Premiere February 15 [OS February 3] 1884, Moscow
- Cherevichki (Черевички; revision of Vakula the Smith) 1885
- The Enchantress (or The Sorceress, Чародейка – Charodeyka), 1885–1887
- Premiere November 1 [OS October 20] 1887, St Petersburg
- The Queen of Spades (Пиковая дама - Pikovaya dama), Op. 68, 1890
- Premiere December 19 [OS December 7] 1890, St Petersburg
- First performance: Maryinsky Theatre, St Petersburg, 1892. Originally performed on a double-bill with The Nutcracker
(Note: A "Chorus of Insects" was composed for the projected opera Mandragora [Мандрагора] of 1870).
Symphonies
Tchaikovsky's earlier symphonies are generally optimistic works of nationalistic character, while the later symphonies are more intensely dramatic, particularly in the Sixth, a clear declaration of despair. The last three of his numbered symphonies (the fourth, fifth and sixth) are recognized as highly original examples of symphonic form and are frequently performed.
- (1866): No. 1 in G minor, Op. 13, Winter Daydreams
- (1872): No. 2 in C minor, Op. 17, Little Russian
- (1875): No. 3 in D major, Op. 29, Polish
- (1877–1878): No. 4 in F minor, Op. 36
- (1885): Manfred Symphony, B minor, Op. 58. Inspired by Byron's poem Manfred
- (1888): No. 5 in E minor, Op. 64
- (Symphony No. 7: see below, Piano Concerto No. 3)
- (1893): No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74, Pathétique
He also wrote four orchestral suites in the ten years between the 4th and 5th symphonies. He originally intended to designate one or more of these as a "symphony" but was persuaded to alter the title. The four suites are nonetheless symphonic in character, and, compared to the last three symphonies, are undeservedly neglected.
Concerti
- (1874–1875): Of his three piano concerti, it is No.1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23, which is best known and most highly regarded, and one of the most popular piano concertos ever written. It was initially rejected by its dedicatee, the pianist Nikolai Rubinstein, as poorly composed and unplayable, and subsequently premiered by Hans von Bülow (who was delighted to find such a piece to play) in Boston, Massachusetts on 25 October, 1875. Rubinstein later admitted his error of judgement, and included the work in his own repertoire.
- (1876): Variations on a Rococo theme for violoncello and orchestra The piece was written between December 1876 and March 1877, for and with the help of the German cellist Wilhelm Fitzenhagen (a professor at the Moscow Conservatory). The dedicatee revised and reordered it somewhat, but the composer allowed the changes to stand. It was well received at its first performances and Fitzenhagen himself took the piece with him on a tour of Europe. Though not really a concerto, it was the closest Tchaikovsky ever came to writing a full concerto for cello.
- (1878): His Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35, was composed in less than a month during March and April 1878, but its first performance was delayed until 1881 because Leopold Auer, the violinist to whom Tchaikovsky had intended to dedicate the work, refused to perform it: he stated that it was unplayable. Instead it was first performed by the relatively unknown Austrian violinist Adolf Brodsky, who received the work by chance. This violin concerto is one of the most popular concertos for the instrument and is frequently performed today.
- (1879): Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 2, Op. 44, is an eloquent, less extroverted piece with a violin and cello added as soloists in the second movement.
- (1892): The so-called "Piano Concerto No. 3" has a curious and complicated history. Commenced after the Symphony No. 5, it was intended initially to be the composer's next (i.e., sixth) symphony. However, after nearly finishing the sketches and some orchestration of the first movement, Tchaikovsky abandoned work on this score as a symphony. However, in 1893, after beginning work on what is now known as Symphony No. 6 (Pathétique), he reworked the sketches of the first movement and completed the instrumentation to create a piece for piano and orchestra known as Allegro de concert or Konzertstück (published posthumously as Op. 75). Tchaikovsky also produced a piano arrangement of the slow movement (Andante) and last movement (Finale) of the symphony. He turned the scherzo into another piano piece, the "Scherzo-fantasie" in E-flat minor, Op. 72, No. 10. After Tchaikovsky's death, the composer Sergei Taneyev completed and orchestrated the Andante and Finale, published as Op. 79. A reconstruction of the original symphony from the sketches and various reworkings was accomplished during 1951–1955 by the Soviet composer Semyon Bogatyrev, who brought the symphony into finished, fully orchestrated form and issued the score as Tchaikovsky's Symphony No 7 in E-flat major.[4]
Other works
For orchestra
- (1869 revised 1870, 1880): Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture. This piece contains one of the world's most famous melodies. The tremendously famous love theme in the middle of this long symphonic poem has been used countless times in commercials and movies, frequently as a spoof to traditional love scenes.
- (1873): The Tempest Symphonic Fantasia After Shakespeare, Op. 18
- (1876): Slavonic March/Marche Slave, Op. 31. This piece is another well-known Tchaikovsky piece and is often played in conjunction with the 1812 Overture. This work uses the Tsarist National Anthem. It is mostly in a minor key and is yet another very recognisable piece, commonly referenced in cartoons, commercials and the media. The piece is much in the style of a capriccio.
- (1876): Francesca da Rimini, Op. 32. This piece has been described as "pure melodrama" similar to stretches of Verdi operas; [1] some passages are similar to sword-fight clashes in Romeo and Juliet.
- (1880): Capriccio Italien, Op. 45. This piece is a traditional caprice or capriccio (in Italian) in an Italian style. Tchaikovsky stayed in Italy in the late 1870s to early 1880s and throughout the various festivals he heard many themes, some of which were played by trumpets, samples of which can be heard in this caprice. It has a lighter character than many of his works, even "bouncy" in places, and is often performed today in addition to the 1812 Overture.
- The title used in English-speaking countries is a linguistic hybrid: it contains an Italian word ("Capriccio") and a French word ("Italien"). A fully Italian version would be Capriccio Italiano; a fully French version would be Caprice Italien.
- (1880): Serenade in C for String Orchestra, Op. 48. The first movement, In the form of a sonatina, was an homage to Mozart. The second movement is a Waltz, followed by an Elegy and a spirited Russian finale, Tema Russo. In his score, Tchaikovsky supposedly wrote, "The larger the string orchestra, the better will the composer's desires be fulfilled."
- (1880): 1812 Overture, Op. 49. This piece was reluctantly written by Tchaikovsky to commemorate the Russian victory over Napoleon in the Napoleonic Wars. It is known for its traditional Russian themes (such as the old Tsarist National Anthem) as well as its famously triumphant and bombastic coda at the end which uses 16 cannon shots and a chorus of church bells. Despite its popularity, Tchaikovsky wrote that he "did not have his heart in it".
- (1883): Coronation March, Op. 50. The mayor of Moscow commissioned this piece for performance in May 1883 at the coronation of Aleksandr III. Tchaikovsky's arrangement for solo piano and E. L. Langer's arrangement for piano duet were published in the same year.
For orchestra, choir and vocal soloists
- (1873) The Snow Maiden , incidental music for Alexander Ostrovsky's play of the same name. Ostrovsky adapted and dramatized a popular Russian fairy tale, (http://clover.slavic.pitt.edu/~tales/snow_maiden.html) and the score that Tchaikovsky wrote for it was always one of his own favorite works. It contains much vocal music, but it is not a cantata, nor an opera.
For orchestra, soprano, and baritone
- (1891) Hamlet , incidental music for Shakespeare's play. The score uses music borrowed from Tchaikovsky's overture of the same name, as well as from his Symphony No. 3, and from The Snow Maiden, in addition to original music that he wrote specifically for a stage production of Hamlet. The two vocal selections are a song that Ophelia sings in the throes of her madness, and a song for the First Gravedigger to sing as he goes about his work.
For choir, songs, chamber music, and for solo piano and violin
- (1871) String Quartet No. 1 in D major, Op. 11
- (1876) Variations on a Rococo theme for cello and orchestra, Op. 33.
- (1876) Piano suite The Seasons, Op. 37a
- (1878) Souvenir de un lieu cher for violin and piano, Op. 42: Meditation, Scherzo and Melody
- (1881) Russian Vesper Service, Op. 52
- (1882) Piano trio in A minor, Op. 50
- (1886) Dumka, Russian rustic scene in C minor for piano, Op. 59
- (1890) String sextet Souvenir de Florence, Op. 70
For a complete list of works by opus number, see [2]. For more detail on dates of composition, see [3].
Media
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See also
- Nadezhda von Meck
- Antonina Miliukova Tchaikovskaya
- Nikolai Grigoryevich Rubinstein
- International Tchaikovsky Competition
- Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra of Moscow Radio
- Category:Compositions by Pyotr Tchaikovsky
- Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
Citations
- ^ Note: His names are also transliterated Piotr, Petr, or Peter; Ilitsch, Ilich, Il'ich or Illyich; and Tschaikowski, Tschaikowsky, Chajkovskij and Chaikovsky (as well as many other versions as Russian transliteration can be vary much between different languages)
- ^ Schonberg, 366.
- ^ http://www.glbtq.com/arts/tchaikovsky_pi.html
- ^ Wiley, Roland. 'Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Il′yich, §6(ii): Years of valediction, 1889–93: The last symphony'; Works: solo instrument and orchestra; Works: orchestral, Grove Music Online (Accessed 07 February 2006), <http://www.grovemusic.com> (subscription required). Brown, David. Tchaikovsky: the Final Years (1885-1893). New York: W.W. Norton, 1991, pp. 388-391, 497.
References and further reading
- Brown, David. Tchaikovsky: The Man and his Music. London: Faber & Faber, 2006 (hardcover, ISBN 0-571-23194-2); New York: Pegasus Books, 2007 (hardcover, ISBN 1-933648-30-9).
- Reviewed by Jonathan Keates in The Telegraph, October 29, 2006.
- Greenberg, Robert "Great Masters: Tchaikovsky -- His Life and Music"
- Holden, Anthony Tchaikovsky: : A Biography Random House; 1st U.S. ed edition (February 27, 1996) ISBN 0-679-42006-1
- Kamien, Roger. Music : An Appreciation. Mcgraw-Hill College; 3rd edition (August 1, 1997) ISBN 0-07-036521-0
- ed. John Knowles Paine, Theodore Thomas, and Karl Klauser (1891). Famous Composers and Their Works, J.B. Millet Company.
- Meck Galina Von, Tchaikovsky Ilyich Piotr, Young Percy M. Tchaikovsky Cooper Square Publishers; 1st Cooper Square Press ed edition (October, 2000) ISBN 0-8154-1087-5
- Meck, Nadezhda Von Tchaikovsky Peter Ilyich, To My Best Friend: Correspondence Between Tchaikovsky and Nadezhda Von Meck 1876-1878 Oxford University Press (January 1, 1993) ISBN 0-19-816158-1
- Poznansky, Alexander & Langston, Brett The Tchaikovsky Handbook: A guide to the man and his music. (Indiana University Press, 2002) Vol. 1. Thematic Catalogue of Works, Catalogue of Photographs, Autobiography. 636 pages. ISBN 0-253-33921-9. Vol. 2. Catalogue of Letters, Genealogy, Bibliography. 832 pages. ISBN 0-253-33947-2.
- Poznansky, Alexander, Tchaikovsky's Last Days, Oxford University Press (1996), ISBN 0-19-816596-X
- Poznansky, Alexander Tchaikovsky: the Quest for the Inner Man Lime Tree (1993) ISBN 0-413-45721-4 (hb), ISBN 0-413-45731-1 (pb)
- Poznansky, Alexander. Tchaikovsky through others' eyes. (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1999). ISBN 0-253-35545-0.
- Tchaikovsky, Modest The Life And Letters Of Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky University Press of the Pacific (2004) ISBN 1-4102-1612-8
- Tchaikovsky's sacred works by Polyansky
- Biography of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
External links
- Tchaikovsky research (active site)
- Collection of music of Tchaikovsky (active site)
- Tchaikovsky (inactive site)
- Tchaikovsky page (inactive site)
- PBS Great Performances biography of Tchaikovsky
- Tchaikovsky cylinder recordings, from the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara Library.
Public Domain Sheet Music:
- Free scores by Tchaikovsky at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)
- Mutopia Project Tchaikovsky Sheet Music at Mutopia
- WIMA Tchaikovsky Sheet Music at Werner Icking Music Archive