Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky I INTRODUCTION Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's work combined Russian and European influences.

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky I INTRODUCTION Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's work combined Russian and European influences. His music was the first by a Russian to be included regularly in concert programs in Europe. Tchaikovsky's music for the ballets The Nutcracker (1891-1892) and Swan Lake (1877) is some of the best-known classical music of all time. Hulton Deutsch Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893), Russian composer, the foremost composer of the 19th century. Tchaikovsky is known for his colorful, romantic music and his unusual melodic gifts. II TCHAIKOVSKY'S EARLY YEARS Tchaikovsky was born in Votkinsk, in the western Ural area of the country. He studied law in Saint Petersburg and was appointed a clerk in the Ministry of Justice there in 1859. He had dabbled in composition from the age of 14, and in 1860 or 1861 published a song to Italian words. After a holiday in western Europe in 1861, he began to study harmony seriously. The following year he entered the newly opened Saint Petersburg Conservatory. There his teachers included Russian composer and pianist Anton Rubinstein, from whom Tchaikovsky subsequently took advanced instruction in orchestration. In 1866 composer-pianist Nicholas Rubinstein, Anton's brother, obtained for Tchaikovsky the post of teacher of harmony at the Moscow Conservatory. During his first year in Moscow, Tchaikovsky composed his Symphony No. 1 (called "Winter Daydreams," 1866). At the conservatory the young composer met dramatist Aleksandr Nikolayevich Ostrovsky, who wrote the libretto for Tchaikovsky's first opera, The Voyevoda, which was produced in Saint Petersburg in 1869. But Tchaikovsky's next opera, Undine, never reached the stage, and a concert overture, Romeo and Juliet (1869), was a failure at its first performance and underwent drastic changes in 1870 and 1880 before becoming one of the most popular of all Tchaikovsky's orchestral works. III TCHAIKOVSKY'S FIRST SUCCESSES The tide of fortune began to turn for Tchaikovsky in the early 1870s with the Symphony No. 2 (1873, subsequently revised and titled "Little Russian") and the Symphony No. 3 (1875); three string quartets (1871, 1874, and 1876); the Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat Minor (1875); the fantasia Francesca da Rimini (1876); and the Rococo Variations for cello and orchestra (1877). Two more operas, The Oprichnik and Vakula the Smith--the second a prize-winner in a competition--were produced with moderate success in 1874 and 1876, respectively. The B-flat piano concerto was dedicated originally to Nicholas Rubinstein, who pronounced it unplayable. Deeply injured, Tchaikovsky made extensive alterations in the work and reinscribed it to German pianist Hans Guido von Bülow, who rewarded the courtesy by performing the concerto on the occasion of his first concert tour of the United States (1875-1876). Rubinstein later acknowledged the merit of the revised composition and made it a part of his own repertoire. Well known for its dramatic first movement and skillful use of folklike melodies, it subsequently became one of the most frequently played of all piano concertos. IV TCHAIKOVSKY'S PERIOD OF PRODUCTIVITY In 1876 Tchaikovsky became acquainted with Nadezhda von Meck, a wealthy widow, whose enthusiasm for the composer's music led her to give him an annual allowance. The allowance enabled Tchaikovsky to resign his conservatory post and devote himself entirely to composition. In 1890, however, Madame von Meck, believing herself financially ruined, abruptly terminated the subsidy. Although Tchaikovsky's other sources of income were by then adequate to sustain him, he was wounded by the sudden defection of his patron without apparent cause, and he never forgave her. Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake The main melody in the ballet Swan Lake (1877) by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky is introduced by the oboe. An excerpt is heard here. Oboe, from Swan Lake composed by Tchaikovsky, played by Dick Morgan from Musical Instruments (p)1992 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved./Dorling Kindersley The period of his connection with von Meck was one of rich productivity for Tchaikovsky. To this time belong the operas Eugene Onegin (1879), The Maid of Orleans (1881), Mazeppa (1884), and The Sorceress (1887); the ballets Swan Lake (1877) and The Sleeping Beauty (1890); the Violin Concerto in D Major (1878) and the Piano Concerto No. 2 in G Major (1881); the orchestral works Marche Slave (1876), Symphony No. 4 in F Minor (1878), Capriccio Italien (1880), Serenade (1881), the 1812 Overture (1882), Manfred symphony (1885, suggested by Lord Byron's dramatic poem of that title), and Symphony No. 5 in E Minor (1888); and numerous songs. This period was not without upheaval, however. Tchaikovsky was homosexual and had deep feelings of guilt. In 1876 he had spoken of "marrying or forming an open liaison with a woman in order to shut the mouths of gossipers." In 1877 he married Antonina Milyukova, a music student at the Moscow Conservatory who had written to him declaring her love. The result was catastrophic. Tchaikovsky unsuccessfully attempted suicide and after two or three months fled to Saint Petersburg. His wife later attempted to blackmail him. She died in 1917 after more than 20 years in a mental institution. V TCHAIKOVSKY'S LATER YEARS From 1887 to 1891 Tchaikovsky made several highly successful concert tours, conducting his own works before large, enthusiastic audiences in the major cities of Europe and the United States. He composed one of his finest operas, The Queen of Spades, in 1890. Early in 1893 the composer began work on his Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, subsequently titled Pathétique by his brother Modest. The first performance of the work, given at Saint Petersburg on October 28, 1893, under the composer's direction, was indifferently received. Tchaikovsky died nine days later. His death has traditionally been attributed to cholera. But more recent scholars believe that it more likely that he took his own life. VI EVALUATION Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker The Nutcracker is a classic ballet with music by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The musical score displays the composer's gift of melody and his innovative, colorful orchestration. Here, the San Diego Ballet of California dances The Nutcracker. Jim Amos/Photo Researchers, Inc./Act Two: "Pas de deux from Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" from Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker (Cat.# Naxos 8.550324-5) (p)1990 HNH International, Ltd. All rights reserved. Many Tchaikovsky compositions--among them The Nutcracker (ballet and suite, 1891-1892), the Piano Concerto No. 2 in G Major (1880), the String Quartet No. 3 in Eflat Minor (1876), and the Trio in A Minor for Violin, Cello, and Piano (1882)--have remained popular with concertgoers. His most popular works are characterized by richly melodic passages in which sections suggestive of profound melancholy frequently alternate with dancelike movements derived from folk music. Like his contemporary, Russian composer Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky was an exceptionally gifted orchestrator; his ballet scores in particular contain many striking effects of orchestral coloration. His symphonic works, popular for their melodic content, are also strong (and often unappreciated) in their abstract thematic development. In his best operas, such as Eugene Onegin and The Queen of Spades, he used highly suggestive melodic passages to depict a dramatic situation concisely and with poignant effect. His ballets, notably Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty, have never been surpassed for their melodic intensity and instrumental brilliance. Composed in close collaboration with French-born choreographer Marius Petipa, they represent virtually the first use of serious dramatic music for the dance since the operatic ballet of German composer Christoph Willibald Gluck. Tchaikovsky also extended the range of the symphonic poem, and his works in this genre, including Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet, are notable for their richly melodic evocation of the moods of the literary works on which they are based. Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.