Pyotr_Ilyich_Tchaikovsky

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born in Votkinsk, a small town in present-day Udmurtia (at the time the Vyatka Guberniya of Imperial Russia). His father, Ilya Petrovich, was the son of a government mining engineer, of Ukrainian descent. His mother, Alexandra, was a Russian woman of partial French ancestry and the second of Ilya's three wives. Pyotr was the older brother (by some ten years) of the dramatist, librettist, and translator Modest Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

In 1843, Tchaikovsky acquired a French governess, Fanny Dürbach. Her love and affection for her charge is said to have provided a counter to Alexandra, who is described by one biographer as a cold, unhappy, distant parent not given to displays of physical affection.⁴ However other writers claim that Alexandra doted on her son.⁵

Tchaikovsky began piano lessons at age four with a local woman. Musically precocious, he could read music as well as his teacher within three years. However, his parents' passion for his musical talent soon cooled. Feeling inferior due to their humble origins, the family sent Tchaikovsky in 1850 to a school for the "lesser nobility" or gentry called the School of Jurisprudence in St. Petersburg to secure him a career as a civil servant. The minimum age for acceptance was 12. For Tchaikovsky, this meant two years boarding at the School of Jurisprudence's preparatory school, 800 miles (1,300 km) from his family.

Early manhood

A second blow came on June 25, 1854 with Alexandra's death from cholera. Tchaikovsky felt unable to inform his former governness Fanny Dürbach of this until two years later.⁶ Within a month of her death, he was making his first serious efforts at composition, a waltz in her memory. Several writers have claimed that the loss of his mother was formative on Tchaikovsky's sexual development, and couple this with his experience of the same-sex practices said to be widespread among students at the School of Jurisprudence.⁷ Whatever the truth of this, some friendships with fellow students, such as Aleksey Apukhtin and Vladimir Gerard, were intense enough to last the rest of his life.

While music was not considered a high priority at the Institute, Tchaikovsky was taken to the theater and the opera with classmates regularly. He was fond of works by Rossini, Bellini, Verdi and Mozart. A piano manufacturer, Franz Becker, made occasional visits as a token music teacher and gave lessons. This was the only music instruction Tchaikovsky received at school. In 1855, Ilya Tchaikovsky funded private studies outside the Institute for his son with Rudolph Kündinger, a well-known piano teacher from Nuremberg. Ilya also questioned Kündinger about a musical career for his son. He replied that 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.

Tchaikovsky graduated on May 25, 1859 with the rank of titular counselor, the lowest rung of the civil service ladder. On June 15, he was appointed to the Ministry of Justice. Six months later he became a junior assistant to his department; two months after that, a senior assistant. There Tchaikovsky remained for the rest of his three-year civil service career.

In 1861, he attended classes in music theory taught by Nikolai Zaremba through the Russian Musical Society (RMS). The following year he followed Zaremba to the new St Petersburg Conservatory. Tchaikovsky followed but did not give up his civil service post until his father agreed to support him. From 1862 to 1865, he studied harmony, counterpoint and fugue with Zaremba. Anton Rubinstein, director and founder of the Conservatory, taught him instrumentation and composition. Rubinstein was impressed by Tchaikovsky's musical talent. However, this did not stop either he or Zaremba from clashing with Tchaikovsky over his First Symphony when he submitted it to them for their perusal. By this time, the young composer had already graduated from the conservatory.

Dealings with The Five

As Tchaikovsky studied with Zaremba at the Western-oriented St. Petersburg Conservatory, critic Vladimir Stasov and composer Mily Balakirev espoused a nationalistic, less Western-oriented and more locally idiomatic school of Russian music. Stasov and Balakirev recruited what would be known as The Mighty Handful or kuchka (better known in English as "The Five") in St. Petersburg. Balakirev considered academicism to be not a help but a threat to musical imagination. Along with Stasov, he attacked Anton Rubinstein and the Conservatory relentlessly in print as well as verbally at every opportunity.⁸

Since Tchaikovsky became Rubinstein's best known student, he was initially considered by association as a natural target for attack, especially as fodder for César Cui's criticism.⁹ This attitude changed slightly when Rubinstein exited the St. Petersburg musical scene in 1867. Tchaikovsky entered into a working relationship with Balakirev. The result was Tchaikovsky's first masterpiece, the fantasy-overture Romeo and Juliet, a work The Five wholeheartedly embraced.¹⁰ When Tchaikovsky wrote a positive review of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's Fantasy on Serbian Themes, he was welcomed into the circle despite concerns about his academic background.¹¹ His Second Symphony, nicknamed the Little Russian, in its intital form was also received enthusiastically by the group.

He remained friendly but never intimate with most of The Five, ambivalent about their music; their goals and aesthetics did not match his.¹² He took pains to insure his musical independence from them as well as from the conservative faction at the Conservatory—a course of action facilitated by his accepting the professorship at the Moscow Conservatory offered to him by Nikolai Rubinstein.¹³ When Rimsky-Korsakov was offered a professorship at the St. Petersburg Conservatory after Zaremba had left, it was Tchaikovsky to whom he turned for advice and guidance.¹⁴ Later, Tchaikovsky enjoyed closer relations with Alexander Glazunov, Anatoly Lyadov and, at least on the surface, the older Rimsky-Korsakov.¹⁵

Mature composer

Anton Rubinstein's younger brother Nikolai asked Tchaikovsky after graduation to become professor of harmony, composition, and the history of music at the Moscow Conservatory. Tchaikovsky gladly accepted the position as his father had retired and lost his property. At the same time he wrote music criticism and continued as a professional composer. Some of his best-known works from this period include the First Piano Concerto, the Variations on a Rococo Theme for violoncello and orchestra, the Little Russian Symphony and the ballet Swan Lake. The First Piano Concerto suffered an intital rejection by its intended dedicate, Nikolay Rubinstein, as notably recounted three years after the fact by the composer. The work went instead to pianist Hans von Bulow, whose playing had impressed Tchaikovsky when he appeared in Moscow in March 1874. Bulow premiered the work in Boston in October 1875. Rubinstein eventually championed the work himself.¹⁶

Turmoil in life and music

The importance of Tchaikovsky's sexuality and its consequences on the personal expression in his compositions is significant. The possibility that Tchaikovsky was gay has been inferred from the composer's own writings as well as those of his brother Modest, although some historians still consider this evidence scant or non-existent.¹⁷

Of undoubted significance was Tchaikovsky's ill-starred marriage to one of his former composition students, Antonina Miliukova. Tchaikovsky had decided to "marry whoever will have me" just before Antonina appeared on the scene. His favorite pupil Vladimir Shilovsky had married suddenly in late April 1877.¹⁸¹⁹ Shilovsky's wedding may, in turn, have spurred Tchaikovsky to consider such a step himself.²⁰ The brief time with his wife drove him to an emotional crisis.²¹

Paradoxically, the marriage's strain on Tchaikovsky may have actually enhanced his creativity. The Fourth Symphony and the opera Eugene Onegin could be considered proof of this. He finished both these works in the six months from his engagement to his "rest cure" in Clarens, Switzerland following his marriage. They are arguably two of his finest compositions.²² While in Clarens he also composed his Violin Concerto, with the technical assistance of one of his former students, violinist Yosif Kotek. Like the First Piano Concerto, the work would be rejected initially by its intended dedicte, in this case the noted virtuoso and pedagogue Leopold Auer, premiered by another soloist (Adolph Broadsky), then belatedly accepted and played to great succcess by Auer. In addition to playing the concerto himself, Auer would also teach the work to his students, including Jascha Heifitz and Nathan Milstein. As for Kotek, he would help establish contact between Tchaikovsky and the widow of a railway magnate, Nadezhda von Meck, who would become the composer's patron and confidante (more below).²³

The intensity of personal emotion now flowing through Tchaikovsky's works was entirely new to Russian music.²⁴ It prompted some Russian commentators to place his name alongside that of novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky.²⁴ Like Dostoyevsky's characters, they felt the musical hero in Tchaikovsky's music persisted in exploring the meaning of life while trapped in a fatal love-death-faith triangle.²⁴ The critic Osoovski wrote of the two, "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."²⁵

Mme. von Meck

Nadezhda von Meck, wealthy widow of a Russian railway tycoon and an influential patron of the arts, wanted to commission some chamber pieces, and in supporting Tchaikovsky became an important element in his life. She eventually paid Tchaikovsky an annual subsidy of 6,000 rubles. This would also allow him to resign from the Moscow Conservatory in October 1878 and concentrate primarily on composition.²⁶ With von Meck's patronage came a relationship that, at her insistence, was mainly epistolary. They exchanged over 1,200 letters, some of them quite lengthy, between 1877 and 1890. In these letters Tchaikovsky was more open to von Meck about much of his life and his creative processes than to any other person.

Von Meck remained a fully dedicated supporter of Tchaikovsky and all his works. She also became a vital enabler in his day-to-day existence. As he explained to her,

Tchaikovsky and von Meck also became related by a marriage. One of her sons, Nikolay, married Tchaikovsky's niece Anna Davydova in 1884. However, after 13 years von Meck suddenly ended the relationship. She claimed bankruptcy. Tchaikovsky, now a success throughout Europe, no longer needed her money. Her friendship and encouragement were another matter. Losing that companionship devastated him.²⁸

Later career

Tchaikovsky returned to Moscow Conservatory in the autumn of 1879. He had been away from Russia a year after his marriage disintegrated. Shortly into that term, however, he resigned. He settled in Kamenka yet travelled incessantly. Assured of a regular income from von Meck, he wandered around Europe and rural Russia. Not staying long in any one place, he lived mainly alone, avoiding social contact whenever possible. This may have been due partly to troubles with Antonina. She alternately accepted and refused divorce and at one point exacerbated matters by moving into the apartment directly above her husband's.²⁹³⁰ Perhaps for this reason, except for his piano trio, which he wrote upon the death of Nikolai Rubinstein, his best work from this period is found in genres which did not depend heavily on personal expression.²⁹

While Tchaikovsky's reputation grew rapidly outside Russia, "it was considered obligatory [in progressive musical circles in Russia] to treat Tchaikovsky as a renegade, a master overly dependent on the West," Alexandre Benois wrote in his memoirs.³¹ In 1880, this assessment changed practically overnight. During commemoration ceremonies for the Pushkin Monument in Moscow, Dostoyevsky charged that the poet had given a prophetic call to Russia for "universal unity" with the West.³¹ An unprecedented acclaim for Dostoyevsky's message spread throughout Russia. Disdain for Tchaikovsky's music dissipated. He even drew a cult following among the young intelligentsia of St. Petersburg, including Benois, Leon Bakst and Sergei Diaghilev.

During 1884, Tchaikovsky began to shed his unsociability and restlessness. In 1885 Tsar Alexander III conferred upon Tchaikovsky the Order of St. Vladimir (fourth class). With it came hereditary nobility. The tsar's decoration was a visible seal of official approval that helped the composer's social rehabilitation.³² That year he resettled in Russia. The tsar asked personally for a new production of Eugene Onegin to be staged in St. Petersburg. The opera had previously been seen only in Moscow, produced by a student ensemble from the conservatory. He had Onegin staged not at the Mariyinsky Theater but in the Bolshoi kamennïy theater. This act served notice that Tchaikovsky's music was replacing Italian opera as the official imperial art. Thanks to Vsevolozhsky, Tchaikovsky received a lifetime pension of 3000 rubles per year from the tsar. This essentially made him the premier court composer, at least in practice if not in actual title.³³

1885 also saw his debut as a guest conductor. Within a year, he was in considerable demand throughout Europe and Russia in appearances which helped him overcome a life-long stage fright and boosted his self-assurance. He wrote to von Meck, "Would you now recognize in this Russian musician traveling 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!!!"³⁴ Conducting brought him to America in 1891. He led the New York Music Society's orchestra in his Marche Slave³⁵ at the inaugural concert of New York's Carnegie Hall.

Death

Tchaikovsky died in St. Petersburg on November 6, 1893, nine days after the premiere of his Sixth Symphony, the Pathétique. Due to its formal innovation plus the overwhelming emotional content of its outer movements, the work was received by the public with silent imcomprehension. The second performance, under conductor Eduard Nápravník, took place 20 days later at a memorial concert³⁶ and was much more favorably received. The Pathétique has since become one of Tchaikovsky's best known works.

Tchaikovsky's death has traditionally been attributed to cholera, most probably contracted through drinking contaminated water several days earlier. However, some have theorized that his death was a suicide.

Music

One of Tchaikovsky's prime assets as a composer was what Harold Schonberg termed "a sweet, inexhaustible, supersensuous fund of melody ... touched with neuroticism, as emotional as a scream from a window on a dark knight."³⁷ This melody helped make the composer famous in Russia and internationally, while the surcharged emotionalism which could accompany it polarized listeners. "From the beginning, most listeners enjoyed the emotional bath in which they were immersed by the composer. Others, more inhibited, rejected Tchaikovsky's message out of hand or despised themselves for responding to it.... For a long time Tchaikovsky, so loved by the public, was discounted by many connoisseurs and musicians as nothing more than a weeping machine."³⁸

More recently, Tchaikovsky's music has received a professsional reevaluation, with musicians reacting more favorably to its tunefulness and craftsmanship. His orchestration remains a source for admiration, while the last three numbered symphonies are now considered a successful compromise between the classical-era requirements of the form and the demand for new forms dictated by post-Romantic musical and extramusical concerns. Those three symphonies, along with two of his concertos, his three ballets, the Romeo and Juliet fantasy-overture and two of his operas, retain their popularity. Almost as popular are the Serenade for Strings, Francesca da Rimini and the Capriccio italien.³⁹

Stylistic characteristics

Aesthetics

Aesthetically, Tchaikovsky remained open to all aspects of Saint Petersburg musical life. He was impressed by Serov and Balakirev as well as the classical values upheld by the conservatory. Both the progressive and conservative camps in Russian music at the time attempted to win him over. Tchaikovsky charted his compositional course between these two factions, retaining his individuality as a composer as well as his Russian identity.⁴⁰ In this he was influenced by the ideals of his teacher Nikolai Rubinstein and Nikolai's brother Anton.

Tchaikovsky believed that his professionalism in combining skill and high standards in his musical works separated him from his contemporaries in The Five. He shared several of their ideals, including an emphasis on national character in music. His aim, however, was linking those ideals to a standard high enough to satisfy Western European criteria. His professionalism also fueled his desire to reach a broad public, not just nationally but internationally, which he would eventually do.⁴¹

He may also have been influenced by the almost "eighteenth-century" patronage prevalent in Russia at the time, still strongly influenced by its aristocracy.⁴² Tchaikovsky found no aesthetic conflict in playing to the tastes of his audiences. The patriotic themes and stylization of 18th-century melodies in his works lined up with the values of the Russian aristocracy.⁴³

Tchaikovsky sought expressive value in music that was immediately comprehensible and appreciable — in other words, what was apparent on the surface. He admired Bizet's Carmen for exactly this reason. "This music has no pretensions to profundity, but it is so charming in its simplicity, so vigorous, not contrived but instead sincere, that I learned all of it from beginning to end almost by heart." He felt the high demands of Wagner's music on its audiences conflicted with these ideals, and his objections to Brahms were similar. Tchaikovsky was however fascinated by the music of Mozart, which he felt combined simplicity with profundity.⁴⁴

Self-expression was not a central principle for Tchaikovsky. In a letter to von Meck dated December 5, 1878, he explained there were two kinds of inspiration for a symphonic composer, a subjective and an objective one:

This meant program music such as Francesca da Rimini or the Manfred Symphony was as much a part of the composer's artistic credo as the expression of his "lyric ego."⁴⁵ Labeling all his works based on literary subjects as confessional music would be unwarranted. The character of Hermann in the opera The Queen of Spades has sometimes been mentioned as an expression of the composer's morbidity and suicidal tendencies. Tchaikovsky's letters and diary entries disprove this notion, showing that he did not identify with Hermann. His diary entry for March 2, 1890, when he had just completed the opera, shows a characteristic mixture of empathy and detachment. "Wept terribly when Hermann breathed his last. The result of exhaustion, or maybe it is truly good."⁴⁶

There is also a group of compositions which fall outside the dichotomy of program music versus "lyrical ego," where he hearkens toward pre-Romantic aesthetics. Works in this group include the orchestral suites, Capriccio Italien and the Serenade for Strings.⁴⁷ He displays his clearest link to pre-Romantic sensitivities in retrospective works such as the Variations on a Rococo Theme and Mozartiana, a collection of orchestrations based on Mozart piano pieces and a Liszt transcription of a Mozart work. The Violin Concerto also looks back to pre-Romantic aesthetics. While Tchaikovsky does not follow classical practice, most notably in the lack of a double exposition in the first movement, he also does not follow the conventions of other 19th-century violin concertos. It is not written as a virtuosic work for virtuosity's sake, like Paganini's concertos, nor virtuosity used to express a symphonic concept, as in the Brahms Violin Concerto. The tone of the orchestral introduction could almost be considered classicist; the same is true for the transparent orchestration, with the orchestra itself relegated for the most part to background for the soloist.⁴⁸

Capriccio italien, evoking Italian urban folklore, was the continuation of a tradition begun with Haydn and Mozart.⁴⁸ The Serenade for Strings was intended as a tribute to Mozart. While not copying any style, Tchaikovsky attempts to convert the spirit of the Classical approach into his own compositional idiom. The Serenade's unique tone comes from a subtle balance between Tchaikovsky's lyrical sentimentality and his attention to classical measure and clarity.⁴⁹

An interpretation of Tchaikovsky's approach can be found in Hermann Laroche's contemporary review of Sleeping Beauty:

Tchaikovsky may have best summed his perception of music himself to von Meck: "It alone clarifies, reconciles, and consoles. But it is not a straw just barely clutched at. It is a faithful friend, protector, and comforter, and for its sake alone, life in this world is worth living."⁴⁶

Russian style in Tchaikovsky's music

Nonetheless he frequently adapted Russian traditional melodies and dance forms in his music, which enhanced his success in his home country. The success in St. Petersburg at the premiere of his Third Orchestral Suite may have been due in large part to his concluding the work with a polonaise.⁵² He also used a polonaise for the final movement of his Third Symphony. ⁵³

Tchaikovsky used a Russian folk song in the finale of the First Symphony and a Ukrainian folk song in the finale of the Second. In both cases, as with the Third, this had undertones of glorifying the Russian empire and the victories of Russian arms.⁵⁴ Even the finales of the Fourth and Fifth Symphonies could be argued to be in imperial nationalistic vein, as patriotic and heroic appeals; the Fourth by repeating the opening motto at a climactic point and the Fifth with a version of the opening melody of the introduction transposed to a major key—both.⁵⁵

Tchaikovsky 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 Marche Slave and the 1812 Overture. Tchaikovsky wrote Marche Slave in support of Pan-Slavism. This was one of the most cherished ideas of imperial Russia. When Serbia rebelled against Turkish rule in 1876, they elicited great support in Russia. Performances of the Marche Slave, with its Serbian folk melodies provoked outbursts of patriotism. The 1812 Overture likewise glorified the greatest military and political victory of the Romanov dynasty, in the Patriotic War against Napoleon.

Compositions

Symphonies

Tchaikovsky's earlier symphonies are generally optimistic works of nationalistic character, while the later symphonies are more intensely dramatic, particularly the Sixth, generally interpreted as a 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.

Russian versus Western

Tchaikovsky's studies at the St. Petersburg Conservatory allowed him to learn European principles and forms of organizing musical material while gaining a sense of belonging to world culture.⁵⁶ However, in using these principles for himself, Tchaikovsky's being Russian could work as much against him as it did for him. The result was a continual struggles with Western sonata form, especially in dealing with the symphony. One major block for Tchaikovsky in this department, biographer and music professor David Brown suggests, may have been cultural:

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; nothing truly moves forward or progresses as in Western music.⁵⁹ This static quality is at the heart of Russian creativity, whereas 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.⁶⁰

Melody versus form

An equally large challenge facing Tchaikovsky was his greatest compositional gift—namely, his own sense of melody. Beethoven, in contrast, did not think melodically but architecturally, constructing complete movements from musical material anyone could have imagined by structuring it effectively. Tchaikovsky's problem was that a melody is complete on its own terms and 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.⁶¹ Such a theme can also play havoc with sonata form in that it 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. To use Tchaikovsky's own analogy, when he attempted to sew together a movement in the traditional Western manner, the seams were often highly visible.⁶²

Nor was Tchaikovsky the only composer at the time who faced this problem. Dramatic turns of phrase, highly colored melodies and "atmospheric" harmony—all things the Romantics loved—were primarily opposed to the nature of the symphony. Because of this challenge, many composers turned their interest toward the symphonic poem, where large-scale orchestral writing could be combined with the strong emotions and brilliant color of Romanticism.⁶³ 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.⁶⁴

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.⁶⁵ More revealing is Tchaikovsky's description of the symphony as "the most purely lyrical of forms." "Lyrical," 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. 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. Instead, Tchaikovsky learned to adapt the form to fit the music he wished to pour into it. He described his method, regarding the Fourth Symphony, to von Meck:

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.⁶⁷

Tchaikovsky's solution

In each of his symphonies except the 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 of musical development. A second, more lyrical subject follows and is similarly extended. After a second long transition, both melodies are recapitulated and the movement ends with a coda.⁶⁸

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.⁶⁹

To keep this mechanism going, Tchaikovsky falls back on a number of musical devices to generate listener expectation for the next entry of a melody. He employs ostinato figures, dramatic pedal points, and 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.⁷⁰

If Tchaikovsky's symphonies were to be judged on strictly academic terms, they might be considered fine music but poor symphonies. However, if they were to be judged as a hybrid species of symphony and symphonic poem, they could be considered completely successful.⁷¹

Operas

Tchaikovsky completed ten operas, although one of these (Undina) is mostly lost and another (The Voyevoda) exists in two significantly different versions. He also began or at least considered writing at least 20 others. In the West his most famous operas are Eugene Onegin and The Queen of Spades. While the other eight he finished are seldom performed outside Russia, the operas on the whole embody an enormous mass of music considered by some far too beautiful and interesting to be ignored. Moreover, Tchaikovsky's search for operatic subjects, along with his views on their nature and treatment and his own work on librettos, throw considerable light on his creative personality.⁷²

Ballets

While Tchaikovsky admitted that he could write well in an opera only when he became personally involved with his characters, his rich gifts for melody in general and a specific flair for writing memorable dance tunes, along with his ready response to the atmosphere of a theatrical situation, equipped him ideally as a ballet composer. Nonetheless, his first ballet, Swan Lake, is not a consistently successful piece. In passages where Tchaikovsky focused on dramatic action, he showed his aptitude for music of considerable substance and scale. However, he also had to make concessions to the expectations of the Russian public for decorative spectacle, with lengthy divertissements in two of the ballet's four acts diverting action from the main plot.⁷³ Still, while less consistently rich than the music Tchaikovsky would write for The Sleeping Beauty, many parts of Swan Lake' showcase his gift for melody. The oboe solo associated with Odette and her swans, which first appears at the end of Act 1, is especially memorable.⁷⁴

Tchaikovsky considered his next ballet, The Sleeping Beauty, one of his finest works. The structure of the scenario proved more successful than that of Swan Lake. While the prologue and first two acts contain a certain number of set dances, they are not designed for gratuous choreographic decoration but have at least some marginal relevance to the main plot. These dances are also far more striking than their counterparts in Swan Lake, as several of them are character pieces from fairy tales such as Puss in Boots and Little Red Riding Hood, which elicited a far more individualized type of invention from the composer. Likewise, the musical ideas in these sections are more striking, pointed and precise. This characterful musical invention, combined with a structural fluency, a keen feeling for atmosphere and a well-structured plot, makes The Sleeping Beauty perhaps Tchaikovsky's most consistently successful ballet.⁷⁵

The Nutcracker, on the other hand, is one of Tchaikovsky's best known works. While it has been criticized as the least substantial of the composer's three ballets, it should be remembered that Tchaikovsky was restricted by a rigorous scenario supplied by Marius Petipa. This scenario provided no opportunity for the expression of human feelings beyond the most trivial and confined Tchaikovsky mostly within a world of tinsel, sweets and fantasy. Yet, at its best, the melodies are charming and pretty, and by this time Tchaikovsky's virtuosity at orchestration and counterpoint ensured an endless fascination in the surface attractiveness of the score.⁷⁶

Chamber music

Chamber music does not figure prominently in Tchaikovsky's compositional output. Other than a number of student exercises, it consists of three string quartets, a piano trio and a string sextet, along with three works for violin and piano. While all these works contain some excellent music, the First String Quartet, with its famous Andante cantabile slow movement, shows such mastery of quartet form that some consider it the most satisfying of Tchaikovsky's chamber works in its consistency of style and artistic interest.⁷⁷ While the Second String Quartet is less engaging than the First and less characterful than the Third, its slow movement is a substantial and particulatly affecting piece.⁷⁸ Some critics consider the Third String Quartet the most impresssive, especially for its elegaic slow movement.⁷⁹

Also elegaic is the Piano Trio, written in memory of Nikolai Rubinstein—a point which accounts for the prominence of the piano part. The work is in two actual movements, the second a large set of variations including a fugue and a long summing-up variation serving as the equivalent of a third movement.⁸⁰ Had Tchaikovsky written this work as a piano quartet or piano quintet, he would have availed himself of a string complement well able to play complete harmony and could therefore have been allotted autonomous sections to play. With only two stringed instruments, this option was not available. Instead, Tchaikovsky treats the violin and cello as melodic soloists, with the piano both conversing with them and providing harmonic support.⁸¹

The String Sextet, entitled Souvenir de Florence, is considered by some to be more interesting than the Piano Trio, better music intrinsically and better written.⁸² None of Tchaikovsky's other chamber works has a more positive opening, and the simplicity of the main section of the second movement is even more striking. After this very affecting music, the third movement progresses at least initially into a fresh, folksy world. Even more folksy is the opening of the finale, though Tchaikovsky takes this movement in a more academic direction with the incorporation of a fugue.⁸³ This work has also been played in arrangements for string orchestra.

Solo piano music

Except for a piano sonata written while he was a composition student and a second much later in his career, Tchaikovsky's solo piano works consist of character pieces.⁸⁴ While his best known set of these works is The Seasons,⁸⁵ the compositions in his last set, the Eighteen Pieces, Op. 72, are extremely varied and at times surprising.⁸⁶ Some of Tchaikovsky's piano works can be challenging technically; nevertheless, they are mostly charming, unpretentious compositions intended for amateur pianists.⁸⁷ The difference between Tchaikovsky's pieces and many other salon works are patches of striking harmony and unexpected phrase structures which may demand some extra patience but will not remain unrewarded from a musical standpoint. Many of the pieces have titles which give imaginative pointers on how they should be played.⁸⁸

Songs

Tchaikovsky's songs are extremely varied and encompass a wide range of genres—pure lyric and stark drama; solemn hymns and short songs of everyday life; folk tunes and waltzes. They are marked by artistic simplicity, artlessness of musical language, perfection of form, variety and originality of melody and richness of accompaniment. The songs helped cross-pollinate the composer's work in other genres, with many of his operatic arias closely related to them.⁸⁹ While "None but the Lonely Heart" may be the one of his finest songs, as well as perhaps the best-known in the West, ⁹⁰ the Six Romances, Op. 65 and the Six Romances, Op. 73 are especially recommendable.⁹¹

Tchaikovsky in fiction

Authors, dramatists and film-makers have found Tchaikovsky's life a compelling source of raw material. For discussion of plays, films, operas, and other works incorporating Tchaikovsky as a character, see Tchaikovsky in fiction.

Media

Persondata
NAME	Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Пётр Ильич Чайкoвский
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Russian composer
DATE OF BIRTH	May 7, 1840
PLACE OF BIRTH	Votkinsk, Imperial Russia
DATE OF DEATH	November 6, 1893
PLACE OF DEATH	St. Petersburg, Russia

Contents

Life

Childhood