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Peter Ilyich TCHAIKOVSKY (1840-93)
was born at Yotkinsk in 1840, the son of a government
inspector of mines. His mother was the daughter of a
French emigrant, which may account for his later musical
sympathies being more French than German.
Aged 14 Tchaikovsky wrote his earliest-known
composition - a little waltz for piano. Despite his
musical talent he took a job as a government clerk – an
occupation which he heartily disliked – and it was not
until 1862 that he was able to enter St.Petersburg
Conservatory and take lessons from Anton Rubinstein,
who taught him orchestration. He also took organ lessons
and learned the flute well enough to join the student
orchestra.
Three years later, Rubinstein’s brother, Nicholas,
invited Tchaikovsky to Moscow to take up a professorship
at the Conservatory, which had only recently opened.
Once settled there Tchaikovsky began to compose
actively. Coming into contact with Balakirev and
Rimsky-Korsakov (members of a nationalist group) he
discovered he had little in common with their ideals and
he charted a lone course, leaning more towards Western
European concepts.
The year 1877 was the turning-point of his life. He had
attracted the attention of Mme. Nadezhda von Meck, a
cultured widow of 46, very wealthy, very eccentric, a
lover of music and, in particular, Tchaikovsky’s music.
They met only on two occasions, by accident.
Mme. von Meck made the magnificent gesture of paying
Tchaikovsky a yearly income that for fourteen years made
him financially independent and enabled him to devote
himself entirely to composition.
A new phase of his life began. Freed from his teaching
duties in Moscow, he spent much of his time in foreign
travel, staying for long periods in Italy. The first
fruits of his freedom were the Fourth Symphony and “Eugene
Onegin”.
By 1885 Tchaikovsky, growing tired of his wanderings,
settled in a home of his own in the neighbourhood of
Moscow. There can be little doubt that he was now
happier and mentally healthier than he had been for a
very long time. One important symptom of Tchaikovsky’s
conquest of his nerves was his emergence as conductor.
At the beginning of 1888 he embarked on a foreign tour
directing his own works. He began in Leipzig, where he
met Brahms, Grieg and Ethel Smyth; went on to Hamburg,
Berlin and Prague and ended with visits to Paris and
London.
Tchaikovsky’s last creative period dates from his return
to Russia after this tour. It began with the Symphony
No. 5, the overture-fantasia “Hamlet” and the ballet “Sleeping
Beauty”. Early in 1889, he made a second concert tour in
the West, conducting the B flat minor Piano Concerto
in London. But the year brought him a heavy misfortune –
the end of his friendship with Nadezhda von Meck and the
end of her financial help.
The break was made by Mme. von Meck and when Tchaikovsky
tried to resume the correspondence as if nothing had
happened, she ignored his letters. Coming just after the
great success of his opera “The Queen of Spades” in
1890, the injury caused by the broken relationship was
more serious to him psychologically than financially.
In August 1893 Tchaikovsky completed his 6th
symphony, the “Pathetique”, and on 28th October he
conducted the first performance in St. Petersburg. A few
days later he complained of feeling unwell and, despite
the cholera epidemic then raging in St. Petersburg and
the warnings of friends who were present, he drank a
glass of unboiled water. He at once developed cholera
and died during the early hours of 6th November at the
age of fifty-three.
It was his careless refusal to heed the danger of
infection that led to the later belief that Tchaikovsky
had deliberately ended his life which had become
unbearable because of his homosexuality
EUGENE ONEGIN Op. 24 (1879): Polonaise
Tchaikovsky began work on this, the most successful of
his operas, in 1877. The libretto, which the composer
based on a romantic poem by Alexander Pushkin, portrays
leading characters who are mirror-images of himself –
the self-destructive Onegin and the pathos of the
innocent but passionate girl, Tatiana. All seemed to be
going well until Tchaikovsky received an avowal of love
from a girl who had apparently made his acquaintance
while he was teaching at the Conservatory in Moscow. The
girl made all the advances and had threatened suicide if
they were rejected. So Tchaikovsky took the fatal
decision to embark on a loveless marriage. It was a
disastrous step. In less than three months – during one
of which they were separated – the marriage drove the
homosexual Tchaikovsky to attempt suicide. He seems to
have been lucky to escape with nothing worse than a
severe nervous breakdown, before the doctors insisted
that the marriage come to an end.
In brief, the story of the opera is as follows:
Tatiana, a landowner’s daughter has fallen in love with
Eugene Onegin, a Russian gallant. He spurns her
confession of love, saying that he has neither the time
nor inclination for affairs of the heart. Six years
later Tatiana, having married a nobleman Prince Gremin,
meets Onegin at a ball being held in the hall of
Gremin’s palace.
A Polonaise is played, evoking the polished, urban
society which gathers at the home of Prince Gremin. In
this piece Tchaikovsky “parades the glitter and futile
business of the great world, which conceals an inner
emptiness, and at the same time characterises Onegin’s
despairing search for amusement”.
And what happens at the end?
Onegin’s idea of amusement leads him to throw himself at
Tatiana’s feet in an attempt to win back her affection.
Although she admits that she still loves him Tatiana
resolves to remain true to her husband. She bids Onegin
to depart and with a cry of anguish, he departs as the
curtain falls. Not a dry eye in the house!
CONCERTO FOR PIANO AND ORCHESTRA
No. 1 in B flat minor, Op. 23 (1875)
Soloist: Bryan CRESSWELL
On completing the B flat minor Concerto in 1875,
Tchaikovsky, a no more than competent pianist, showed it
to his mentor Nicholas Rubinstein, who was one of the
greatest virtuosos of his day. In his opinion the music
was worthless and unplayable; the ideas were trivial and
common and the whole work so bad as to be beyond
improvement by revision. The composer thoroughly revised
the work by simply crossing out the dedication to
Nicholas Rubinstein and sending it to the German pianist
Hans von Bulow, who was delighted with it. Through his
enthusiastic advocacy the concerto rapidly became what
it remains to this day – one of the most popular of all
concertos and a touchstone for every great pianist. It
would be wrong, however, to regard the work solely from
the viewpoint of virtuosity alone. Its greatness is also
compounded from its lyricism and emotional warmth. Bulow
wrote: “The ideas are so lofty, strong and original.
The details, which although profuse yet in no way
obscure the work as a whole, are so interesting. The
form is so perfect, mature and full of style”.
1. Allegro non troppo e molto maestoso – Allegro con
spirito
Not everyone has agreed that the Concerto’s form is
perfect. Even the opening section of the first movement,
which is probably the best known of Tchaikovsky’s tunes,
is in the “wrong key” (D flat major instead of the home
key ofB flat minor) and once it is over it is banished
for good. This is unusual with Tchaikovsky who nearly
always brings back his introductory material later in
the first movement as well as sometimes in the finale.
2. Andantino semplice - Prestissimo
The central movement is in (A-B-A) form, the A sections
having the character of a Nocturne and the B, which is
in a much faster tempo, of a Scherzo.
3. Allegro con fuoco
Like the opening movement the finale is in Sonata form,
but as it proceeds it takes on more and more the
character of a Rondo. The first dance-like theme is
based on a Ukrainian song called “Come, come, Ivanka”
and the second subject, which the violins introduce
quietly, is another of Tchaikovsky’s most attractive
lyrical melodies.
INTERVAL
ROMEO AND JULIET Fantasy Overture (1880)
“This work is likely to remain unsurpassed as an
expression of the enthusiasm and stormy impetuosity of
young and tragic love”.
As a teenager, studying Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”
for GCE English and hearing Tchaikovsky’s “Romeo and
Juliet” Overture for the first time had a remarkable
effect upon my adolescent quest for romance. But this is
neither the time nor the place…..!
It was the Russian composer Balakirev who suggested
the Shakespearian subject to the young Tchaikovsky in
the first place. He even wrote letters detailing his own
views on how the work should be written. By November
1869 “Romeo and Juliet” was completed and Balakirev was
sent sketches of the main themes. He immediately replied
with a stream of criticism and the composer was obliged
to revise the work not once but twice, and it is only
the third and final version, published in 1880, which is
played today.
The Tchaikovsky overture does not follow the action of
the play in detail. Its aim is to reproduce musically
the emotional impact of the drama as a whole rather than
to illustrate it scene by scene.
The original introduction, deemed as unsatisfactory by
Balakirev, was replaced by a slow theme of an
ecclesiastical nature, which suggests Friar Laurence and
the impending events of tragic significance.
The main section is a fiery Allegro giusto,
representing the feud between the Montagues and Capulets;
tremendous chords and rushing scale passages give a
powerful impression of human hate and conflict and one
can almost feel the clash of steel on steel in the
quarrel between the two noble families.
When the tumult has subsided, the world-famous theme of
the two lovers is given out on cor anglais and violas,
and is continued by a quietly lilting figure on muted
violins. The music develops passionately, and there
follows a poignant section for strings and harp in which
one feels the hopeless yearning of the central
characters. The feud theme then returns, gradually
gaining in power as it proceeds, and amid the din Friar
Lawrence’s motive is heard again, first on horns and
then on trumpets. The love-music returns, in the
strings, but it is soon swept aside by the feud subject,
which now works up impetuously to the inevitable, tragic
climax. This comes after a sudden descent into the
depths – a solemn drum-roll dying away to silence.
The epilogue to the tragedy is in the nature of lament:
over a throbbing drum-beat, cellos and bassoons give a
sad, twisted version of the love theme; then the
woodwind and horns introduce a solemn dirge. Finally, a
short reference to the love theme leads to the fateful
chords with which Tchaikovsky rounds off this musical
masterpiece.
Having recently listened to the original 1869 version of
“Romeo and Juliet” I should say that in every respect
the final version is superior. All but one of
Balakirev’s suggestions were implemented by Tchaikovsky.
The one “improvement” he resisted was to write a
“pianissimo ending”. He was right not to do so. The
loud, staggered chords over a long timpani roll conjure
up so effectively the tragedy of the “star-cross’d
lovers” and the bitter-sweet agony
and ecstasy of teenage love.
SLEEPING BEAUTY Ballet Suite Op. 66
(1888-9)
Of all the great full-length ballets, three of the most
popular throughout the world are Russian and all have
music by Tchaikovsky. With “Swan Lake”, “Sleeping
Beauty” and “Nutcracker” Tchaikovsky rewrote the history
of dance theatre. He composed music which was so
miraculously melodious and brilliantly right for the
action of the ballets and he dedicated his symphonic and
dramatic skills to the creation of true drama of the
dance.
Tchaikovsky himself made no concert suite from the
music and the pieces played in this concert do not
follow the sequence of the ballet.
1. Introduction:
presents the work’s three most important themes.
(a) First, the harsh leitmotiv of the wicked fairy
Carabosse (who is not invited to the Princess’s
christening and so lays a curse on the baby).
(b) Then the flowing, graceful theme of the Lilac Fairy,
who modifies Carabosse’s curse (the Princess will not
die when she pricks her finger, she will sleep for a
hundred years until she is woken by a Prince’s kiss).
(c) Finally the eery, transformation music. This last is
heard when the Lilac Fairy casts her spell, sending the
entire court to sleep and causing the castle to vanish
behind a thick forest.
2. Adagio. Pas d’action:
The first of the four sections of the so-called “Rose
Adagio” is a grave Adagio maestoso, during which
Princess Aurora, now celebrating her 16th
birthday, dances with each of the four princes who – in
vain – sue for her hand.
3. Waltz:
From Act One, where it is a dance number inserted in the
preparations for Aurora’s birthday party: young peasants
bring in garlands of flowers and dance together to music
of an enchanting, rocking character.
MARCHE SLAVE (Slavonic March) Op. 31 (1876)
Tchaikovsky composed his “Serbo-Russian March” (the
original title) in September 1876. It is in three
sections (A-B-A) which are at times sombre (beginning
with a funeral march) and at others strident. Two
original Serbian folk-tunes are incorporated (one as an
elegy, the other a dance-song) and, for good measure,
he threw in the Tsarist national anthem.
The first performance, conducted in Moscow by Nicholas
Rubinstein (who knew a winner when he heard one!), was
an instant success. Three days later Tchaikovsky wrote
to his sister that the march had unleashed “a tempest
of patriotic enthusiasm”. Technically it is a brilliant
piece of work, but Tchaikovsky himself did not overrate
it. After conducting a performance on 13th
February 1877, he observed ironically, “I have now
inundated unhappy Moscow with the products of my muse”.
Having being inundated for a whole evening with the
products of Tchaikovsky’s muse I hope you are feeling
far from unhappy.
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