Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky on Music Theory Print

1812 Overture

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Instrumentation#

The 1812 Overture is scored for an orchestra that consists of the following: * Brass band: “Open” instrumentation consisting of “any extra brass instruments” available. In some indoor performances, the part may be played on an organ. Military or marching bands also play this part. Note: the brass band or its substitute is meant to play during the finale only. * Woodwinds: 1 piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 1 cor anglais, 2 clarinets in B and 2 bassoons * Brass: 4 horns in F, 2 cornets in B, 2 trumpets in E, 3 trombones (2 tenor, 1 bass) and 1 tuba * Percussion: timpani, orchestral bass drum, snare drum, cymbals, tambourine, triangle, carillon * Strings: violins I & II, violas, cellos and double basses. * Artillery: One battery of cannons or ceremonial field artillery. The carillon is sometimes replaced with tubular bells or recordings of carillons, or even church bells. In the sections that contain cannon shots, actual cannons are sometimes replaced by howitzers, tanks, fireworks, recorded cannons, or played on a piece of staging, usually with a large wooden mallet or sledgehammer as used in Mahler’s 6th Symphony. The bass drum, and gong/tam-tam are also regularly used as cannon substitutes or adjuncts in indoor performances. In his 1966 Deutsche Grammophon recording, Herbert von Karajan scored the first 02'43" (or 36 bars) for voices instead of strings at the start and the subsequent dialogue between strings and woodwind, adding the Russian Orthodox plainchant God Preserve Thy People text to the melody and slightly rearranging the texture to suit voices a capella rather than instruments. Two years later, the American conductor Igor Buketoff, son of a Russian Orthodox priest, went a stage further on his RCA Victrola recording with the New Philharmonia Orchestra. Not only did he deploy voices for the opening chant but he also had a children’s chorus sing the folk tune “By the Gates” and brought the choir back to bolster the chant and the Russian Imperial national anthem God Save the Tsar!.

All-Night Vigil (Tchaikovsky)

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Background#

Prior to Tchaikovsky’s setting of the all-night vigil, the only setting in existence had been by Artemy Vedel in the 18th century. Russian church music underwent a period of stagnancy in the 18th and 19th centuries. This was partially attributed to the monopoly on its composition and performance held by Dmitry Bortniansky, while he was the director of the Imperial Chapel. Tchaikovsky, known primarily for his symphonies, concertos and ballets, was deeply interested in the music and liturgy of the Russian Orthodox Church. Like Alexei Lvov before him, he deplored the increasingly Italian influence in church music as written by Bortniansky and Berezovsky, and sought a return to the old Russian style. He published a book in 1875, A Short Course of Harmony adapted for the Study of Russian Church Music. In an 1877 letter to his friend Nadezhda von Meck, he wrote: For me the church still possesses much poetical charm. I very often attend the services… If we follow the service very carefully, and enter into the meaning of every ceremony, it is impossible not to be profoundly moved by the liturgy of our own Orthodox Church. I also love vespers… to be startled from one’s trance by a burst from the choir; to be carried away by the poetry of this music; to be thrilled when… the words ring out, ‘Praise the name of the Lord!’ – all this is infinitely precious to me! One of my deepest joys! This passion manifested itself in 1878 in the composer’s setting of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, which church authorities banned from performance in churches after it was sung in a public concert. This did not dampen his interest in Russian choral music, and in May 1881 he requested his publisher and friend Pyotr Jurgenson for the text of the all-night vigil and Dmitry Razumovsky’s Russian Church Songs. In the same year, Jurgenson asked him to edit the complete sacred works of Dmitry Bortniansky. Editing Bortniansky’s vast output was a formidable task, occupying Tchaikovsky from June to October 1881; he seems to have regretted the commission, ruefully asking “O, this Bortniansky! Why did he write so much!” He nevertheless retained his respect for the composer and sacred music, telling Jurgenson in June 1881 that he was writing church music in “an attempt (albeit a very modest one) to come to grips with the style established by Bortniansky and of others”. In a letter to Eduard Nápravník, he specified this as a setting of the all-night vigil, stating his desire to improve upon the “untalented and banal” church music issuing from the Imperial Chapel. Although the rough draft was complete by mid-late July, the completion of the work was delayed by his work on Bortniansky’s compositions, and his own compositions such as Mazeppa and the Piano Trio. He completed it in March 1882 in Naples, and the first performance was held in Moscow in June 1882. Tchaikovsky drew upon a huge body of traditional Slavonic chants for the work. The melody of the chant is usually used as the soprano line, with simple harmonisation for the alto, tenor and bass lines. He rarely departs from this homophonic style, save for brief polyphonic sections in the “Gladsome Light” and “Polyeleon” movements. This use of homophony shares similarities with German chorales.

Allegro Brillante

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Choreography#

Allegro Brillante is danced by a lead couple and a small corps de ballet of eight. The ballet is set to Piano Concerto No. 3, which Balanchine found to be “brisk and declarative but is also deeply contemplative.” Balanchine said the ballet “contains everything I knew about classical ballet – in thirteen minutes.” He also wrote, “I had no narrative idea for the work, only wishing to have the dancers complement the music as best I could.” Maria Tallchief, who originated the lead ballerina role, noted both the ballet’s “expansive Russian romanticism,” and the fast speed of some of the choreography. Author Nancy Reynolds commented that the ballet “offers a chance for virtuoso display and is at the same time ‘dancey’ and flowing”. She added that while the tempo of the score made the ballet seem “impossibly difficult”, Balanchine strategically placed exits for the performers so most dancers find their roles easier. The lead ballerina, according to Balanchine, “follows the piano in the cadenza”, while her partner and the corps de ballet play the supporting role in conveying “what I hope is the spirit of the work.” Dancer Violette Verdy described the lead role, There’s a lot of strong, broad dancing spaced in very little time. The gestures have to be big, ample, spacious, and they have to look free. Under all that freedom has to be control – the pirouettes, exactness, beats and turns, and, as always with him, the fast work. But if the ballerina is afraid that it will not produce enough of an effect by itself, if she feels she has to compensate by telling the audience that it is hard, a false drama is created. It should be left alone, and one should dance it with passion but with happiness. It’s quintessentially Russian in its best possible meaning – a great, romantic, beautiful plastic piece.

Andante and Finale

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Background#

What is known as the Andante and Finale had its genesis as the slow movement and finale of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony in E, a work he started writing in 1892. He abandoned the symphony in December 1892, but after his nephew Bob Davydov chided him, he began reworking it into a piano concerto, his third, which he promised to the French pianist Louis Diémer. The composer finished the outline of the first movement (Allegro brillante) of this concerto in July 1893, then put it aside to continue work on his 6th Symphony (Pathétique). He completed the symphony in August, then returned to the concerto, which he had by this time decided to publish as a single-movement Allegro de concert. The remaining movements were left in sketch form, and abandoned. Tchaikovsky had written “End of movement 1” on the last page of the Allegro de concert. However, when he decided to publish only that movement as a complete work, he omitted to cross this out. This has caused some speculation about his true intentions, for example, whether he might have eventually expanded the concerto to a full three-movement work, or used the other movements in some other form, had he not died. However, there is strong evidence that he had no further use for them. As late as 6 October 1893, a month before his death, he wrote to the Polish pianist and composer Zygmunt Stojowski: “As I wrote to you, my new Symphony is finished. I am now working on the scoring of my new (third) concerto for our dear Diémer. When you see him, please tell him that when I proceeded to work on it, I realized that this concerto is of depressing and threatening length. Consequently I decided to leave only part one which in itself will constitute an entire concerto. The work will only improve the more since the last two parts were not worth very much.” The 6th Symphony was the last of his compositions to be performed in his lifetime, but the Allegro de concert was Tchaikovsky’s last completed composition. It was posthumously published by P. Jurgenson as the Piano Concerto No. 3, Op. 75. After his brother’s death, Modest Tchaikovsky asked the composer’s friend and former student Sergei Taneyev to go through the sketches of his compositions that had been left unfinished. In November 1894, Taneyev began to study the unfinished sketches of these two movements. Both Taneyev and Modest questioned how the work should be published—as two orchestral movements for a symphony or to preserve its subsequent arrangement and complete reworking them as a piece for piano and orchestra. After a letter from pianist Alexander Siloti to Modest in April 1895, he and Taneyev took the piano-and-orchestra route. Another question was where and how these two movements would be published. This was complicated by the fact that P. Jurgenson had already published the single-movement concerto as a complete work, in accordance with Tchaikovsky’s wishes. Modest and Taneyev eventually offered the Andante and Finale to M. P. Belyayev, together with the overtures Fatum and The Storm, and the symphonic ballad The Voyevoda. Belyayev questioned how to publish the Andante and Finale—as a fourth concerto in two movements, as two concert pieces, or in purely orchestral form as two movements from an unfinished symphony. He eventually published the Andante and Finale in 1897 in Taneyev’s version for piano and orchestra, and gave it the opus number 79, as if it were a composition by Tchaikovsky, which is only partly true. The first performance of Andante and Finale took place on February 8, 1897, in St. Petersburg with Taneyev as soloist.

Andantino (ballet)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Choreography#

Andantino is a pas de deux set to the second movement of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1. New York Times critic Anna Kisselgoff and writer Amanda Vaill both compared its choreography to figure skating. Kisselgoff also commented, “There’s more than a hint of a romantic relationship and embraces.”

Production#

Andantino was created for the New York City Ballet’s Tchaikovsky Festival, and was Robbins’ first ballet to Tchaikovsky’s music. He nevertheless choreographed three ballets for the festival. The ballet was created on Darci Kistler, a fifteen-year-old who was just handpicked by Balanchine to join the company from the School of American Ballet, and Ib Andersen, a new principal dancer who was previously a member of the Royal Danish Ballet. The costumes were designed by Ben Benson.

Capriccio Italien

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Background#

Capriccio italien was inspired by a trip Tchaikovsky took to Rome with his brother Modest as respite from the composer’s disastrous marriage with Antonina Miliukova. It was there that the observant Tchaikovsky called Raphael a “Mozart of painting.” And from Rome he wrote to his friend Nadezhda von Meck: I have already completed the sketches for an Italian fantasia on folk tunes for which I believe a good fortune may be predicted. It will be effective, thanks to the delightful tunes which I have succeeded in assembling partly from anthologies, partly from my own ears in the streets. Conductor JoAnn Falletta says: We are hearing foreigners’ views of Italy. … Capriccio Italien has great power even though it’s practically a pops piece. Tchaikovsky knows what the instruments can do in a virtuoso way. He brings them to their limit in the most thrilling fashion. He has a gift for mixing families of instruments just right, like cantabile strings along with mighty brass. I hear the ballet element in everything Tchaikovsky writes, in his sense of rhythm. You can practically dance to this score !

Cello Concerto (Tchaikovsky)

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Structure#

The work has three movements:

I. Allegro maestoso#

The fragment Tchaikovsky left after his death, found in the Cajkovskij-Symposium and published by Schott Music, is more than 60 bars long. Much of the material has been crossed out. Since it was found on four sides of the rough draft of the Sixth Symphony, it has been previously thought to be the original opening of the symphony’s finale. The music is notated on three systems, with the melody being noted on the upper system with the bass clef. The style is of genuine violin music. Nevertheless, the general character of this music, with orchestral accompaniment written on the two systems below it, infers that this fragment actually belongs to the cello concerto Tchaikovsky had promised to write. No letters or commentary are currently available to show how Tchaikovsky would have structured this work. As Brett Langston has mentioned, however, in other works such as the Pathétique, Tchaikovsky’s sketches often began with the main theme or themes, with the introductory material added at a later stage.

Cherevichki

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Composition history#

The opera was composed between February and April 1885 at Maidanovo. Both Vakula the Smith and Cherevichki were set to Polonsky’s libretto, which was originally intended for Alexander Serov, but had remained unused on account of his death. Additions and revisions for this second version were made by the composer and Nikolay Chayev. The main thematic material of the second version of the opera is the same as in Vakula the Smith. The alterations were caused by a wish to help the opera “out of the river of oblivion” (letter by Tchaikovsky of 4 March 1885). The editing primarily simplified some elements of musical texture. The lyric sphere of the opera was deepened by the introduction of a new aria inserted for Vakula: … (Who knows, my girl, if your heart can feel my pain…). But the addition of the song of the School Teacher and the verses of His Highness enrich the genre part of the opera. Tchaikovsky also changed the cast of the chorus scenes, as in No. 13 (Kolyadka).

Concert Fantasia (Tchaikovsky)

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Structure#

This work is written in two movements and lasts approximately 30 minutes.

I. Quasi rondo: Andante mosso#

The quasi part of the title for this movement describes a formal layout in which musical material for a rondo appears only once then returns at the end, after a single episode. The playful character of the two themes presented may have justified in the composer’s mind an affinity with the sparkling character classical rondo finales. Other than this, there is nothing connecting them with usual rondo practice.

Danse des petits cygnes

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In popular culture#

The segment is widely referenced and parodied in popular culture. A few instances: * A 1960s black-and-white film of the Danse was played on Soviet state television and radio during the 1980s upon the deaths of Leonid Brezhnev, Konstantin Chernenko and Yuri Andropov, and again during the 1991 Soviet coup attempt. Since it came to signify a change in political leadership, it was later used as a protest against the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. * The first episode of Dexter’s Laboratory has a parody involving Dexter and two DeeDees. * In a scene in episode 26 (“Guilty or Not Guilty”) of the British television sitcom Mind Your Language. * The Taiwanese film The Pig, the Snake and the Pigeon features Lin Lu-ho playing it as his favorite music.

Dark Ballet

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Background and composition#

In 2017, Madonna relocated to Lisbon, Portugal seeking a top football academy for her son David, who wanted to become a professional association football player. While living in the city, she began meeting artists, painters and musicians, who would invite her to “living room sessions”. In these sessions, they would bring food, sit around the table and musicians would start playing instruments, singing fado and samba music. On April 15, 2019, Madonna revealed Madame X as the album’s title. For the album, she worked with longtime collaborator Mirwais, who had previously worked on her albums Music (2000), American Life (2003) and Confessions on a Dance Floor (2005), as well as Mike Dean, who was a producer on Rebel Heart (2015), and Diplo. “Dark Ballet” was written and produced by Madonna and Mirwais, and samples Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker (1892). It has been described as an experimental pop and electro-gospel piano ballad, with the vocals making use of a vocoder, and lyrics that address the singer’s faith and “lifelong crusade against the patriarchal forces of religion, gender, and celebrity”. In the opening verse, Madonna sings with “forceful confidence” the phrase “I can dress like a boy/I can dress like a girl” and, in an ironic tone, how “our world is obsessed with fame”. Following a piano interlude, it morphs into a “sinister” and “mangled, glitching” fragment from The Nutcrackers Dance of the Reed Pipes, in which Madonna sings in a heavily edited robotic voice “I will not denounce the things that I have said/I will not renounce my faith in my sweet Lord”. This last part, according to AllMusic’s Stephen Thomas Erlewine, evokes Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 film A Clockwork Orange. The song ends with Madonna’s daughters Stella and Estere blowing air through their lips, simulating wind. Madonna said the main inspiration of the song was Joan of Arc. During an interview with Rolling Stone, she explained that even after Joan of Arc won the fight against the English, the French were not pleased and “judged her”. They affirmed she was a man, a lesbian, a witch, and “burned her at the stake”, despite her being fearless. Madonna concluded, “I admire that”. “Dark Ballet” was released the final promotional single from Madame X on June 7, 2019.

Eugene Onegin (opera)

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Composition history#

In May 1877, the opera singer Yelizaveta Lavrovskaya spoke to Tchaikovsky about creating an opera based on the plot of Alexander Pushkin’s 1825–1832 verse novel Eugene Onegin. Tchaikovsky felt that the novel wasn’t particularly strong in plot – a dandy rejects a young country girl, she successfully grows into a worldly woman, he tries to seduce her but it is too late. The strength of the novel resided in its character development and social commentary, as well as in the beauty of its literary delivery. Soon after a sleepless night, Tchaikovsky came to embrace the idea. He created the scenarios in one night before starting the composition of the music. Tchaikovsky, with some minor involvement by Konstantin Shilovsky, used original verses from Pushkin’s novel and chose scenes that involved the emotional world and fortunes of his heroes, calling the opera “lyrical scenes.” The opera is episodic; there is no continuous story, just selected highlights of Onegin’s life. The composer finished the opera by January 1878.

Fatum (Tchaikovsky)

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History#

Tchaikovsky started the symphonic poem Fatum between late September and early October 1868. He put the work aside to devote his attention to the touring Belgian soprano Désirée Artôt, with whom he had fallen in love (or so he thought). They discussed marriage, and planned to meet again in the summer of 1869 in Paris to develop their plans. She then left for Warsaw to continue her tour with her opera company. Tchaikovsky completed the outline of the work by 21 October/2 November, and completed the scoring in December 1868. although it is not certain that this was Tchaikovsky’s idea, or that he was even familiar with those verses. Fatum was performed again in Saint Petersburg on 17/29 March at the ninth concert of the Russian Musical Society, conducted by Balakirev. However, the second performance was not the popular success the first performance had been. Balakirev wrote to Tchaikovsky: Your Fatum has been performed in St. Petersburg reasonably well … There wasn’t much applause, probably because of the appalling cacophony at the end of the piece, which I don’t like at all. It is not properly gestated, and seems to have been written in a very slapdash manner. The seams show, as does all your clumsy stitching. Above all, the form itself just does not work. The whole thing is completely uncoordinated…. I am writing to you with complete frankness, being fully convinced that you won’t go back on your intention of dedicating Fatum to me. Your dedication is precious to me as a sign of your sympathy towards me—and I feel a great weakness for you. M. Balakirev—who sincerely loves you. Other critics also referred to its artistic unevenness. By now, both Tchaikovsky and Désirée Artôt had had a change about their intended marriage. Neither advised the other of this, but he was nevertheless shocked when he learned through a third party (Nikolai Rubinstein) that she had married another man, the Spanish baritone Mariano Padilla y Ramos, in September 1869. Tchaikovsky’s favourable view of Fatum had also changed - he had come to regard it as a failure. He destroyed the manuscript in the 1870s and it was not performed again or published in his lifetime. He did, however, re-use the lyrical theme from Fatum in the duet for Natalia and Andrei in Act IV of his opera The Oprichnik, but transposed from A-flat major to D-flat major. In 1896, after Tchaikovsky’s death, the score was reconstructed from the original orchestral parts and published by Mitrofan Belyayev with the posthumous opus number 77. The piece has a duration of around 14 minutes. It has received a number of recordings.

Festival Coronation March

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First performances#

The Saint Petersburg premiere was on , conducted by Hans von Bülow.

Modern revisions#

During the Soviet Era, Russian performances and recordings of the music were revised to omit the excerpts from the Czarist national anthem, replacing it with thematic material used earlier in the march. Other works that quoted or otherwise used the anthem, such as Tchaikovsky’s Marche Slave and 1812 Overture, were also revised, due to an official Soviet ban on the anthem. Starting with Dmitri Medvedev’s inauguration in 2008, an abbreviated version of this piece is played during the Russian presidential inauguration accompanying the entrance of the incoming president. This version lasts less than two minutes, and so ends well before the playing in this piece of the Tsarist anthem God Save the Tsar. Unlike Tchaikovsky’s other major compositions, the Coronation March does not have an opus number. It has been given the alternative catalogue designations TH 50 and ČW 47.

Francesca da Rimini (Tchaikovsky)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

On 27 July 1876, Tchaikovsky wrote, “This morning, when I was in the train, I read the Fourth sic Canto of Hell and was seized with a burning desire to write a symphonic poem on Francesca”. Later that summer, he visited Bayreuth to attend Der Ring des Nibelungen. He composed Francesca in Moscow in October and November. It is dedicated to his friend and former pupil Sergei Taneyev. It was first performed early in 1877 in Moscow in a concert by the Russian Musical Society, conducted by Nikolai Rubinstein.

Hamlet (Tchaikovsky)

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Overture-Fantasia, Op. 67#

Tchaikovsky wrote the Hamlet overture-fantasia, Op. 67, between June and 19 October 1888, overlapping the scoring of his Fifth Symphony. The idea of a Hamlet overture had first occurred to Tchaikovsky in 1876, as outlined in his plans in a letter to his brother Modest. At that time, he conceived it in three parts: : 1. Elsinore and Hamlet, up to the appearance of his father’s ghost : 2. Polonius (scherzando) and Ophelia (adagio), and : 3. Hamlet after the appearance of the ghost. His death and Fortinbras. However, by 1888 he had altered these notions. The actor Lucien Guitry asked him to write some incidental music for a production of Shakespeare’s play, to which Tchaikovsky agreed. The planned performance was cancelled, but Tchaikovsky decided to finish what he had started, in the form of a concert overture. There is no musical enactment of the events of the play, or even a presentation of the key characters. The work adopts the same scheme he used in his other Shakespeare pieces, the fantasy-overture Romeo and Juliet (1869, revised 1870 and 1880) and the symphonic fantasy The Tempest (1873), in using certain characteristics or emotional situations within the play. The essence of the work is the brooding atmosphere depicting Elsinore, but there is an obvious love theme, and a plaintive melody on the oboe can be seen to represent Ophelia. What makes “Hamlet” unique from other works of Tchaikovsky fantasy is the lack of a structural development. The standard form of this music has an exposition, a development, and concludes with a recapitulation. Tchaikovsky did not clearly emphasize a development section in “Hamlet.” The Hamlet overture-fantasia was dedicated to Edvard Grieg, whom Tchaikovsky had met in Leipzig in early 1888 on the same occasion that he met Johannes Brahms. He described Grieg as “an extraordinarily charming man”. The Symphony No. 5 was premiered on 17 November 1888, and the Hamlet overture-fantasia had its first performance a week later, on 24 November. Both performances were in Saint Petersburg, and Tchaikovsky conducted both of them. While Hamlet was not a great success, it still received a better initial reception than the symphony did, but it has subsequently assumed a lower profile in Tchaikovsky’s works. Excerpts from the score were used in the 2005 ballet Anna Karenina, choreographed by Boris Eifman.

Iolanta

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Composition history#

Composing upon the completion of The Queen of Spades, Tchaikovsky worried that he had lost his creative inspiration after such a large project. He started Iolanta in June 1891 with the central duet, and, despite his worries, finished composition in September and orchestration in November. The public reception was quite favorable, though Tchaikovsky was disappointed and felt he was repeating himself, especially when compared to his earlier work, The Enchantress.

Legend (Tchaikovsky)

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Words#

The words are based on the poem “Roses and Thorns” by American poet Richard Henry Stoddard, originally published in Graham’s Magazine of May 1856. Stoddard’s poem was translated into Russian by the poet Aleksey Pleshcheyev and published in the Russian journal Семья и школа (Sem’ia i shkola Family and School ) in 1877. Pleshcheyev described the origin of the poem only as “translated from the English”, without crediting Stoddard, the nature of whose contribution was thus lost. When “Legend” is sung by English-speaking choirs, the words used are usually those of Geoffrey Dearmer, who translated Pleshcheyev’s Russian text back into English for the English Carol Book (1913). Dearmer was 20 years old when he wrote the words. While Pleshcheyev’s Russian lyrics are a near-literal translation of Stoddard, and also copy the original rhyming scheme ABCB, Dearmer uses considerable poetic licence and a new rhyming scheme of AABB.

Life (Tchaikovsky's unfinished symphony)

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Autographed sketches of the symphony#

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s inscriptions on the back of the musical sketch for his sextet for strings Souvenir de Florence are usually associated with the idea of composing the Symphony Life. This sketch was not included in the published version of the sextet. The size of this sheet of music paper is 36 × 34 cm. On a sheet of music paper, Tchaikovsky wrote the following text: “The following are the sketches for the symphony Life! The first part is all impulse, confidence, thirst for activity. Should be brief. (The finale: death – the result of destruction). (2nd part: love; 3rd: disappointment; 4th ends with faltering, also brief)”. On another separate sheet is a musical sketch of the First Movement of the Life Symphony in the key of E-flat major and in the time signature 3/4 or possibly 6/8. 11 in E-flat major and an outline of the program, on the reverse of the sheet with a sketch of the sextet theme Souvenir de Florence. The sheet is torn from a music notebook containing sketches for the ballet The Nutcracker and the opera Iolanta. Before the program sketch, the composer’s inscription reads: “The following are the sketches for the symphony Life!” Notes in pencil. Cipher A, a1, L No. 67, folder XXII. In that edition, a subsequently forgotten attempt was made to distinguish clearly between two types of preparatory recordings by the composer for future musical works: “sketch” and “draft”. The former term implies “a more finished and complete fixing of the musical content”, while the latter refers to a more “sketchy, working record”. Also distinguished were “sketches of the rough draft manuscript”, understood to be “actually a completely exhaustive fixing of the entire work”. The compilers emphasized the great importance of the sketch stage in Tchaikovsky’s work, claiming it was the composer’s favourite and most crucial stage in the process of creating a piece. They quoted a letter from Tchaikovsky himself to reveal its peculiarities: “I write my sketches on the first sheet of paper I can find, and sometimes even on a scrap of sheet music paper. I write in very abbreviated form; melody can never appear in my mind except together with harmony. In general, both these elements of music, together with rhythm, can never be separated from each other, for example, every melodic thought carries in itself the implied harmony, and is necessarily has a rhythmic division”. Tchaikovsky made his musical notes in all circumstances and under all conditions, whenever ideas arose. Often, this took place on the road, during walks, and sketches were made on the first piece of paper he found — on desk pad, letters, and in notebooks. Usually, the musical notes were accompanied by textual remarks referring to the form of the musical work, the future harmonization of the recorded melody, and the forthcoming instrumentation. Three sheets from the collection contain sketches for the second act of the ballet The Nutcracker and for individual numbers of the opera Iolanta. Sheet 1 contains sketches of themes in E-flat minor (dated 10 May 1891, on the sea), F major, and A minor. Sheets 2 and 3 contain an outline “for sextet” (first page), and the following three pages contain sheet music in E-flat major for the Life Symphony with textual program additions. The Thematic and Bibliographical Catalogue of P. I. Tchaikovsky’s Works, published in 2006 (information about the outline for the Life Symphony is provided only in English, unlike most other fragments, which include a Russian translation in the text of the index), offers some details about the composer’s notes related to this symphony: “3 sheets numbered as follows: sheets I, II, pp. 1-2 (May 1891). In pencil … pp. 1 (above the sketch): “22 May / 10, 91. In the ocean”. L. I contains a sketch marked for sextet (3 folios numbered as follows: folios 1, II, pp. 1-2 not used May 1891 . In pencil … P. 1 (above the sketch): “May 22 / 10, 91. In the ocean”). F. I contains a sketch marked for the sextet”. The Thematic and Bibliographical Catalogue of Tchaikovsky’s Works includes the sketches for the Life Symphony in ČW 443, which corresponds to the Symphony in E-flat major, while the 2002 Bloomington & Indianapolis English-language thematic-systematic catalogue lists them in TchH 238, which also corresponds to the Symphony in E-flat Major.

Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom (Tchaikovsky)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

Tchaikovsky, known primarily for his symphonies, concertos and ballets, was deeply interested in the music and liturgy of the Russian Orthodox Church. In 1875, he compiled A Concise Textbook of Harmony Intended to Facilitate the Reading of Sacred Musical Works in Russia. In an 1877 letter to his friend and patroness Nadezhda von Meck, he wrote: For me the church still possesses much poetical charm. I very often attend the services. I consider the liturgy of St. John Chrysostom one of the greatest productions of art. If we follow the service very carefully, and enter into the meaning of every ceremony, it is impossible not to be profoundly moved by the liturgy of our own Orthodox Church… to be startled from one’s trance by a burst from the choir; to be carried away by the poetry of this music; to be thrilled when… the words ring out, ‘Praise the name of the Lord!’ – all this is infinitely precious to me! One of my deepest joys! An April 1878 letter to von Meck signified his interest in producing a composition based on the liturgy. A vast and untrodden field of activity lies open to composers here. I appreciate certain merits in Bortniansky, Berezovsky and others; but how little their music is in keeping with… the whole spirit of Orthodox liturgy! … It is not improbable that I shall decide to set the entire liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. I shall arrange all this by July. The composition took place between 4/16 May and 27 May/8 June 1878 (see Old Style and New Style dates). The manuscript was sent to his publisher Pyotr Jurgenson in July; this is confirmed by a letter to von Meck in the same month, where Tchaikovsky wrote that he was “happy in the consciousness of having finished a work… Now I can indulge in full my secret delight in doing nothing.” It appeared in print early in 1879.

Manfred Symphony

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

In the first ten years after graduating from the Saint Petersburg Conservatory in 1865, Tchaikovsky completed three symphonies. After that he started five more symphony projects, four of which led to a completed symphony premiered during the composer’s lifetime. During his second and final trip to Russia in the winter of 1867–68, the French composer Hector Berlioz conducted his program symphony Harold en Italie. The work caused a considerable stir. Its subject was very much to the tastes of its audiences, whose enthusiasm for the works of Lord Byron had not exhausted itself as it had begun to do in Europe. Berlioz’s use of a four-movement structure for writing program music intrigued many Russian musicians. One immediate consequence was Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s four movement suite Antar, written in 1868. Around the same time as Rimsky-Korsakov composed Antar, critic Vladimir Stasov wrote a scenario for a sequel to Harold, this time based on Byron’s poem Manfred and sent it to the nationalist composer Mily Balakirev. Balakirev did not feel attracted to the idea, so he forwarded the program to Berlioz, only hinting it was not entirely his own. A little over a year later, Berlioz had died, and by 1872 Balakirev was embroiled in a personal crisis that silenced him creatively. Tchaikovsky’s entrance into this story was strictly by circumstance. He finished his final revision of his fantasy-overture Romeo and Juliet in 1880, a work on which he and Balakirev had worked tirelessly together a decade earlier, and which was dedicated to Balakirev. Since Balakirev had dropped away from the music scene in the intervening time, Tchaikovsky asked the publisher Bessel to send a copy of the printed score to Balakirev, thinking he would have a current address. He presented Stasov’s detailed plan, explaining it was not in his character to engage in such composition. As he explained in a letter to Tchaikovsky in October 1882, “this magnificent subject is unsuitable, it doesn’t harmonise with my inner frame of mind”. When Tchaikovsky showed polite interest, Balakirev sent a copy of Stasov’s program, which he had amended with suggested key signatures for each movement and representative works which Tchaikovsky had already written to give some idea of what Balakirev had in mind. Balakirev also gave warning to avoid “vulgarities in the manner of German fanfares and Jägermusik,” plus instructions about the layout of the flute and percussion parts. So did Tchaikovsky’s rereading Manfred for himself while tending to his friend Iosif Kotek in Davos, Switzerland, nestled in the same Alps in which the poem was set. Once he returned home, Tchaikovsky revised the draft Balakirev had made from Stasov’s programme and began sketching the first movement. Tchaikovsky may have found a subject in Manfred for which he could comfortably compose. However, there was a difference between placing a personal program into a symphony and writing such a work in a literary program. He wrote to his friend and former student Sergei Taneyev, “Composing a program symphony, I have the sensation of being a charlatan and cheating the public; I am paying them not hard cash but rubbishy bits of paper money.” However, he later wrote to Emilia Pavlovskaya, “The symphony has turned out to be huge, serious, difficult, absorbing all my time, sometimes to utter exhaustion; but an inner voice tells me that my labor is not in vain and that this work will perhaps be the best of my symphonic works.” Instead of following Balakirev’s instructions slavishly, Tchaikovsky wrote it in his own style. Initially, he considered it to be one of his best compositions, but wanted a few years later to destroy the score, though that intention was never carried out. The Manfred Symphony was first performed in Moscow on 23 March 1886, with Max Erdmannsdörfer as conductor. It is dedicated to Balakirev.

Marche slave

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background and composition#

In June 1876, Serbia and the Ottoman Empire were engaged in the Serbian-Ottoman War, in which Russia openly supported Serbia. The Russian Musical Society commissioned an orchestral piece from Tchaikovsky for a concert in aid of the Red Cross Society, and ultimately for the benefit of wounded Serbian veterans. Many Russians sympathized with their fellow Slavs and Orthodox Christians and sent volunteer soldiers and aid to assist Serbia. Tchaikovsky referred to the piece as his “Serbo-Russian March” while writing it. It was premiered in Moscow on , conducted by Nikolai Rubinstein. by Isidor Ćirić and “Rado ide Srbin u vojnike” (Gladly does the Serb become a soldier). This eventually gives way to the second section, written in the relative key of D major, which describes the Russians rallying to help the Serbs. This is based on a simple melody with the character of a rustic dance that is passed around the orchestra, until finally it gives way to a solemn statement of the Russian imperial anthem “God Save the Tsar”. The third section of the piece is a repeat of Tchaikovsky’s furious orchestral climax from the first section, reiterating the Serbian cry for help. The fourth and final section describes the Russian volunteers marching into battle to assist the Serbs. It uses a Russian folk tune, this time in the tonic major key of B major, and includes another blazing rendition of “God Save the Tsar”, prophesying the triumph of the Slavonic people over the Ottomans. The overture finishes with a virtuoso coda for the full orchestra.

Mazeppa (opera)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Composition history#

The opera was composed between June 1881 and April 1883. Mazeppas libretto was based on Poltava, a narrative poem by Alexander Pushkin. Pushkin based his story on historical events at Poltava, the battle where Tsar Peter the Great defeated Swedish King Charles XII. Pushkin took some creative freedom in order to create powerful characters and grand passions. For example, Kochubey (the wealthy Cossack whose daughter elopes with Mazeppa) actually managed to successfully keep Mariya from him. He turned Mazeppa in to the Tsar four years after Mazeppa asked for her hand. Tchaikovsky first mentioned the idea of an opera based on Poltava to his publisher in the summer of 1881. Soon, he became obsessed with Poltava’s story of tragic love and political betrayal and quickly produced four numbers plus sketching a duet based on material from his symphonic poem Romeo and Juliet (this music later became Mazeppa and Mariya’s Act 2 duet). Librettist Burenin followed Pushkin’s poem, incorporating large excerpts from Poltava into his libretto, but Tchaikovsky was not very pleased with Burenin’s work: he felt “no special enthusiasm for the characters”, and went on to make some critical changes of his own, adding more of Pushkin’s lines back in. Vasily Kandaurov contributed the text for Mazeppa’s aria in Act 2, Scene 2. The libretto was revised over and over again, even after the opera’s premieres. Choosing to focus primarily on the love story at the heart of the opera, the composer added the character Andrei, a lovesick boy whose unrequited love for the beautiful Mariya gives her tragic fate a special poignancy. Mazeppa shares many characteristics with Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, which is also based on a literary work of Alexander Pushkin: they both center on a young woman whose powerful love draws her into a catastrophic downward spiral.

Mozartiana (ballet)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Previous versions#

In 1933, George Balanchine and librettist Boris Kochno co-founded Les Ballets 1933, after being dismissed from the Original Ballet Russe. The company was mainly funded by Edward James, and also backed by friends such as composer Cole Porter and fashion designer Coco Chanel. One of the ballets Balanchine choreographed for the company was Mozartiana, to Tchaikovsky’s Orchestral Suite No. 4, Mozartiana, The company disbanded after four weeks of performances in Paris and London between June and July. Among the students in Mozartiana were Marie-Jeanne. Some of the girls had to perform roles that were meant for men. In 1956, Danilova’s troupe performed Mozartiana. This was the last revival of the original Mozartiana, making it the longest-lived ballet in the Les Ballet 1933 repertory.

None but the Lonely Heart (Tchaikovsky)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Text#

Mei’s Russian translation (transliteration) Net, tol’ko tot, kto znal svidan’ja, zhazhdu, pojmjot, kak ja stradal i kak ja strazhdu. Gljazhu ja vdal’… net sil, tusknejet oko… Akh, kto menja ljubil i znal — daleko! Akh, tol’ko tot, kto znal svidan’ja zhazhdu, pojmjot, kak ja stradal i kak ja strazhdu. Vsja grud’ gorit… Goethe’s original Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt weiß, was ich leide! Allein und abgetrennt von aller Freude, seh ich ans Firmament nach jener Seite. Ach! der mich liebt und kennt, ist in der Weite. Es schwindelt mir, es brennt mein Eingeweide. Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt Weiß, was ich leide! An English translation None but the lonely heart knows what I suffer! Alone and parted from all joy, I see the firmament in that direction. Alas, who loves and knows me is far away. I’m dizzy, it burns my entrails. None but the lonely heart knows what I suffer.

Nut Rocker

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Original recording#

The recording was made by the house band of session musicians at Rendezvous Records in Los Angeles, including drummer Earl Palmer and guitarist René Hall, who had already had hits in the US charts with rocked-up versions of “In the Mood” (1959, credited to the Ernie Fields Orchestra) and “Bumble Boogie” (1961, also credited to B. Bumble and the Stingers, with Ernie Freeman on piano). “Nut Rocker” was produced by Kim Fowley, and, since Freeman did not show up, featured pianist Al Hazan. In 1962, Fowley secured the copyright to an arrangement of the march from Tchaikovsky’s 1892 ballet The Nutcracker and took this to local entrepreneur and pianist H. B. Barnum. Barnum recorded it as by “Jack B. Nimble and the Quicks” on the small Del Rio label. However, when Rod Pierce of Rendezvous Records heard it, he convinced Fowley that his label could do a better version with their own band. A new recording was arranged, but on the day, Ernie Freeman, who had played piano on “Bumble Boogie”, did not appear, apparently due to heavy partying the night before. In his place, guitarist and arranger René Hall rushed pianist Al Hazan into the Rendezvous office, which was rigged up as an improvised studio. According to Hazan, “Rod decided to record the first take while I was still trying to practice the piece with the other musicians. Because I was so rushed to learn ‘Nut Rocker’, I was not happy at all with my performance on that first take. However, in spite of my asking Rod to let me do it over again, he said he liked it just fine the way it was.” Released as “Nut Rocker” in February 1962, the record went to No. 23 in the US and No. 1 in the UK. The song is a fast, lively track that is purely instrumental and was the band’s biggest hit. It was reissued in 1972 in the UK, and again made the charts (No. 20, week ending July 8).

Once Upon a Dream (Sleeping Beauty song)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Notable covers#

American girl group No Secrets recorded the song “Once Upon (Another) Dream”, whose chorus is based on “Once Upon a Dream”, in 2003 for the two-disc DVD release of Sleeping Beauty. The song was then included in the 2004 compilation album Disneymania 2. “Once Upon a Dream” was covered by Emily Osment in October 2008 for the Platinum Edition release of the film. Osment’s rendition was included in the 2008 compilation album Princess Disneymania. Seth MacFarlane covered the song for his 2020 show tunes album Great Songs from Stage & Screen.

Onegin (Cranko)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background and production#

Cranko first discovered Alexander Pushkin’s verse-novel Eugene Onegin when he choreographed the dances for Tchaikovsky’s opera of the same name in 1952. He first proposed a ballet based on Pushkin’s story to the Royal Opera House board in the 1960s, but it was turned down, and he pursued the idea when he moved to Stuttgart. The Stuttgart Ballet premiered the work in 1965. The Royal Ballet did not present the work until 2001. The choreography for his ballet includes a wide range of styles, including folk, modern, ballroom and acrobatic. The music takes inspiration from the composer he worked with when he was first introduced to the story – Kurt-Heinz Stolze arranged music by Tchaikovsky, which came principally from his piano works rather than his orchestral works, to accompany the dancers. The original principals were Marcia Haydée as Tatiana, Ray Barra as Onegin, Egon Madsen as Lensky and Ana Cardus as Olga. Onegin was added to The Australian Ballet’s repertoire in 1976, first performed by Marilyn Rowe and John Meehan. Some dancers were coached by Haydée. The National Ballet of Canada first performed Onegin in 1984 in Toronto. Veronica Tennant and Luc Amyot were originally scheduled to star in the premiere, but withdrew due to injuries. Sabina Allemann and Frank Augustyn replaced them. American Ballet Theatre debuted Onegin in 2001 at the Metropolitan Opera House. Tatiana and Onegin were danced by Julie Kent and Roberto Bolle. Later that year, The Royal Ballet made their company premiere, with Tamara Rojo and Adam Cooper in the lead roles. Both productions were staged by Anderson and choreologist Jane Bourne. The Paris Opera Ballet first performed Onegin in 2009, starring Hervé Moreau and Isabelle Ciaravola. Both Ciaravola and Mathias Heymann, who played Lensky, were named étoile at the curtain call of that performance. As the sets and costumes became fragile, the National Ballet invited Santo Loquasto to redesign the production, which debuted in 2010. ABT started using Loquasto’s design in 2012.

Orchestral Suite No. 1 (Tchaikovsky)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure#

Some critics have stated that, since Tchaikovsky used specific pre-classical types for the outer movements (Introduction and Fugue and Gavotte), his model for this work was the Baroque suite and not, as he had written to von Meck, the orchestral suites of Franz Lachner. The suite is written in six movements.

I. Introduzione e fuga: Andante sostenuto – Moderato e con anima#

A very spacious and portentous introduction (the Baroque equivalent of a prelude) leads into what could be called an “academic” fugue since its climax steps away from Baroque practice, very loudly, into the 19th century. The movement’s end, however, is quiet. :

Orchestral Suite No. 2 (Tchaikovsky)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure#

The suite is written in five movements.

I. Jeu de sons: Andantino un poco rubato#

This movement is a sonata structure with a slow introduction which recurs at the end to round off the piece. The Jeu (Play) here is simply between string phrases whose endings are echoed by the woodwinds. However, when the fast movement begins, the constant changes of texture, accompanied by matching quick shifts between string and wind tones, are noticeable. The development is a fugue based on the opening of the first theme. It dovetails with the recapitulation, the first subject passing straight into the more melodic second.

Orchestral Suite No. 3 (Tchaikovsky)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Instrumentation#

The Orchestral Suite No. 3 calls for: 3 flutes (one of them piccolo), 2 oboes, 1 English horn, 2 clarinets (in A), 2 bassoons, 4 horns (in F), 2 trumpets (in F and D), 3 trombones, tuba, percussion (timpani, side drum, tambourine, triangle, cymbals, and bass drum), harp, and strings (violins 1 & 2, violas, celli, double basses).

Form#

The suite is divided into four movements, the fourth a theme and variations longer than the other three movements combined:

Orchestral Suite No. 4 Mozartiana (Tchaikovsky)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Music#

This suite is scored for pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons and trumpets, four horns, timpani, cymbals, glockenspiel, harp, and strings. Mozartiana is in four movements and lasts approximately 20 minutes.

Legacy#

A number of later composers have titled pieces ending in -ana or -iana, as a way of paying tribute to other composers or performers. For a comprehensive list, see -ana. George Balanchine’s 1981 ballet Mozartiana is set to Tchaikovsky’s work.

Pezzo capriccioso

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

External links#

Tchaikovsky Research
Performance of Pezzo capriccioso by Narek Hakhnazaryan (cello) and Noreen Polera (piano) from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in MP3 format

Piano Concerto No. 1 (Tchaikovsky)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Tchaikovsky revised the concerto three times, the last in 1888, which is the version usually played. One of the most prominent differences between the original and final versions is that in the opening section, the chords played by the pianist, over which the orchestra plays the main theme, were originally written as arpeggios. Tchaikovsky also arranged the work for two pianos in December 1874; this edition was revised in 1888.

Piano Concerto No. 2 (Tchaikovsky)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure#

The piano concerto consists of three movements: The second movement contains prominent solos for the violin and cello, making the work in effect a concerto for piano trio and orchestra briefly, though a once-popular edition by Alexander Siloti removed large sections of the work, including those solos. Siloti initially proposed a number of changes to the score, but Tchaikovsky resisted these ideas. However, as time progressed, he agreed to certain changes. However, the version that Siloti published in 1897, four years after Tchaikovsky’s death, included cuts and transpositions with which Tchaikovsky had strongly disagreed. Nevertheless, the Siloti version became the standard version for many years. Also noteworthy is the degree of segregation of orchestra and soloist, especially in the opening movement. Tchaikovsky had told his close friend Hermann Laroche many years earlier that he would never write a piano concerto because he could not tolerate the sound of piano and orchestra playing together. Though he handled this well enough in the First Piano Concerto, he would increasingly intersperse cadenza-like passages for the soloist in the movements of his later works for piano and orchestra. For listeners trying to orient themselves through this concerto, those passages, with their abrupt switch between piano and supporting instruments, make it easier.

Piano Concerto No. 3 (Tchaikovsky)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Academic dispute#

Despite the composer’s stated intentions, there remains argument as to what form this composition might have taken had he continued work on it. Dispute revolves around two remaining movements from the planned symphony. Left in sketch form when Tchaikovsky died in 1893, these were made by his student and fellow composer Sergei Taneyev into a work for piano and orchestra titled Andante and Finale and published in 1897 as Tchaikovsky’s “Opus 79”. Whether it was worth Taneyev’s efforts to do so after Tchaikovsky had expressed doubts about the movements’ quality and whether the Andante and Finale should ever be performed alongside the Allegro brillante remain matters of argument. Most pianists play only Opus 75.

Piano Pieces

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Choreography#

Piano Pieces is danced by seven principal dancers and a corps de ballet of six couples, all dressed in Russian style costumes. Deborah Jowitt described that “it’s the patterns and choreographic ideas that create a sense of a village, not just the device of people watching others dance.”

Production#

Piano Pieces was created for the New York City Ballet’s Tchaikovsky Festival. He nevertheless choreographed three ballets for the festival. Piano Pieces uses various piano pieces, including excerpts from The Seasons. Robbins originally planned the ballet to be about a group of dancers rehearsing a fictitious ballet. However, once rehearsals began, he abandoned this idea, and changed the theme to be about the joy of dancing." While the dancers had many rehearsals, he enjoyed the experience more than he expected. Stacy Caddell, who had a small role in the ballet, recalled, “When we did Piano Pieces, it was hard, because Jerry would come in with Version A, B, C, D, E, F, G, up to J—like cut-and-paste.” Piano Pieces is also the first ballet Robbins made on Maria Calegari. The costumes were designed by Ben Benson. The lighting was designed by Ronald Bates.

Piano Sonata in G major (Tchaikovsky)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The sonata was composed at Clarens and Kamenka between March and April 1878, around the same time as the famous Violin Concerto in D. In a letter to his younger brother Anatolii, Tchaikovsky complains about the difficulties he faced in writing his sonata: When Tchaikovsky’s violinist friend Iosif Kotek arrived at Clarens, the composer’s efforts quickly became focused on his Violin Concerto, and work on the sonata was discontinued. He resumed work on the sonata in mid-April and completed it before the month’s end. It was premiered in a concert of the Russian Musical Society by pianist Nikolai Rubinstein, much to the composer’s delight: The work was later performed by Rubinstein again, and was met with great critical acclaim. It was first published by P. Jurgenson in 1879.

Piano Trio (Tchaikovsky)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure#

The piece is marked by a tragic perspective and is in two movements: Total timing: approx. 47:00 The variations are as follows: * Var I * Var II: Più mosso * Var III: Allegro moderato * Var IV: L’istesso tempo (Allegro moderato) * Var V: L’istesso tempo * Var VI: Tempo di Valse * Var VII: Allegro moderato * Var VIII: Fuga (Allegro moderato) * Var IX: Andante flebile, ma non tanto * Var X: Tempo di mazurka * Var XI: Moderato * Variazioni finale e coda: Allegro risoluto e con fuoco * Coda: Andante con moto – Lugubre (L’istesso tempo) The Pezzo elegiaco is a darkly brooding and rather conventional romantic first movement with a beautiful opening cello solo with a theme that returns for a final funeral march. The second movement is rather more unusual: it opens with an almost classical melody, much like Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme for cello, and then proceeds with an assured set of variations, also like the Rococo Variations. After working itself into more and more ecstatic heights culminating with the final variation, it suddenly goes through a surprising modulation to the original minor key, and the theme from the first movement returns with an even greater gravity, and the entire piece concludes with yet another death march.

Quartet Movement in B-flat major (Tchaikovsky)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

Tchaikovsky started work on the quartet in August 1865 at his brother-in-law’s house in Kamenka, basing the first movement theme on a song he heard the gardeners singing. This theme was later recycled for the 1867 solo piano piece Scherzo à la russe Op.1, No. 1. The completed movement was premiered on 11 November 1865 at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory by a quartet composed of both faculty members and students (Konstantin Pushilov, Dmitry Panov, Vasily Bessel and Aleksandr Kuznetsov). There has been much speculation as to why the work was apparently abandoned after the completion of the first movement, despite the comments by Modest Tchaikovsky mentioned earlier. One theory is that the composer either intended the work to be a single movement quartet or decided to complete it as such; another, similar to theories advanced about other unfinished works, is that the composer put the work aside and never went back to it.

Romeo and Juliet (Tchaikovsky)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Musical structure#

Although styled an ‘Overture-Fantasy’ by the composer, the overall design is a symphonic poem in sonata form with an introduction and an epilogue. The work is based on three main strands of the Shakespeare story. The first strand, written in F minor, following Mily Balakirev’s suggestion, is the introduction representing the saintly Friar Laurence. Here there is a foreboding of doom from the lower strings. The Friar Laurence theme is heard in F minor, with plucked strings, before ending up in E minor. The introduction is chorale-like. : Eventually a single first inversion B minor chord that is passed back and forth between strings and woodwinds grows into the second strand in B minor, the strife theme of the warring Capulets and Montagues, including a reference to the sword fight, depicted by crashing cymbals. There are agitated, quick sixteenth notes. The action suddenly slows, the key changing from B minor to D (as suggested by Balakirev) and we hear the opening bars of the “love theme”, the third strand, passionate and yearning in character but always with an underlying current of anxiety. The love theme signifies the couple first meeting and the scene at Juliet’s balcony. The English horn and viola represent Romeo, while the flutes represent Juliet. In the development, the battling strand returns, this time with more intensity and build-up, with the Friar Laurence theme heard with agitation in F minor. This section is then repeated again, a semitone higher. Eventually, a fortissimo is reached where the trumpets play an altered Friar Laurence theme with the rest of the orchestra having an off-beat gesture, in B minor. This leads into the recapitulation where the strife theme returns. A transition is heard where the clarinets play an altered love theme over restless violin phrases, before the strings enter with a lush, hovering melody over which the flute and oboe eventually soar with the love theme once again, this time loud and in D major, signaling their consummated marriage, and finally heard in E major. It is interrupted by two large orchestra hits with cymbal crashes, which symbolise the families’ war disrupting their love, and eventually bringing their deaths, with hate prevailing over love. A final battle theme is played, then a soft, slow dirge in B major ensues, with timpani playing a repeated triplet pattern, and tuba holding a B natural for 16 bars. The woodwinds play a sweet homage to the lovers, and a final allusion to the love theme brings in the climax, beginning with a huge crescendo B natural roll of the timpani, and the orchestra plays homophonic shouts of a B major chord before the final bar, with full orchestra belting out a powerful B natural to close the overture.

Serenade (ballet)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Analysis#

The work can be considered a bridge between his two early works for Sergei Diaghilev and his later, less episodic American works. The dance is characterized by two falls, a choreographic allusion to Giselle, but also an element in the Khorumi, a Georgian folk dance which influenced Balanchine. While plotless, Serenade reflected the ups and downs of choreographing a ballet, and made the humanity of the dancers clear when he choreographed their real-life mistakes into the finished product. By achieving this, Balanchine made the ballet very student-friendly: according to City Ballet’s Robert Gottlieb, the ballet was formed in such a way “in order to have something to teach the students with—something they could handle yet would stretch their abilities,”. While the piece was first choreographed with students in mind, the American Ballet is the first ballet company credited with performing it. Starting in 1935 the company performed Serenade, first for two weeks in New York City and then moving on with a fourteen-week tour of the United States. While their early performances were not highly successful, many interpreted this “lack of enthusiasm as an indication of the company’s immaturity,” and ballet’s general premature introduction to the United States.

Serenade for Strings (Tchaikovsky)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Form#

Serenade for Strings has four movements:

I. Pezzo in forma di sonatina: Andante non troppo – Allegro moderato#

Tchaikovsky intended the first movement to be an imitation of Mozart’s style, and it was based on the form of the classical sonatina, with a slow introduction. The stirring 36-bar Andante introduction is marked “sempre marcatissimo” and littered with double stops in the violins and violas, forming towering chordal structures. Then, the allegro moderato arrives. This section is characterized by numerous dancing passages by the upper strings and cellos. Then, a darker section of the piece comes, with the violins playing in a minor key and the cellos playing a complicated and exposed passage. Suddenly, the beginning section of the allegro moderato is restated, this time with the rests being replaced by an ascending passage played by the seconds and violas. The piece then transitions into a part where a fast 16th note phrase is passed around across the upper strings and cellos. The section then ends in a G-major cadence. The B section is then played, with a fast passage played by the firsts and violas. The section is then dotted with fast runs from the cellos and basses. The violins then play a crying phrase, which is echoed by the violas and cellos throughout the remainder of the section. The B part is then restated, this time with hints of a cadence from the lower strings. Suddenly, the passage rises into a final 8th and 16th note run by all of the strings. This is then followed by a scale and a cadence, concluding the first part of the movement. The entire allegro moderato is then repeated, except that the G major motifs are replaced with C major. The introduction is then restated at the end of the movement, which then concludes with a heavy C chord. :

Sérénade mélancolique

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

Hungarian violinist Leopold Auer had been professor of violin at the Imperial Conservatory in St. Petersburg since 1868. Tchaikovsky was a professor at the Moscow Conservatory starting in 1866 and knew of Auer. He had seen him perform in public, having noted “the great expressivity, the thoughtful finesse and poetry of the interpretation” in an 1874 review of Auer’s playing. They met in January 1875, when both attended a reception at the home of Nikolai Rubinstein. Some sources say Tchaikovsky then resolved to write a piece for him, with one source saying Auer commissioned it, resulting in Sérénade mélancolique. It was completed by the following month. Tchaikovsky mentioned it in a letter to his brother Modest in February, where he wrote: “I have finished my Piano Concerto, and have already written a violin piece I have promised to Auer.” The piece was dedicated to Auer upon its publication by P. Jurgenson in February 1876, but Auer did not premiere it. It was first performed by Adolph Brodsky in January of 1876, at the seventh symphony concert of the Russian Musical Society in Moscow. Two years later, Tchaikovsky was offended by Auer’s criticisms of, and refusal to perform, the Violin Concerto in D major written for him, and he withdrew the dedication from both the concerto and Sérénade mélancolique, although it was impossible to remove his name from the edition then being printed by Jurgenson.

Shakespeare, Tchaikovsky & Me

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Tracks#

“How Do I Love Thee” - 1:48 # “The Indian Serenade” - 1:01 # “Goodnight” - 0:40 # “You Say I Love Not” - 0:52 # “If This Be Love” - 0:49 # “The Lady’s Yes” - 1:14 # “She Walks In Beauty” - 0:55 # “Cleopatra” - 1:50 # “Was This The Face” - 1:02 # “Whiteness, Or Chastity” - 0:47 # “Madrigal” - 0:20 # “Jenny Kiss’d Me” - 0:40 # “Verses Copied From The Window Of An Obscure Lodging House” - 1:09 # “The Enchantment” - 0:37 # “The Passionate Sheperd To His Love” - 1:01 # “Upon The Nipples Of Julia’s Breast” - 0:33 # “Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes” - 1:04 # “The Lovers” - 1:45 # “To The Virgins, To Make Much Of Time” - 0:44 # “Inclusions” - 0:53 # “When You Are Old” - 0:51 # “Daffodils” - 0:58 # “Take, O, Take Those Lips Away” - 0:19 # “Mark How The Bashful Morn” - 0:55 # “Oh! Dear, What Can The Matter Be?” - 0:44 # “The Miller’s Daughter” - 0:45 # “The Fire Of Love” - 0:43 # “The Constant Lover” - 0:42 # “Why Should A Foolish Marriage” - Vow 0:42 # “Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms” - 0:55 # “Love Me Little, Love Me Long” - 1:33#

External links#

Review of the album

Six Romances, Opus 38 (Tchaikovsky)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

List of six songs#

Opus 38 consists of the following six songs, with tempo indicated in Italian: #Don Juan’s Serenade (Серенада Дон-Жуана), Allegro non tanto (B minor, 164 bars) #It was in the Early Spring (То было раннею весной), Allegro moderato (E♭ major, 101 bars) #Amid the Din of the Ball (Средь шумного бала), Moderato (B minor, 99 bars) #O, If Only You Could (О, если б ты могла), Allegro agitato (D major, 38 bars) #The Love of a Dead Man (Любовь мертвеца), Andante non tanto (F major, 129 bars) #Pimpinella: Florentine Song (Пимпинелла: Флорентинская песня), Allegretto molto moderato (G major, 135 bars)

Souvenir d'un lieu cher

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Composition#

The Méditation was written between 23 and 25 March 1878, in Clarens, Switzerland, where Tchaikovsky wrote his Violin Concerto. It was originally intended as the slow movement of the concerto, but he realised it was too slight for a concerto, so he discarded it and wrote a Canzonetta instead. On 16 May, back in Russia, he started on a work in three parts for violin and piano (the only time he ever originally wrote for that combination of instruments, although the Valse-Scherzo also exists in a violin and piano arrangement). On 22 May he told his brother Modest that it was going well. On 25 May he left for a two-week vacation on the Ukrainian country estate Brailivo (sometimes seen in English as “Brailovo”), which belonged to his benefactress Nadezhda von Meck, where he finished the work by 31 May. For the first movement, he used the discarded Méditation, recasting it for violin and piano. The two additional movements, Scherzo and Mélodie, completed the Souvenir d’un lieu cher. While at Brailovo, he also completed the Six Romances, Op. 38, and sketched his entire setting of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. Tchaikovsky had the original manuscript sent as a token of gratitude to Nadezhda von Meck, but he always intended to publish the work, so he asked her to arrange for a copy to be made, which was done by Władysław Pachulski, a member of von Meck’s household and later her son-in-law. This copy was sent to the publisher, P. Jurgenson. Tchaikovsky dedicated the work to “B*******”, which is understood to refer to Brailovo itself. It was published in May 1879, as Op. 42. In 1880, the Méditation was published separately, and has since become well known as an independent piece. The Scherzo and Mélodie were published separately in 1884. In 1896 Jurgenson published the complete work in an arrangement by Alexander Glazunov for violin and orchestra, and in this form it has perhaps become better known than in its original form for violin and piano. There are also arrangements for violin and strings by Nils Thore Røsth and Alexandru Lascae.

Souvenir de Florence

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Music#

The sextet has four movements:The first movement is in sonata form and, without introduction, presents a rather violent yet melodic first theme in D minor. The second theme, in the subtonic major key of C major, is much calmer; it flows from the first theme almost effortlessly and then proceeds into the development and recapitulation, which concludes with a quick coda. The slow movement, in D major, has a very innocent, romantic theme initially stated by the first violin with pizzicato accompaniment before being taken up by the cello. Following interruption by an interlude for all of the instruments, the theme returns for a repeat of the first section. The last two movements, with their distinctly Russian and folk-like melodies and rhythms, greatly contrast with the preceding two.

String Quartet No. 1 (Tchaikovsky)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure#

The quartet has four movements:

II. Andante cantabile#

The melancholic second movement, which has become famous in its own right, was based on a folk song the composer heard at his sister Aleksandra her family, the Davydov’s house at Kamenka in Ukraina whistled by a house painter. When the quartet was performed at a tribute concert for Leo Tolstoy in 1876, the author was said to have been brought to tears by this movement: “…Tolstoy, sitting next to me and listening to the Andante of my First Quartet, burst into tears". When the Zoellner Quartet, at her request, performed the second movement for Helen Keller, who rested her fingertips on a resonant tabletop to sense the vibrations, she, too, reacted strongly. She quickly sensed the musical vibrations, swaying in time, alternately crying and smiling. Afterward, Keller reacted as follows: The melody from second theme of the Andante cantabile, in D major, was used as the basis for the popular song “On the Isle of May”, popularized by Connee Boswell in 1940. This movement ends with plagal cadence.

String Quartet No. 2 (Tchaikovsky)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure#

The string quartet is in four movements: The first movement starts with an 18-bar slow introduction without key signature in time, with the character almost of a cadenza with increasingly rococo embellishment. This leads to the main body in time. The second movement is in a mixed meter. It mostly follows a pattern of 2 bars of + 1 bar of pattern, occasionally augmented to 3+1 and 4+1. After that, there is a A major middle section in marked l’istesso tempo, followed by a return to the asymmetrical 2+1 complex tempo. As tension mounts at the end, the pattern is stretched to 14+1. The third movement is in time with a middle section marked pochissimo più moto. The fourth movement is in and is relatively uncomplicated.

String Quartet No. 3 (Tchaikovsky)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Structure#

The work is in four movements and is approximately 37 minutes long. The Andante funebre was originally intended to be the second movement, with the Allegretto vivo e scherzando as the third, but Tchaikovsky later decided to switch them.

External links#

- Tchaikovsky Research

Swan Lake

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Origins of the ballet#

The authorship of the original libretto remains uncertain, and the precise origins of the narrative are likewise obscure. Russian and German folk traditions have been suggested as possible sources, among them Johann Karl August Musäus’s 1784 tale The Stolen Veil, from the collection Volksmärchen der Deutschen and based on the Swan maiden myth. These accounts, however, bear only limited resemblance to the storyline of the ballet. As reported by other sources, the story does not have a specific author, as it was shaped through ballet conventions. Several critics have noted that many ideas in the libretto appear in legends from various countries, and that a German setting was also frequent in nineteenth-century ballets. Siegfried’s character resembles Albrecht from Giselle, as both are deceived into betraying their beloved, and the ball to choose a bride appears in La fille du Danube. The swan maidens may be variations of the wilis and sylphs common in Romantic ballets. The story also has connections with Daniel Auber’s opera Le lac des fées. One hypothesis proposes that the original choreographer, Julius Reisinger, a Bohemian and thus plausibly acquainted with The Stolen Veil, was responsible for devising the story. An alternative view attributes the authorship to Vladimir Petrovich Begichev, then Director of the Moscow Imperial Theatres, possibly in collaboration with Vasily Geltser, a danseur of the Bolshoi Theatre. A surviving libretto copy indeed bears Begichev’s name. However, as the first published libretto diverges from Tchaikovsky’s score in numerous passages, some scholars have suggested that it may have been prepared by a journalist, based upon observations of the early rehearsals, in line with the contemporary custom of reporting new operatic and balletic productions together with their scenarios in the press. Another often-cited possibility proposes that the story was invented by Tchaikovsky himself, who reportedly used a similar plot for his earlier short ballet The Lake of the Swans (Ozero lebedei). Even the protagonists’ names were already the same: his brother Modest and his niece Tatiana played Siegfried and Odette, respectively. According to some theories, Tchaikovsky was influenced by Richard Wagner’s operas, which he generally held in high regard. In Der Ring des Nibelungen, there is also a character named Siegfried who, by unknowingly betraying his beloved, ultimately causes his own death. The names of the guests at the ball are reminiscent of characters in Tannhäuser. Even greater parallels can be observed in Lohengrin, such as the use of the swan as a symbol of purity, the presence of an evil sorcerer, the use of heraldic trumpets to signal supernatural events, and the heroine’s death as the result of an unintended betrayal. Some of Tchaikovsky’s contemporaries noted his keen interest in the life of King Ludwig II of Bavaria, whose existence was said to have been symbolically associated with the swan and who has at times been regarded as a possible prototype for the dreamer figure of Prince Siegfried. In May 1875 Vladimir Begichev commissioned Tchaikovsky to compose the score for Swan Lake, for which he received a fee of 800 rubles. The composer was provided only with a rudimentary framework from Julius Reisinger, outlining the requirements for each dance. Unlike the instructions for the scores of The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker, no original written directives for Swan Lake were long thought to have survived. For many years, scholarly understanding of aspects such as choreography rested primarily upon contemporary commentaries and reviews. However, in 2015 rehearsal notes dating from as early as 1876 were identified in the Institute for Art Studies in Moscow, offering fresh insight into the nature of the ballet’s original 1877 production.

Symphonies by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Russian versus Western#

Ideally, Tchaikovsky’s training at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory would have thoroughly equipped him to work with European principles and forms of organizing musical material, just as immersion in those things might have helped him gain a sense of belonging to world culture. However, Tchaikovsky was still “Russian to the marrow,” as he told his patroness, Nadezhda von Meck, “saturating myself from earliest childhood with the inexplicable beauty of the characteristic traits of Russian folk song, so that I passionately love every manifestation of the Russian spirit.” Native instincts that strong could drive him toward Russian musical principles, which in several ways worked in opposition to Western ones, and make his Russianness work as much against him as it did for him. Brown lists several factors in Russian folk music which contribute to this pattern of inertia. Melodies in Russian folk songs are self-contained, with no interaction between themes in contrasting musical keys or any clear transition from one theme to another. Instead, melodies are repeated, “using similar intervals and phrases with an almost ritual insistence,” according to musicologist John Warrack. This makes many folk songs essentially a series of variations on one basic shape or pattern of a few notes. The problem with repetition is that, even with a surface level of rhythmic activity added, the melody remains static over a period of time. Beneath that surface, nothing really moves or goes anywhere; the effect of the rhythm is decorative, not organic, because no true progress has taken place. Mikhail Glinka’s Kamarinskaya, which became famous as the first orchestral work based entirely on Russian folk song, is a case in point of the limits Russian composers faced and how they attempted to work around them. Kamarinskaya is based on two themes, a slow bridal song, “Izza gor” (From beyond the mountains), and the title song, a naigrïsh. This second song is actually an instrumental dance played to an ostinato melody. This melody is repeated for as long as the dancers can move to it. Glinka begins with “Izza gor,” then introduces Kamarinskaya as a contrasting theme. He uses a transition to return to the bridal song and show the contrast between the two themes. He repeats the theme 75 times, all the while varying the accompaniment—the instrumental timbres, harmonization and counterpoint—in a technique that Brown, Francis Maes and other musicologists call “changing backgrounds.” By following this approach, Glinka preserves the original character of the dance and complements it with creative variations to sustain listener interest. However, because there is no thematic growth, the music remains static. It does not move forward as a Western piece of music would. Tchaikovsky’s exposure to and love of Russian folk-song, according to Cooper, “formed the background for all his other music experience, a subconscious musical atmosphere in which all other musical experiences were saturated,” and Brown notes that Tchaikovsky’s “natural ability to think in terms of organic symphonic procedures”—in other words, in the ability to “examine and explore, then make his conclusion”—“was certainly limited.” The situation was not merely one of preoccupation with cause over effect, Brown writes, but also of an inability to connect cause with effect. “For just as it seems difficult for the Russian musical theorist to apply his active, controlled intelligence to the scrutiny of an imaginitive concept,” he adds, “so it seems difficult for the Russian composer to harness his active, controlled intelligence to the unfolding of that imaginitive concept—as Bach had done so pre-eminently in the fugue, or the classical masters in the symphony.”

Symphony in E-flat (Tchaikovsky)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The need to write …#

“I literally cannot live without working,” Tchaikovsky once wrote to the Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, “For no sooner has some labor been completed … there appears a desire to begin at once on some new labor…. U nder such circumstances this new labor is not always provoked by true creative necessity.” By November 1889, Tchaikovsky’s creative itch was becoming extreme. A year had passed since completing the Fifth Symphony, and eight months since writing another musical composition. Tchaikovsky confided to the Grand Duke that he had long aspired to crown his creative career with a grand symphony on some as yet undefined programme, but it was evidently on his return voyage from America in May 1891 that he jotted down a few preliminary ideas for what might become such a piece. More important still was a programme he roughed out, possibly at the same time: “The ultimate essence … of the symphony is Life. First part – all impulse, passion, confidence, thirst for activity. Must be short (the finale death – result of collapse). Second part love: third disappointments; fourth ends dying away (also short).” During the following months, while at work on The Nutcracker and Iolanta, he continued to note down further materials, but when at last he began systematic work on the piece, many of these and earlier ideas were discarded; nor was the programme to be used. Others were drawn in, however, and by June 8, 1892, both the first movement and the finale were fully sketched. He had hoped to continue work in July and August, but further composition was delayed until October. Nevertheless, by November 4, 1892, the entire symphony was sketched, and within three days the first movement was scored up to the recapitulation. Tchaikovsky had already offered to conduct the premiere of the symphony at a charity concert in Moscow the following February. However, after another enforced break, the composer took another look at the sketches and experienced total disenchantment. “It’s composed simply for the sake of composing something; there’s nothing at all interesting or sympathetic in it,” he wrote to his nephew Vladimir “Bob” Davydov on December 16, 1892. “I’ve decided to discard and forget it … Perhaps,” he added, though he can hardly have realized how precisely, “the subject still has the potential to stir my imagination.”

Symphony No. 1 (Tchaikovsky)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Instrumentation#

The symphony is scored for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets (A, B), two bassoons, four horns (E, F), two trumpets (C, D), three trombones (fourth movement only), tuba (fourth movement only), timpani, cymbals, bass drum and strings.

Composition#

Tchaikovsky started writing this symphony in March 1866. Work proved sluggish. A scathing review by César Cui of the cantata he had written as a graduation piece from the St. Petersburg Conservatory shattered his morale. He also composed day and night. All these factors strained Tchaikovsky’s mental and physical health tremendously. He started suffering from insomnia, from pains in his head which he thought to be strokes, and became convinced he would not live to finish the symphony. A successful performance of his revised Overture in F in St. Petersburg lifted his spirits. So did a change of scenery for the summer with his family. Nevertheless, he soon worked himself again into nervous and physical exhaustion by continuing to compose day and night. A doctor declared him “one step away from insanity,” ordering complete rest. Tchaikovsky complied. Despite his lack of progress, Tchaikovsky sought the opinion of his former teachers, Anton Rubinstein and Nikolai Zaremba, when he returned to St Petersburg at the end of August. He had hoped for their approval of what he had written as well as accepting at least part of it for a St Petersburg concert of the Russian Musical Society (RMS). Neither situation happened. Both men were negative, refusing to perform any of the symphony. He stopped work to fulfill his first public commission, a festival overture based on the Danish national anthem to celebrate the Moscow visit of the future Tsar Alexander III of Russia with his new Danish bride. Once the commission was finished, Tchaikovsky completed the symphony before the conservatory’s Christmas break. This included modifications requested by Rubinstein and Zaremba as a condition for reconsidering the work. Tchaikovsky resubmitted the manuscript to Rubinstein and Zaremba during the Christmas break. Even with their insisted changes, they still disapproved of the symphony on the whole; however, this time they passed the adagio and scherzo as “being fit for performance”. These two movements were played at an RMS concert in St Petersburg on February 23, 1867, with no success. Tchaikovsky, who had looked upon St Petersburg as the premier musical location in Russia and been obsessed with having his symphony performed there first, was thoroughly disillusioned — not only with St Petersburg audiences, but also with the critical judgments of both his former teachers. He discarded all the revisions they had demanded, standing with one exception by his original version. The exception, it turned out, was unavoidable. At Zaremba’s insistence, he had composed a new second subject for the opening movement. He had discarded the papers that contained his original second subject, and he could not remember what he had originally composed. Tchaikovsky had to let the second subject as approved by Zaremba stand as it was. Back in Moscow, Anton’s brother Nikolai was willing to perform the symphony; only the composer’s insistence on a St Petersburg performance held him back. Tchaikovsky now allowed him to conduct the scherzo at a Moscow concert of the RMS on December 22. Though the scherzo met with little success, Rubinstein was still ready to perform the complete work. This finally took place on February 15, 1868, to great success. Surprisingly, though, the symphony would have to wait 15 years for its next performance. The first performance of the revised version took place in Moscow on December 1, 1883, under the baton of Max Erdmannsdörfer.

Symphony No. 2 (Tchaikovsky)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Music#

The symphony is scored for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, cymbals, bass drum, tam-tam (last movement only), and strings. The symphony has four movements:

I. Andante sostenuto – Allegro vivo#

A solo horn playing a Ukrainian variant of “Down by Mother Volga” sets the atmosphere for this movement. Tchaikovsky reintroduces this song in the development section, and the horn sings it once more at the movement’s conclusion. : The rather vigorous second subject utilises a melody which would also be used subsequently by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in his Russian Easter Festival Overture. The end of the exposition, in the relative E major, leads straight into the development, in which material from both themes is heard. A long pedal note leads back to the second subject. Tchaikovsky does not repeat the first subject theme in its entirety in this section, as is conventional, but instead uses it solely for the coda. :

Symphony No. 3 (Tchaikovsky)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Instrumentation#

The Symphony is scored for an orchestra comprising piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets (in A, B), 2 bassoons, 4 horns (in F), 2 trumpets (in F), 3 trombones, tuba, 3 timpani and strings (violins I, violins II, violas, cellos, and double basses). On the symphony’s instrumentation, musicologist Francis Maes writes that here, Tchaikovsky’s “feeling for the magic of sound is revealed for the first time” and likens the music’s “sensual opulence” to the more varied and finely shaded timbres of the orchestral suites. Wiley adds about this aspect, “Is the symphony a discourse or the play of sound? It revels in the moment.”

Symphony No. 4 (Tchaikovsky)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Composition#

During the composition of the symphony, Tchaikovsky wrote to his patroness, Nadezhda von Meck, that he wanted “very much” to dedicate it to her, and that he would write on it “Dedicated to My Best Friend”. He had begun composing the symphony not long after von Meck had entered his life. He would complete it in the aftermath of his catastrophic marriage and claimed she would find in it “an echo of your most intimate thoughts and emotions.” Maes asserts that the dedication was significant in more than one way. One important facet of the paternalistic nature of Russian society was that, in artistic patronage, patron and artist were considered equals. Dedications of works to patrons were not gestures of humble gratitude but expressions of artistic partnership. By dedicating the Fourth Symphony to her, he was affirming her as an equal partner in its creation. It is also due to Madame von Meck that, at her request, Tchaikovsky wrote a program explaining the symphony. This action encouraged numerous writers to quote it instead of focusing on the symphony’s purely musical qualities, including what Hans Keller termed “one of the most towering symphonic structures in our whole literature” in the opening movement. This program hindered acceptance of the symphony for many years, prejudicing Alfred Einstein and other musicologists against it. But this must be seen in the context of Einstein’s general lack of sympathy for Tchaikovsky’s music. But despite this negative impact on the symphony’s reception history, the composer’s program gives one very telling clue regarding the work’s musical architecture. Assertions to the effect that “the first movement represents Fate” are oversimplifications: according to a letter the composer wrote to Madame von Meck in 1878, it is actually the fanfare first heard at the opening (“the kernel, the quintessence, the chief thought of the whole symphony”) that stands for “Fate”, with this being “the fatal power which prevents one from attaining the goal of happiness … There is nothing to be done but to submit to it and lament in vain”. As the composer explained it, the programme of the first movement is—“roughly”—that “all life is an unbroken alternation of hard reality with swiftly passing dreams and visions of happiness …”. He went on: “No haven exists … Drift upon that sea until it engulfs and submerges you in its depths”. The composer’s description of the symphony’s opening fanfare as a metaphor for “Fate” becomes more telling in the context of a letter he wrote Sergei Taneyev. He wrote Taneyev that the Fourth Symphony was both program music and a reflection of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony in the central idea of its program. Keller has mentioned a parallel between the four-note motif which opens Beethoven’s Fifth and the fanfare at the outset of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth. Like Beethoven, Tchaikovsky uses his fanfare as a structural marker. Moreover, because of both the length and unorthodox form of the symphony, he may have felt using such a marker was a musical necessity.

Symphony No. 5 (Tchaikovsky)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Place among Tchaikovsky’s later symphonies#

In the first ten years after graduating from the Saint Petersburg Conservatory in 1865 Tchaikovsky completed three symphonies. After that he started five more symphony projects, four of which led to a completed symphony premiered during the composer’s lifetime. The fifth symphony was composed in 1888, between the Manfred Symphony of 1885 and the sketches for a Symphony in E, which were abandoned in 1892 (apart from recuperating material from its first movement for an Allegro Brillante for piano and orchestra a year later). As for the numbered symphonies, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 was composed between Symphony No. 4, which had been completed ten years earlier, and Symphony No. 6, composed five years later, in the year of the composer’s death.

Symphony No. 6 (Tchaikovsky)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Title#

The Russian title of the symphony, Патетическая (Pateticheskaya), means “passionate” or “emotional”, not “arousing pity”, but it is a word reflective of a touch of concurrent suffering. Tchaikovsky considered calling it Программная (Programmnaya or “Program Symphony”) but realized that would encourage curiosity about the program, which he did not want to reveal. His brother Modest claims to have suggested the Патетическая title, which was used in early editions of the symphony; there are conflicting accounts about whether Tchaikovsky liked the title, but in any event his publisher chose to keep it. Its French translation Pathétique is generally used in French, Spanish, English, German and other languages. Many English-speaking classical musicians had, by the early 20th century, adopted an English spelling and pronunciation for Tchaikovsky’s symphony, dubbing it “The Pathetic”, to differentiate it from Beethoven’s 1798 piano sonata also known as The Pathétique. Tchaikovsky’s symphony was published in piano reduction by Jurgenson of Moscow in 1893 and by Robert Forberg of Leipzig in 1894.

The Enchantress (opera)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Composition history#

Ippolit Shpazhinsky’s play The Enchantress was first produced in 1884 at the Maly Theatre in Moscow, and soon it had seen more performances than any other play being staged in Moscow or Saint Petersburg. The actresses Maria Yermolova and Maria Savina were prominent in the title role of Nastasya (“Kuma”). Modest Ilyich Tchaikovsky admired The Enchantress and one scene in particular. He pointed it out to his brother the composer, who proceeded to write a duet based on that scene. Pyotr saw the play himself in January 1885, after which he wrote to Shpazhinsky, asking him to convert the drama to an opera libretto. but the librettist’s work was delayed by his divorce proceedings. When the libretto was finally completed in August, it was far too long and Tchaikovsky had to radically cut it. Even so, this opera was still the longest work he wrote.

The Maid of Orleans (opera)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Performance history#

The world premiere was given on 25 February 1881 (13 February O.S.) at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, conducted by Eduard Nápravník. Notable subsequent performances were given on 28 July 1882 in Prague under Adolf Čech, the first production of any Tchaikovsky opera outside Russia; in 1899 in Moscow by the Private Opera Society, conducted by Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov; and in 1907 in Moscow by the Zimin Opera, conducted by Palitsīn. In 2025 the opera was performed in Amsterdam, by the Nationale Opera, directed by Dmitri Tcherniakov.

The Nutcracker

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Composition#

After the success of The Sleeping Beauty in 1890, Ivan Vsevolozhsky, the director of the Imperial Theatres, commissioned Tchaikovsky to compose a double-bill program featuring both an opera and a ballet. The opera would be Iolanta. For the ballet, Tchaikovsky would again join forces with Marius Petipa, with whom he had collaborated on The Sleeping Beauty. The material Vsevolozhsky chose was an adaptation of E. T. A. Hoffmann’s story “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King”, by Alexandre Dumas called “The Story of a Nutcracker”. The plot of Hoffmann’s story (and Dumas’s adaptation) was greatly simplified for the two-act ballet. Hoffmann’s tale contains a long flashback story within its main plot titled “The Tale of the Hard Nut”, which explains how the Prince was turned into the Nutcracker. This had to be excised for the ballet. Petipa gave Tchaikovsky extremely detailed instructions for the composition of each number, down to the tempo and number of bars. Tchaikovsky composed parts of The Nutcracker in Rouen, France.

The Nutcracker Suite (Duke Ellington album)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Track listing#

All compositions by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. All arrangements by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn. # “Overture” – 3:22 # “Toot Toot Tootie Toot (Dance of the Reed-Pipes)” – 2:30 # “Peanut Brittle Brigade (March)” – 4:37 # “Sugar Rum Cherry (Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy)” – 3:05 # “Entr’acte” – 1:53 # “Volga Vouty (Russian Dance)” – 2:52 # “Chinoiserie (Chinese Dance)” – 2:50 # “Danse of the Floreadores (Waltz of the Flowers)” – 4:04 # “Arabesque Cookie (Arabian Dance)” – 5:44 Recorded on May 26 (tracks 1 and 5), May 31 (track 2), June 3 (tracks 4 and 8), 21 (tracks 3 and 7) and 22 (tracks 6 and 9), 1960.

The Oprichnik

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Instrumentation#

Source: Tchaikovsky Research *Strings: Violins I, Violins II, Violas, Cellos, and Double Basses *Woodwinds: Piccolo, 2 Flutes, 2 Oboes, 2 Clarinets (in B-flat, and A), 2 bassoons *Brass: 4 Horns (in F), 2 Trumpets (in D, F, and C), 3 Trombones, Tuba *Percussion: Timpani, Triangle, Cymbals, Bass Drum *Other: Harp

Act 1#

:No. 1 — Scena :No. 2 — Chorus of Maidens :No. 2a – Natalya’s Song :No. 3 — Scena & Chorus :No. 4 — Scena & Chorus :No. 5 — Recitatives :No. 5a – Basmanov’s Arioso :No. 6 — Natalya’s Arioso :No. 6a – Chorus of Maidens

The Queen of Spades (opera)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Composition history#

The Imperial Theatre offered Tchaikovsky a commission to write an opera based on the plot sketch by Ivan Vsevolozhsky in 1887/88. After first turning it down, Tchaikovsky accepted it in 1889. Toward the end of that year, he met the theatre’s managers to discuss the material and sketch out some of the scenes. He completed the full score in Florence in only 44 days. Later, working with the tenor who was to perform the lead character, he created two versions of Herman’s aria in the seventh scene, using different keys. The changes can be found in the proof sheets and inserts for the first and second editions of the printed version of the score. While composing the music, Tchaikovsky edited the libretto significantly, changing some of the text and adding his own lyrics to two arias.

The Seasons (Tchaikovsky)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

The Seasons was commenced shortly after the premiere of Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto, and continued while he was completing his first ballet, Swan Lake. In 1875, Nikolay Matveyevich Bernard, the editor of the St. Petersburg music magazine Nouvellist, commissioned Tchaikovsky to write 12 short piano pieces, one for each month of the year. Bernard suggested a subtitle for each month’s piece. Tchaikovsky accepted the commission and all of Bernard’s subtitles, and in the December 1875 edition of the magazine, readers were promised a new Tchaikovsky piece each month throughout 1876. The January and February pieces were written in late 1875 and sent to Bernard in December, with a request for some feedback as to whether they were suitable, and if not, Tchaikovsky would rewrite February and ensure the remainder were in the style Bernard was after. March, April and May appear to have been composed separately; however the remaining seven pieces were all composed at the same time and written in the same copybook, and evidence suggests they were written between 22 April and 27 May. The orchestration of Swan Lake was finished by 22 April, leaving the composer free to focus on other music; and he left for abroad at the end of May. This seems to put the lie to Nikolay Kashkin’s published version of events, which was that each month the composer would sit down to write a single piece, but only after being reminded to do so by his valet. The epigraphs that appeared on publication of the pieces were chosen by Bernard, not by Tchaikovsky. In 1886 the publisher P. Jurgenson acquired the rights to The Seasons and the piece has been reprinted many times. Tchaikovsky did not devote his most serious compositional efforts to these pieces; they were composed to order, and they were a way of supplementing his income. He saw the writing of music to a commission as just as valid as writing music from his own inner inspiration; however, for the former he needed a definite plot or text, a time limit, and the promise of payment at the end. Most of the pieces were in simple ABA form.

The Sleeping Beauty (ballet)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

Tchaikovsky was approached by the Director of the Imperial Theatres in St. Petersburg, Ivan Vsevolozhsky on 25 May 1888 about a possible ballet adaptation on the subject of the story of Undine. It was later decided that Charles Perrault’s La Belle au bois dormant would be the story for which Tchaikovsky would compose the music for the ballet. Tchaikovsky did not hesitate to accept the commission, although he was aware that his only previous ballet, Swan Lake, was met with little enthusiasm at that stage of his career. The ballet’s libretto was primarily based on Perrault’s ‘La belle au bois dormant’, with extra elements incorporated from the Brothers Grimm’s ‘Dornröschen’ version of the story. In that version, the Wicked Fairy bursts into the christening only after all the good fairies have bestowed their gifts on the baby princess except for the last one, and the Princess’s parents survive the 100-year sleep to celebrate the Princess’s wedding with the Prince. However, Vsevolozhsky also incorporated Perrault’s other characters from his stories into the ballet, such as Puss in Boots, Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Bluebird, Bluebeard, Ricky of the Tuft and Tom Thumb. Other French fairy tale characters to be featured are Beauty and the Beast, Pretty Goldilocks and The White Cat. Regardless, Tchaikovsky was happy to inform the Director of the Imperial Theatre that he had great pleasure studying the work and came away with adequate inspiration to do it justice. The choreographer was Marius Petipa, ballet master of the Imperial Ballet, who wrote a very detailed list of instructions as to the musical requirements. Tchaikovsky worked quickly on the new work at Frolovskoye; he began initial sketches in the winter of 1888 and began orchestration on the work on 30 May 1889. The ballet’s focus was on the two main conflicting forces of good (the Lilac Fairy) and evil (Carabosse); each has a leitmotif representing them, which run through the entire ballet, serving as an important thread to the underlying plot. Act III of the work, however, takes a complete break from the two motifs and instead places focus on the individual characters of the various court dances. The ballet’s premiere received more favorable accolades than Swan Lake from the press but Tchaikovsky never had the luxury of being able to witness his work become an instant success in theatres outside of Russia. He died in 1893. By 1903, The Sleeping Beauty was the second most popular ballet in the repertory of the Imperial Ballet (the Petipa/Pugni The Pharaoh’s Daughter was first), having been performed 200 times in only 10 years. A production mounted at the La Scala in Milan did not arouse much interest and it was not until 1921 that, in London, the ballet finally gained wide acclaim and eventually a permanent place in the classical repertoire. In 1999, the Mariinsky Ballet reconstructed the original 1890 production, including reproductions of the original sets and costumes. Although the 1951 Kirov production by Konstantin Sergeyev is available on DVD/Video, the 1999 “authentic” version was never commercially released. The Sleeping Beauty is Tchaikovsky’s longest ballet, lasting nearly four hours at full length (counting the intermissions). The complete score runs practically 3 hours. It is nearly always cut. At the premiere, Tsar Alexander III summoned Tchaikovsky to the imperial box. The Tsar made the simple remark ‘Very nice,’ which seemed to have irritated Tchaikovsky, who had likely expected a more favorable response. In any case the Tsar immediately paid Tchaikovsky a substantial bonus.

The Storm (Tchaikovsky)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The Storm was Tchaikovsky’s first substantial work for orchestra, written when he was only 24. He was spending the summer at the family estate of Prince Aleksey Vasilievich Golitsyn at Trostyanets, near Kharkiv in Ukraine, and wrote the overture as a vacation exercise. He did not consider it worthy of publication, and it was never performed in his lifetime. This opinion may have been influenced by Anton Rubinstein, who disapproved of it, and by Herman Laroche, who said it represented “a museum of antimusical curiosities”. In the summer of 1865–66, Tchaikovsky reworked the opening of the piece as the Concert Overture in C minor. This was also not performed or published in Tchaikovsky’s lifetime. The Storm was first performed, posthumously, in Saint Petersburg on March 7, 1896, conducted by Alexander Glazunov. It was published by Mitrofan Belyayev, as Op. 76. The “Poco Meno Mosso” section of the piece is also used as the main theme for the second movement of his Symphony No. 1 in G Minor “Winter Dreams”. The Concert Overture in C minor did not have its first performance until 1931, in Voronezh, under the baton of Konstantin Saradzhev.

The Swingin' Nutcracker

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Reception#

Allmusic awarded the album 3 stars.

Track listing#

All compositions adapted from The Nutcracker Suite by Tchaikovsky and arranged by Shorty Rogers. # “Like Nutty Overture (Finale)” - 5:23 # “A Nutty Marche (Marche)” - 3:28 # " Blue Reeds (Reed Flute Blues)" - 5:27 # “The Swingin’ Plum Fairy (Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy)” - 2:58 # “Snowball (Waltz of the Snowflakes)” - 3:03 # “Six Pak (Trépak)” - 2:44 # “Flowers of the Cats (Waltz of the Flowers)” - 3:28 # “Dance Expresso (Coffee)” - 2:55 # “Pass the Duke (Pas de Deux)” - 2:51 # “China Where? (Tea Dance)” - 2:09 # “Overture for Shorty (Overture in Miniature)” - 4:01

The Voyevoda (opera)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Instrumentation#

Strings: Violins I, Violins II, Violas, Cellos, and Double Basses
Woodwinds: Piccolo, 2 Flutes, 2 Oboes, Cor Anglais, 2 Clarinets (B-flat & A), 2 Bassoons
Brass: 4 Horns (all in F), 2 Trumpets (B-flat), 3 Trombones, Tuba
Percussion: Timpani, Triangle, Cymbals, Bass Drum
Other: Harp Source: Voyevoda (opera) Tchaikovsky Research

Synopsis#

Time: The middle of the 17th century Place: A large city on the Volga River :Overture

Act 1#

:No.1 Chorus of Maidens & Scena :No.2 Mariya’s Ballad & Duet :No.3 Scena :No.4 Bastryukov’s Aria :No.5 Scena & Duet :No.6 Scena :No.7 Scena :No.8 Quartet & Scena :No.9 Finale

The Voyevoda (symphonic ballad)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

Tchaikovsky started work on the piece in September 1890, but did not finish it until close to the premiere over a year later. He was then actively engaged in finishing his last opera Iolanta. The premiere of the ballad, which he conducted, took place on 18 November 1891, in Moscow. He was very dissatisfied with the work; even before the first performance he had decided it was mediocre at best and threatened to destroy the score. After the performance, he declared “Such rubbish should never have been written”. He carried out his threat the day after the first performance. However, the orchestral parts were retrieved by Alexander Siloti and the score was later reconstructed. Later, Tchaikovsky wrote to his publisher P. Jurgenson, “I do not regret The Voyevoda - it’s got what it deserved. I am not in the least sorry, for I am profoundly convinced that this work would compromise me … If something of this sort happens again, I shall tear it to shreds, or else completely give up composing. Not for anything in the world do I want to go on dirtying paper like Anton Grigorievich Rubinstein when everything has long since packed up”. The work is notable as Tchaikovsky’s first use of the celesta. He is most famous for using this instrument in the ballet The Nutcracker (particularly, but not exclusively, in “The Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy”), which was written after the ballad. However, he was not the first composer to use it: Ernest Chausson had used the celesta in a work for small orchestra in 1888. Excerpts from the score were used in the 2005 ballet Anna Karenina, choreographed by Boris Eifman.

Theme and Variations (ballet)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Production#

Balanchine’s Theme and Variations is set to the final movement of Tchaikovsky’s Orchestral Suite No. 3. The sets and costumes of the original production were designed by Woodman Thompson. The ballet features a lead couple, created on Alicia Alonso and Igor Youskevitch, plus four soloists and a corps de ballet. Mary Ellen Moylan, who had trained under Balanchine, was offered the female principal role and was asked to join Ballet Theatre, though she opted to rejoin Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. While making the ballet, Youskevitch and Balanchine disagreed as the former wanted to dance like a prince from Swan Lake or Giselle, but Balanchine wanted him to focus on the steps only. Alonso nevertheless noted she “learned a lot” through Theme and Variations, especially “to listen to each instrument individually,” which became helpful when her eyesight got worse.

Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

In 1877, Anna Sobeshchanskaya, prima ballerina of the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, made her debut in the dual role of Odette/Odile in Swan Lake. Upon learning this, Tchaikovsky was angered by the idea of a Minkus composition being inserted into his ballet score, so he composed a new pas de deux for the ballerina, even matching the structure of the Minkus piece so that she would not have to change Petipa’s choreography. It was a standard pas de deux classique, with a short entrée, a grand adage, a variation for the danseur, a variation for the ballerina, and a coda. Madame Sobeshchanskaya was, apparently, pleased. For more than seventy years, this pas de deux was forgotten.

Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2 (ballet)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Ballet Imperial#

In 1941, impresario Lincoln Kirstein was invited by his friend Nelson Rockefeller to organize a dance tour across South America subsidized by the US government. Rockefeller, who had been appointed Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, was given a budget to build cultural and financial relations in South America amid World War II. Kirstein brought in choreographer George Balanchine, and the two hurriedly formed the American Ballet Caravan, with dancers from their two previous troupes, American Ballet and Ballet Caravan. Most of the dancers had trained at the School of American Ballet under Balanchine. Ballet Imperial had subsequently been redesigned many times, by designers such as Eugene Berman, Carl Toms, Rouben Ter-Arutunian and Karinska, all inspired by Imperial Russia.

Tschaikowsky's Nutcracker Suite In Dance Tempo

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Reception#

Released a month before the 1942-44 recording ban, the album reached number five on the December 29, 1945 Billboard Best-Selling Popular Record Albums chart, the first of its kind. Billboard Magazine offered a half-hearted review: Freddy Martin goes on a real Tschaikowsky bender for this classical ballet of dance characterizations… While Martin’s men turn in a finished performance, most of the suite’s charm and spontaneity are lost. It is highly doubtful whether any of the sides can stand up on their own in the music boxes… In any event, the album makes for a pleasant novelty and certainly for pleasant listening for those not too deeply steeped in the classics.

Undina (Tchaikovsky)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The opera was composed during the months of January to July 1869, but Tchaikovsky destroyed the score in 1873, preserving only a few numbers from the opera. The opera has never been performed in its entirety. The only extracts that survive are: #Introduction #Aria: “Waterfall, my uncle, streamlet, my brother” (Undina) #Chorus: “Help, help! Our stream is raging” #Duet: “O happiness, O blessed moment” (Undina, Huldbrand) #Chorus: “O hours of death” (soloists, chorus) At least three of these pieces – the aria, the duet, and the final chorus – were performed at the Moscow premiere at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow on 28 March 1870. Some music from the opera was subsequently re-used in Tchaikovsky’s other works: *The bridal procession of act 3 was adapted for the Andantino marziale of his Symphony No. 2 “Little Russian” (1872). *The introduction was used unchanged as the introduction to his incidental music to Ostrovsky’s play The Snow Maiden (1873). *Undina’s aria was somewhat altered and put to use as the first song of Lel in The Snow Maiden. *The duet was recycled as the duet (No. 13-V) of Siegfried and Odette in act 2 of Swan Lake (1875–1876). The vocal parts were replaced by solo cello and violin.

Vakula the Smith

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Composition history#

The opera was composed between June and 21 August 1874; it was begun during a holiday in Nyzy (in Kharkov province) and finished in Usovo. The work was dedicated to the memory of the Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna, who had died in 1873. When Tchaikovsky anonymously submitted the score for a competition under the motto “Ars longa vita brevis est” (“Art is eternal, life is short”), it won, and the composer received 1500 rubles. The opera was revised as Cherevichki (The Slippers) in 1885.

Valse-Scherzo (Tchaikovsky)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The origins of the Valse-Scherzo are somewhat mysterious. It seems to have been written in January–February 1877; this has been surmised from a letter of 3 February 1877 from Iosif Kotek to Tchaikovsky, which is the first documentary evidence of its existence. There are hints from Kotek’s letters to Tchaikovsky that Kotek was given the honour of orchestrating the Valse-Scherzo, at least in part. But there is no mention of this in any of Tchaikovsky’s correspondence. Sergei Nakariakov has recorded a version for trumpet and piano.

Variations on a Rococo Theme

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Orchestration#

The piece is scored for a reduced orchestra consisting of pairs of each of the four basic woodwind instruments, two horns and the usual strings, like the typical late 18th-century orchestra without trumpets or percussion.

Structure and overview#

The piece is composed of a theme and eight variations (seven in Fitzenhagen’s version), making up roughly 20 minutes of music. Part of the difficulty of the piece lies in this continuous and prolonged format, devoid of the usual extended orchestral tuttis allowing the soloist to rest for a few moments. The soloist is also challenged by mostly having to play in the high register using the thumb position. #Moderato assai quasi Andante – Thema: Moderato semplice #:The orchestra comes in with a somewhat brief (though it looks long on paper) introduction, and the solo cello states the simple, elegant theme. The theme is repeated four times, then the cello plays a brief conjunctive passage, the same exact notes of which are used to link Vars. I and II. The same conjunction is played an octave lower to link Vars. VI and VII. #Var. I: Tempo della Thema #:The first variation is in triplets, through the midst of which the orchestra restates the theme. The sound is lively and graceful. #Var. II: Tempo della Thema #:The second variation features a section of conversation between the orchestra and soloist, in which the theme nearly doubles in speed. A modified version of the aforementioned conjunction is played, where the cello quickly moves into a cadenza (similar to the Violin Concerto in the sense that both pieces contain an early cadenza), which is brazen and filled with chords, steadfastly refusing to resolve its minor key. #Var. III: Andante #:The third variation is a melancholy restatement of the theme in D minor and is the only minor variation in the entire piece. The conjunction again appears at the end of the variation, though this time much greatly varied in the key of D minor. #Var. IV: Allegro vivo #:After a brief pause, the warm A major returns, though this time much more similar in character to Var. II. This is also one of the most difficult variations of the piece, an Allegro vivo that rarely relents its constant 32nd notes. The orchestra, too, has a difficult time keeping up with its blazing speed, particularly the solo flute. Though, unlike the previous three, no conjunction appears at the end of this variation, a graceful Mannheim Rocket closes it. #Var. V: Andante grazioso #:Unlike the previous variations, the theme’s opening pickup here becomes the downbeat. For the first time in the piece, Tchaikovsky cleverly and explicitly mixes the conjunction figure into the variation itself, concluding with a flourish and long trill from the solo cello, which immediately leads to the next variation. #Var. VI: Andante #:The sixth variation develops an accompanimental line out of the solo trill of the previous variation, over which a solo flute rendition of the theme is introduced. After a grand “fall” by the solo cello onto a low E, the orchestra takes over gallantly with the main theme. A cadenza follows, ending back in the trills from the beginning and, once again, the melody is taken over by the solo flute. The variation concludes with the original conjunction, but this time the cello plays it an octave lower, leading into the warm yet foreign key of C major. #Var. VII: Andante sostenuto #:The seventh variation lands comfortably on the key of C major and is played at a more contemplative speed. Towards the end of the variation, the key begins to shift towards E major (the dominant of A major) using a fractured version of the conjunction figure. Eventually the variation lands on the meditative unison of a harmonic E, somewhat question-like in the context of the piece yet satisfying in its finality with regards to this particular variation. The E nonetheless provides a strong affirmation of the inevitability of the last variation’s arrival in the key of A major. #Var. VIII e Coda: Allegro moderato con anima #: The eighth and final variation opens with a graceful solo by the cello, largely based on the Classical idea of a mordent. The opening solo can be seen as one drawn-out crescendo, which eventually reaches fortissimo before swiftly returning to piano and being joined by a light orchestral accompaniment. Shortly after the orchestra joins in, the cello introduces a new idea: a playful mixture of scales and the mordent theme - somewhat reminiscent of the second variation. After several sequences of this new idea, the cello fluidly transitions into the coda. The coda greatly contrasts the character of the variation itself, embodying a greater sense of drama as Tchaikovsky reintroduces the theme and alludes to several of the variations. Eventually the orchestra and soloist end gloriously in A major, concluding the work. The piece was written between December 1876 and March 1877, immediately following his tone poem Francesca da Rimini, and compared to the vehemence and intensity of Francesca, the Variations show a new elegant classical detachment. While the theme upon which the composition is based is Tchaikovsky’s own, the graceful contours that make up the first half of this theme show clearly which style period Tchaikovsky had in mind. Tchaikovsky had rarely been attracted to the variation form before, except for an eloquent piece for piano solo in F major, Op. 19, No. 6. The utility of this form became apparent for what he now set out to accomplish. In a traditional concerto format, structural complexities and dramatic issues that would have clashed with the 18th-century detachment and finesse could not have been avoided. A neater and easier solution was, in each variation, to retain the melodic outlines and harmonic support outlined in his initial theme. The potential problem with this approach could be a lack of variety between variations. This would effectively kill the piece. Thanks to his consummate craftsmanship, Tchaikovsky avoided this trap. There is barely a phrase within each variation whose relationship with its progenitor is not explicit. However, no two variations assemble their constituent phrases in the same manner, nor build to the same proportions. One device that helps Tchaikovsky greatly in this regard is a codetta attached to the end of the theme, to which is attached in turn a quasi-cadential or linking extension. Tchaikovsky varied this extension in length and direction, further modifying the proportions of individual variations and providing a bridge passage from one variation to the next. He even mixed the codetta material with the theme itself in the Andante grazioso variation (No. 4 in Fitzenhagen’s arrangement, No. 5 in Tchaikovsky’s original order).

Violin Concerto (Tchaikovsky)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

History#

The piece was written in Clarens, Switzerland, a resort on the shores of Lake Geneva, where Tchaikovsky had gone to recover from the depression brought on by his disastrous marriage to Antonina Miliukova. He was working on his Piano Sonata in G major but finding it heavy going. Presently he was joined there by his composition pupil, the violinist Iosif Kotek, who had been in Berlin for violin studies with Joseph Joachim. The two played works for violin and piano together, including a violin-and-piano arrangement of Édouard Lalo’s Symphonie espagnole, which they may have played through the day after Kotek’s arrival. This work may have been the catalyst for the composition of the concerto. Tchaikovsky wrote to his patroness Nadezhda von Meck, “It the Symphonie espagnole has a lot of freshness, lightness, of piquant rhythms, of beautiful and excellently harmonized melodies…. He Lalo , in the same way as Léo Delibes and Bizet, does not strive after profundity, but he carefully avoids routine, seeks out new forms, and thinks more about musical beauty than about observing established traditions, as do the Germans.” Tchaikovsky authority David Brown writes that Tchaikovsky “might almost have been writing the prescription for the violin concerto he himself was about to compose”. Tchaikovsky made swift, steady progress on the concerto, as by this point in his rest cure he had regained his inspiration, and the work was completed within a month despite the middle movement getting a complete rewrite (a version of the original movement was preserved as the first of the three pieces for violin and piano, Souvenir d’un lieu cher). Since Tchaikovsky was not a violinist, he sought the advice of Kotek on the completion of the solo part. “How lovingly he’s busying himself with my concerto!” Tchaikovsky wrote to his brother Anatoly on the day he completed the new slow movement. “It goes without saying that I would have been able to do nothing without him. He plays it marvelously.”

Winter Dreams (ballet)

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Background#

Macmillan’s ballet was inspired by Anton Chekhov’s play Three Sisters (1900), sometimes named as one of his four best plays, along with The Cherry Orchard, The Seagull, and Uncle Vanya. First performed in 1901 at the Moscow Art Theater, it concerns the intricate relationships of three sisters marooned in the stultifying atmosphere of a provincial Russian garrison town at the turn of the twentieth century. They all have “winter dreams” of returning to Moscow, where they imagine that their lives would be more interesting and fulfilling. The action in the ballet does not mirror all the events and incidents in the play. MacMillan noted that “Although the characters in the ballet are named after those in the play, I have not attempted a balletic reworking of the whole story. Sometimes the choreography reflects the inner life of the characters, at other times the narrative. I have tried to capture the atmosphere and melancholy of Chekov’s masterpiece.”

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky on Music Theory Print

1812 Overture

Instrumentation#

All-Night Vigil (Tchaikovsky)

Background#

Allegro Brillante

Choreography#

Andante and Finale

Background#

Andantino (ballet)

Choreography#

Production#

Capriccio Italien

Background#

Cello Concerto (Tchaikovsky)

Structure#

I. Allegro maestoso#

Cherevichki

Composition history#

Concert Fantasia (Tchaikovsky)

Structure#

I. Quasi rondo: Andante mosso#

Danse des petits cygnes

In popular culture#

Dark Ballet

Background and composition#

Eugene Onegin (opera)

Composition history#

Fatum (Tchaikovsky)

History#

Festival Coronation March

First performances#

Modern revisions#

Francesca da Rimini (Tchaikovsky)

Background#

Hamlet (Tchaikovsky)

Overture-Fantasia, Op. 67#

Iolanta

Composition history#

Legend (Tchaikovsky)

Words#

Life (Tchaikovsky's unfinished symphony)

Autographed sketches of the symphony#

Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom (Tchaikovsky)

Background#

Manfred Symphony

History#

Marche slave

Background and composition#

Mazeppa (opera)

Composition history#

Mozartiana (ballet)

Previous versions#

None but the Lonely Heart (Tchaikovsky)

Text#

Nut Rocker

Original recording#

Once Upon a Dream (Sleeping Beauty song)

Notable covers#

Onegin (Cranko)

Background and production#

Orchestral Suite No. 1 (Tchaikovsky)

Structure#

I. Introduzione e fuga: Andante sostenuto – Moderato e con anima#

Orchestral Suite No. 2 (Tchaikovsky)

Structure#

I. Jeu de sons: Andantino un poco rubato#

Orchestral Suite No. 3 (Tchaikovsky)

Instrumentation#

Form#

Orchestral Suite No. 4 Mozartiana (Tchaikovsky)

Music#

Legacy#

Pezzo capriccioso

Further reading#

External links#

Piano Concerto No. 1 (Tchaikovsky)

History#

Piano Concerto No. 2 (Tchaikovsky)

Structure#