Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

"Tchaikovsky" redirects here. For other uses, see Tchaikovsky (disambiguation).

This name uses Eastern Slavic naming customs; the patronymic is Ilyich and the family name is Tchaikovsky.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, c. 1888

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (English: /tʃaɪˈkɒfski/ chy-KOF-skee; Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский, IPA: [pʲɵtr ɪlʲˈjitɕ tɕɪjˈkofskʲɪj] (listen); 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer of the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music made a lasting impression internationally. He was honored in 1884 by Tsar Alexander III and awarded a lifetime pension.

Although musically precocious, Tchaikovsky was educated for a career as a civil servant. There was scant opportunity for a musical career in Russia at the time and no system of public music education. When an opportunity for such an education arose, he entered the nascent Saint Petersburg Conservatory, from which he graduated in 1865. The formal Western-oriented teaching that he received there set him apart from composers of the contemporary nationalist movement embodied by the Russian composers of The Five with whom his professional relationship was mixed.

Tchaikovsky's training set him on a path to reconcile what he had learned with the native musical practices to which he had been exposed from childhood. From that reconciliation, he forged a personal but unmistakably Russian style. The principles that governed melody, harmony and other fundamentals of Russian music ran completely counter to those that governed Western European music, which seemed to defeat the potential for using Russian music in large-scale Western composition or for forming a composite style, and it caused personal antipathies that dented Tchaikovsky's self-confidence. Russian culture exhibited a split personality, with its native and adopted elements having drifted apart increasingly since the time of Peter the Great. That resulted in uncertainty among the intelligentsia about the country's national identity, an ambiguity mirrored in Tchaikovsky's career.

Music

See also: List of compositions by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Music of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and Symphonies by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Original cast of Tchaikovsky's ballet, The Sleeping Beauty, Saint Petersburg, 1890

Creative range

Tchaikovsky displayed a wide stylistic and emotional range, from light salon works to grand symphonies. Some of his works, such as the Variations on a Rococo Theme, employ a "Classical" form reminiscent of 18th-century composers such as Mozart (his favorite composer). Other compositions, such as his Little Russian symphony and his opera Vakula the Smith, flirt with musical practices more akin to those of the 'Five', especially in their use of folk song. Other works, such as Tchaikovsky's last three symphonies, employ a personal musical idiom that facilitated intense emotional expression.

Sources

• Asafyev, Boris (1947). "The Great Russian Composer". Russian Symphony: Thoughts About Tchaikovsky. New York: Philosophical Library.
• Benward, Bruce; Saker, Marilyn (200). Music: In Theory and Practice, Vol. 1 (Seventh ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0-07-294262-0.
• Botstein, Leon (1998). "Music as the Language of Psychological Realm". In Kearney, Leslie (ed.). Tchaikovsky and His World. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-00429-3.
• Brown, David, "Glinka, Mikhail Ivanovich" and "Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich". In The New Grove Encyclopedia of Music and Musicians (London: MacMillan, 1980), 20 vols., ed. Sadie, Stanley. ISBN 0-333-23111-2.
• Brown, David, Tchaikovsky: The Early Years, 1840–1874 (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1978). ISBN 0-393-07535-4.
• Brown, David, Tchaikovsky: The Crisis Years, 1874–1878, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1983). ISBN 0-393-01707-9.
• Brown, David, Tchaikovsky: The Years of Wandering, 1878–1885, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1986). ISBN 0-393-02311-7.
• Brown, David, Tchaikovsky: The Final Years, 1885–1893, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1991). ISBN 0-393-03099-7.
• Brown, David, Tchaikovsky: The Man and His Music (New York: Pegasus Books, 2007). ISBN 0-571-23194-2.
• Cooper, Martin, "The Symphonies". In Music of Tchaikovsky (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1946), ed. Abraham, Gerald. ISBN n/a. OCLC 385829
• Druckenbrod, Andrew, "Festival to explore Tchaikovsky's changing reputation". In Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 30 January 2011. Retrieved 27 February 2012.
• Figes, Orlando, Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2002). ISBN 0-8050-5783-8 (hc.).
• Holden, Anthony, Tchaikovsky: A Biography (New York: Random House, 1995). ISBN 0-679-42006-1.
• Holoman, D. Kern, "Instrumentation and orchestration, 4: 19th century". In The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Second Edition (London: Macmillan, 2001), 29 vols., ed. Sadie, Stanley. ISBN 1-56159-239-0.
• Hopkins, G. W., "Orchestration, 4: 19th century". In The New Grove Encyclopedia of Music and Musicians (London: MacMillan, 1980), 20 vols., ed. Sadie, Stanley. ISBN 0-333-23111-2.
• Hosking, Geoffrey, Russia and the Russians: A History (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2001). ISBN 0-674-00473-6.
• Jackson, Timothy L., Tchaikovsky, Symphony no. 6 (Pathétique) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). ISBN 0-521-64676-6.
• Karlinsky, Simon, "Russia's Gay Literature and Culture: The Impact of the October Revolution". In Hidden from History: Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past (New York: American Library, 1989), ed. Duberman, Martin, Martha Vicinus and George Chauncey. ISBN 0-452-01067-5.
• Kozinn, Allan, "Critic's Notebook; Defending Tchaikovsky, With Gravity and With Froth". In The New York Times, 18 July 1992. Retrieved 27 February 2012.
• Lockspeiser, Edward, "Tchaikovsky the Man". In Music of Tchaikovsky (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1946), ed. Abraham, Gerald. ISBN n/a. OCLC 385829
• Maes, Francis, tr. Arnold J. Pomerans and Erica Pomerans, A History of Russian Music: From Kamarinskaya to Babi Yar (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 2002). ISBN 0-520-21815-9.
• Mochulsky, Konstantin, tr. Minihan, Michael A., Dostoyevsky: His Life and Work (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967). LCCN 65-10833.
• Poznansky, Alexander, Tchaikovsky: The Quest for the Inner Man (New York: Schirmer Books, 1991). ISBN 0-02-871885-2.
• Poznansky, Alexander, Tchaikovsky Through Others' Eyes. (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1999). ISBN 0-253-33545-0.
• Ridenour, Robert C., Nationalism, Modernism and Personal Rivalry in Nineteenth-Century Russian Music (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1981). ISBN 0-8357-1162-5.
• Ritzarev, Marina, Tchaikovsky's Pathétique and Russian Culture (Ashgate, 2014). ISBN 9781472424112.
• Roberts, David, "Modulation (i)". In The New Grove Encyclopedia of Music and Musicians (London: MacMillan, 1980), 20 vols., ed. Sadie, Stanley. ISBN 0-333-23111-2.
• Rubinstein, Anton, tr. Aline Delano, Autobiography of Anton Rubinstein: 1829–1889 (New York: Little, Brown & Co., 1890). Library of Congress Control Number LCCN 06-4844.
• Schonberg, Harold C. Lives of the Great Composers (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 3rd ed. 1997). ISBN 0-393-03857-2.
• Steinberg, Michael, The Concerto (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).
• Steinberg, Michael, The Symphony (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).
• Taruskin, Richard, "Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Il'yich", The New Grove Dictionary of Opera (London and New York: Macmillan, 1992), 4 vols, ed. Sadie, Stanley. ISBN 0-333-48552-1.
• Volkov, Solomon, Romanov Riches: Russian Writers and Artists Under the Tsars (New York: Alfred A. Knopf House, 2011), tr. Bouis, Antonina W. ISBN 0-307-27063-7.
• Warrack, John, Tchaikovsky Symphonies and Concertos (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1969). LCCN 78-105437.
• Warrack, John, Tchaikovsky (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973). ISBN 0-684-13558-2.
• Wiley, Roland John, "Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich". In The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Second Edition (London: Macmillan, 2001), 29 vols., ed. Sadie, Stanley. ISBN 1-56159-239-0.
• Wiley, Roland John, The Master Musicians: Tchaikovsky (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009). ISBN 978-0-19-536892-5.
• Zhitomirsky, Daniel, "Symphonies". In Russian Symphony: Thoughts About Tchaikovsky (New York: Philosophical Library, 1947). ISBN n/a.
• Zajaczkowski, Henry, Tchaikovsky's Musical Style (Ann Arbor and London: UMI Research Press, 1987). ISBN 0-8357-1806-9.

Further reading

• Bergamini, John, The Tragic Dynasty: A History of the Romanovs (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1969). LCCN 68-15498.
• Bullock, Philip Ross (2016). Pyotr Tchaikovsky. London, U.K.: Reaktion Books. ISBN 9781780236544. OCLC 932385370.
• Hanson, Lawrence and Hanson, Elisabeth, Tchaikovsky: The Man Behind the Music (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company). LCCN 66-13606.

External links

• Tchaikovsky Research
• "Discovering Tchaikovsky". BBC Radio 3.
• Tchaikovsky cylinder recordings, from the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara Library.
• Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky at the Internet Broadway Database
• Works by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky at Internet Archive
• Piotr Ilitch Tchaïkovski – Musique Classique – medici.tv
• Mutopia Project Tchaikovsky Sheet Music at Mutopia
• Free scores by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)
• Tchaikovsky Arias and Piano works performed live in Brussels