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{{Eastern Slavic name|Ilyich|Tchaikovsky}}
{{Eastern Slavic name|Ilyich|Tchaikovsky}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2020}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2020}}
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[[File:Tchaikovsky by Reutlinger.jpg|thumb|212px|{{center|Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, {{c.|1888}}<ref group=a>Published in 1903</ref><br />[[File:Tchaikovsky's signature.jpg|150px|alt=Tchaikovsky's signature]]}}|alt=]]
[[File:Tchaikovsky by Reutlinger.jpg|thumb|212px|{{center|Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, {{c.|1888}}<ref group=a>Published in 1903</ref><br />[[File:Tchaikovsky's signature.jpg|150px|alt=Tchaikovsky's signature]]}}|alt=]]
'''Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky'''<ref group=a>Often anglicized as ''Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky''; also standardized by the [[Library of Congress]]. His names are also transliterated as ''Piotr'' or ''Petr''; ''Ilitsch'' or ''Il'ich''; and ''Tschaikowski'', ''Tschaikowsky'', ''Chajkovskij'', or ''Chaikovsky''. He used to sign his name/was known as ''P. Tschaïkowsky''/''Pierre Tschaïkowsky'' in French (as in his afore-reproduced signature), and ''Peter Tschaikowsky'' in German, spellings also displayed on several of his scores' title pages in their first printed editions alongside or in place of his native name.</ref> ({{IPAc-en|lang|tʃ|aɪ|ˈ|k|ɒ|f|s|k|i}} {{Respell|chy|KOF|skee}};<ref>[http://www.dictionary.com/browse/tchaikovsky "Tchaikovsky"]. ''[[Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary]]''.</ref> {{lang-rus|Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский,<ref group=a>Петръ Ильичъ Чайковскій in Russian pre-revolutionary script.</ref>}} {{IPA-ru|pʲɵtr ɪlʲˈjitɕ tɕɪjˈkofskʲɪj|IPA|Ru-Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.ogg}}; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893<ref group=a>Russia was still using [[Old style and new style dates|old style dates]] in the 19th century, rendering his lifespan as 25 April 1840&nbsp;– 25 October 1893. Some sources in the article report dates as old style rather than new style.</ref>) 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 of Russia|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 (composers)|The Five]] with whom his [[Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and The Five|professional relationship was mixed]].  
'''Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky'''<ref group=a>Often anglicized as ''Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky''; also standardized by the [[wikipedia:Library of Congress|Library of Congress]]. His names are also transliterated as ''Piotr'' or ''Petr''; ''Ilitsch'' or ''Il'ich''; and ''Tschaikowski'', ''Tschaikowsky'', ''Chajkovskij'', or ''Chaikovsky''. He used to sign his name/was known as ''P. Tschaïkowsky''/''Pierre Tschaïkowsky'' in French (as in his afore-reproduced signature), and ''Peter Tschaikowsky'' in German, spellings also displayed on several of his scores' title pages in their first printed editions alongside or in place of his native name.</ref> ({{IPAc-en|lang|tʃ|aɪ|ˈ|k|ɒ|f|s|k|i}} {{Respell|chy|KOF|skee}};<ref>[http://www.dictionary.com/browse/tchaikovsky "Tchaikovsky"]. ''[[wikipedia:Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary|Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary]]''.</ref> {{lang-rus|Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский,<ref group=a>Петръ Ильичъ Чайковскій in Russian pre-revolutionary script.</ref>}} {{IPA-ru|pʲɵtr ɪlʲˈjitɕ tɕɪjˈkofskʲɪj|IPA|Ru-Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.ogg}}; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893<ref group=a>Russia was still using [[wikipedia:Old style and new style dates|old style dates]] in the 19th century, rendering his lifespan as 25 April 1840&nbsp;– 25 October 1893. Some sources in the article report dates as old style rather than new style.</ref>) was a [[wikipedia:Russian composer|Russian composer]] of the [[wikipedia:Romantic period|Romantic period]]. He was the first Russian composer whose music made a lasting impression internationally. He was honored in 1884 by Tsar [[wikipedia:Alexander III of Russia|Alexander III]] and awarded a lifetime pension.


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.
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 [[wikipedia:Saint Petersburg Conservatory|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 [[wikipedia:nationalist|nationalist]] movement embodied by the Russian composers of [[wikipedia:The Five (composers)|The Five]] with whom his [[wikipedia:Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and The Five|professional relationship was mixed]].  


Despite his many popular successes, Tchaikovsky's life was punctuated by personal crises and depression. Contributory factors included his early separation from his mother for boarding school followed by his mother's early death; the death of his close friend and colleague [[Nikolai Rubinstein]]; and the collapse of the one enduring relationship of his adult life, his 13-year association with the wealthy widow [[Nadezhda von Meck]], who was his [[patron]] even though they never actually met each other. His homosexuality, which he kept private, has traditionally also been considered a major factor though some musicologists now downplay its importance. Tchaikovsky's sudden death at the age of 53 is generally ascribed to [[cholera]]; there is an ongoing debate as to whether cholera was indeed the [[death of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky|cause of his death]].
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 [[wikipedia:Peter the Great|Peter the Great]]. That resulted in uncertainty among the [[wikipedia:intelligentsia|intelligentsia]] about the country's national identity, an ambiguity mirrored in Tchaikovsky's career.


While his music has remained popular among audiences, critical opinions were initially mixed. Some Russians did not feel it was sufficiently representative of native musical values and expressed suspicion that Europeans accepted the music for its Western elements. In an apparent reinforcement of the latter claim, some Europeans lauded Tchaikovsky for offering music more substantive than base [[exoticism]] and said he transcended stereotypes of Russian classical music. Others dismissed Tchaikovsky's music as "lacking in elevated thought"<ref>According to longtime ''[[The New York Times|New York Times]]'' music critic [[Harold C. Schonberg]].</ref> and derided its formal workings as deficient because they did not stringently follow Western principles.
Though a russian orthodox, Tchaikovsky had a number of personal doubts about the Christian faith, which in any case had a profound impact on him and his works.


==Life==
== Religious views ==
Tchaikovsky expresses his views on religion and christianity in his '''letters'''<ref>[[tchaikovsky:Bibliography_(2007/19)|Perepiska s N.  F.  fon-Mekk]]  [Correspondence  with  N. F. von Meck], ed. by V. A. Ždanov and N. T. Žegina, Moscow-Leningrad 1934-1936, {{ISBN|5962801423}}</ref> and in his '''personal diary'''<ref>[[tchaikovsky:Diaries|Dnevniki P. I. Cajkovskogo]] [Tchaikovsky's Diaries], Moscow-Petrograd 1923</ref>.


===Childhood===
Touching on the question of eternal life, he writes in a letter to [[tchaikovsky:Nadezhda von Meck|Nadezhda von Meck]] in 1877:
{{multiple image|direction=vertical|image1=Дом Чайковского.jpg |alt1=A peach-colored prune-tiled three-story house with single-story aisles surrounded by trees |caption1=Tchaikovsky's birthplace in Votkinsk, now [[Tchaikovsky Museum (Votkinsk)|a museum]] |image2=Tchaikovskys family in 1848 From left to right sitting Alexandra Andreevna Tchaikovska Alexandra Ippolit Ilya Petrovitch Tchai Family 2.jpg |caption2=The Tchaikovsky family in 1848. Left to right: Pyotr, Alexandra Andreyevna (mother), Alexandra (sister), Zinaida, Nikolai, Ippolit, Ilya Petrovich (father)}}


Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born in [[Votkinsk]], a small town in [[Vyatka Governorate]] (present-day [[Udmurtia]]) in the [[Russian Empire]], into a family with a long history of military service. His father, Ilya Petrovich Tchaikovsky, had served as a lieutenant colonel and engineer in the Department of Mines,<ref name="holden4">Holden, 4.</ref> and would manage the [[Votkinsk|Kamsko-Votkinsk]] Ironworks. His grandfather, Pyotr Fedorovich Tchaikovsky (né Petro Fedorovych Chaika), was born in the village of Mikolayivka, Poltava Gubernia, Russian Empire (present day Ukraine),<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://en.tchaikovsky-research.net/pages/Tchaikovsky:_A_Life|title=Tchaikovsky: A Life|website=tchaikovsky-research.net}}</ref> and served first as a physician's assistant in the army and later as city governor of [[Glazov]] in Vyatka. His great-grandfather,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://day.kyiv.ua/en/article/culture/pyotr-tchaikovsky-ukrainian-creative-spirit|title=Pyotr Tchaikovsky, a Ukrainian by creative spirit|work=[[The Day (Kiev)|The Day]]|location=Kiev}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/?id=AFcABAAAQBAJ&pg=PA4&lpg=PA4&dq=fedor+chaika#v=onepage&q=fedor%20chaika&f=false|title=Tchaikovsky and His World|isbn=9781400864881|last=Kearney|first=Leslie|year=2014|publisher=Princeton University Press}}</ref> a [[Cossacks|Cossack]] named Fyodor Chaika, distinguished himself under [[Peter the Great]] at the [[Battle of Poltava]] in 1709.<ref>Brown, ''Early'', 19</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Poznansky|first1=Alexander|title=Tchaikovsky Through Others' Eyes|date=1999|page=1}}</ref>
{{Quote|text=However, conviction is one thing, and instinct and feeling another. Whilst I deny an eternal afterlife, it is with indignation that I reject at the same time the monstrous thought that I shall never see again some loved ones who are now dead. In spite of the triumphant force of my convictions, I shall never reconcile myself to the thought that my mother, whom I so loved and who was such a wonderful person, has disappeared forever and that I will never be able to tell her that even after twenty-three years of separation I still love her the same|author=Pyotr Tchaikovsky|source=http://www.tchaikovsky-research.net/en/people/index.html}}


Tchaikovsky's mother, Alexandra Andreyevna (née d'Assier), was the second of Ilya's three wives, 18 years her husband's junior and French and German on her father's side.<ref>Poznansky, ''Eyes'', 1; Holden, 5.</ref> Both Ilya and Alexandra were trained in the arts, including music—a necessity as a posting to a remote area of Russia also meant a need for entertainment, whether in private or at social gatherings.<ref name="wiley_tchaik6">Wiley, ''Tchaikovsky'', 6.</ref> Of his six siblings,<ref group="a">Tchaikovsky had four brothers (Nikolai, Ippolit, Anatoly and Modest), a sister (Alexandra) and a half-sister (Zinaida) from his father's first marriage (Holden, 6, 13; Warrack, ''Tchaikovsky'', 18). Anatoly would later have a prominent legal career, while Modest became a dramatist, [[librettist]], and translator (Poznansky, ''Eyes'', 2).</ref> Tchaikovsky was close to his sister Alexandra and twin brothers Anatoly and [[Modest Ilyich Tchaikovsky|Modest]]. Alexandra's marriage to Lev Davydov<ref>Holden, 31.</ref> would produce seven children<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://en.tchaikovsky-research.net/pages/Aleksandra_Davydova|title=Aleksandra Davydova|website=en.tchaikovsky-research.net}}</ref> and lend Tchaikovsky the only real family life he would know as an adult,<ref name="holden43" /> especially during his years of wandering.<ref name="holden43">Holden, 43.</ref> One of those children, [[Vladimir Davydov]], whom the composer would nickname 'Bob', would become very close to him.<ref>Holden, 202.</ref>
In another letter to Mrs von Meck in 1879, he recounts his impressions of reading the scene in [[W:The Brothers Karamazov|The Brothers Karamazov]] where Father Zosima has to comfort a woman who has lost all her children. The question of the afterlife thus seems to be one which he thought about often:


In 1844, the family hired Fanny Dürbach, a 22-year-old French governess.<ref>Brown, ''Early'', 22; Holden, 7.</ref> Four-and-a-half-year-old Tchaikovsky was initially thought too young to study alongside his older brother Nikolai and a niece of the family. His insistence convinced Dürbach otherwise.<ref>Holden, 7.</ref> By the age of six, he had become fluent in French and German.<ref name="wiley_tchaik6"/> Tchaikovsky also became attached to the young woman; her affection for him was reportedly a counter to his mother's coldness and emotional distance from him,<ref>Brown, ''Early'', 27; Holden, 6–8</ref> though others assert that the mother doted on her son.<ref>Poznansky, ''Quest'', 5.</ref> Dürbach saved much of Tchaikovsky's work from this period, including his earliest known compositions, and became a source of several childhood anecdotes.<ref>Brown, ''Early'', 25–26; Wiley, ''Tchaikovsky'', 7.</ref>
{{Quote|text=Yes, my friend! It is better to have to die oneself every day for a thousand years than to lose those whom one loves and to seek consolation in the hypothetical idea that we shall meet again in the other world! Will we meet again? Happy are those who manage not to have doubts about this|author=Pyotr Tchaikovsky|source=http://www.tchaikovsky-research.net/en/people/index.html}}


Tchaikovsky began piano lessons at age five. Precocious, within three years he had become as adept at reading sheet music as his teacher. His parents, initially supportive, hired a tutor, bought an [[orchestrion]] (a form of barrel organ that could imitate elaborate orchestral effects), and encouraged his piano study for both aesthetic and practical reasons.
In his ''special diary'' he made a note in 1886 about his relationship with the Sacred Scriptures:


However, they decided in 1850 to send Tchaikovsky to the [[Imperial School of Jurisprudence]] in Saint Petersburg. They had both graduated from institutes in Saint Petersburg and the School of Jurisprudence, which mainly served the lesser nobility, and thought that this education would prepare Tchaikovsky for a career as a civil servant.<ref>Brown, ''Early'', 31; Wiley, ''Tchaikovsky'', 8.</ref> Regardless of talent, the only musical careers available in Russia at that time—except for the affluent aristocracy—were as a teacher in an academy or as an instrumentalist in one of the Imperial Theaters. Both were considered on the lowest rank of the social ladder, with individuals in them enjoying no more rights than peasants.<ref>Maes, 33.</ref>  
{{Quote|text=What an infinitely deep abyss between the Old and the New Testament! Am reading the Psalms of David and do not understand why, first, they are placed so high artistically and, second, in what way they could have anything in common with the Gospel. David is entirely worldly. The whole human race he divides into two unequal parts: in one, the godless (here belongs the vast majority), in the other, the godly and at their head he places himself. Upon the godless, he invokes in each psalm divine punishment, upon the godly, reward; but both punishment and reward are earthly. The sinners will be annihilated; the godly will reap the benefits of all the blessings of earthly life. How unlike Christ who prayed for his enemies and to his fellow man promised not earthly blessings but the Kingdom of Heaven. What eternal poetry and, touching to tears, what feeling of love and pity toward mankind in the words: “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden.” All the Psalms of David are nothing in comparison with these simple words.|author=Pyotr Tchaikovsky<ref name="Lakond">Wladimir Lakond, ''The Diaries of Tchaikovsky'' (1945), p. 244</ref>}}


His father's income was also growing increasingly uncertain, so both parents may have wanted Tchaikovsky to become independent as soon as possible.<ref>Wiley, ''Tchaikovsky'', 8.</ref> As the minimum age for acceptance was 12 and Tchaikovsky was only 10 at the time, he was required to spend two years boarding at the Imperial School of Jurisprudence's preparatory school, {{convert|800|mi|km|order=flip}} from his family.<ref>Holden, 14; Warrack, ''Tchaikovsky'', 26.</ref> Once those two years had passed, Tchaikovsky transferred to the Imperial School of Jurisprudence to begin a seven-year course of studies.<ref>Holden, 20.</ref>
This contrast between the Old and New Testament and his admiration for the figure of Christ, and, in particular, for Christ’s exhortation: “Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden” ({{Bible quote|version=NABRE|ref=Matthew 11:28}}) — the underlying idea of which he once tried to set into music — are themes he often returned to in those years. Another interesting diary entry is that which he made in [[tchaikovsky:Maydanovo|Maydanovo]] in 1887, on the same day that his old friend [[tchaikovsky:Nikolay Kondratyev|Nikolay Kondratyev]] died after a long illness in Aachen (where Tchaikovsky had visited him that summer):


[[File:Uchilische pravovedenia.jpg|thumb|alt=A row of large, stone three-storey buildings alongside a large riverbank|Modern view of the [[Imperial School of Jurisprudence]], Saint Petersburg]]
'''Yelena Dyachkova''' ({{Authorid|o= 0000-0002-1131-0552|r= C-4749-2018}}), Ph.D. in History of Arts and Assistant professor at the [[w:Kyiv Conservatory|Petro Tchaikovsky National Music Academy of Ukraine]], wrote an interesting essay entitled '''“Tchaikovsky and the Bible”'''. Her thesis begins by stating:


Tchaikovsky's early separation from his mother caused an emotional trauma that lasted the rest of his life and was intensified by her death from [[cholera]] in 1854, when he was fourteen.<ref>Holden, 15; Poznansky, ''Quest'', 11–12.</ref><ref group=a>Her death affected him so much that he could not inform Fanny Dürbach until two years later (Brown, ''Early'', 47; Holden, 23.; Warrack, 29). More than 25 years after his loss, Tchaikovsky wrote to his patroness, Nadezhda von Meck, "Every moment of that appalling day is as vivid to me as though it were yesterday" (As quoted in Holden, 23)</ref> The loss of his mother also prompted Tchaikovsky to make his first serious attempt at composition, a [[Waltz (music)|waltz]] in her memory. Tchaikovsky's father, who had also contracted cholera but recovered fully, sent him back to school immediately in the hope that classwork would occupy the boy's mind.<ref name="holden23">Holden, 23.</ref> Isolated, Tchaikovsky compensated with friendships with fellow students that became lifelong; these included [[Aleksey Apukhtin]] and Vladimir Gerard.<ref>Holden, 23–24, 26; Poznansky, ''Quest'', 32–37; Warrack, ''Tchaikovsky'', 30.</ref>
{{quote|text=Biblical mythology as a possible programme for a musical work never attracted Tchaikovsky's interest. Epistolary heritage also does not give the reason to suppose that the Bible was the composer's favourite book. Nevertheless, these superficially obvious facts do not settle the question about Tchaikovsky and the Bible. The Bible, together with ancient mythology, forms one of the basic conceptual paradigms of European culture. Its major semantic and psychological constants, such as the linear perception of time as a stream flowing from its source (the Creation) towards the end (the Judgement Day), the fear of Death, the responsibility for deeds (ethical principles), and finally, treating anguish and torments of the indi- vidual as a spiritual feat, are characteristics of practically all the works belonging to the European literature tradition. In particular, these constants may be perceived as peculiar cultural and artistic archetypes in Tchaikovsky's work.|author=Yelena Dyachkova|source=Tchaikovsky and the Bible}}


Music, while not an official priority at school, also bridged the gap between Tchaikovsky and his peers. They regularly attended the opera<ref>Holden, 24; Poznansky, ''Quest'', 26</ref> and Tchaikovsky would improvise at the school's [[Pump organ|harmonium]] on themes he and his friends had sung during choir practice. "We were amused," Vladimir Gerard later remembered, "but not imbued with any expectations of his future glory".<ref>As quoted in Holden, 25.</ref> Tchaikovsky also continued his piano studies through Franz Becker, an instrument manufacturer who made occasional visits to the school; however, the results, according to musicologist [[David Brown (musicologist)|David Brown]], were "negligible".<ref>Brown, ''Early'', 43.</ref>
It was in the decade between 1877 and 1887 that Tchaikovsky created most of his spiritual works. This also happened to be a time in which his close friendship with [[tchaikovsky:Nikolay Kondratyev|Nikolaj Kondrat'ev]] and family was under some stress, and they did not visit each other very much. During this time Tchaikovsky thought about existential questions, up to creating his own creed. In 1877 the composer writes:


In 1855, Tchaikovsky's father funded private lessons with Rudolph Kündinger and questioned him about a musical career for his son. While impressed with the boy's talent, Kündinger said he saw nothing to suggest a future composer or performer.<ref>Holden, 24–25; Warrack, ''Tchaikovsky'', 31.</ref> He later admitted that his assessment was also based on his own negative experiences as a musician in Russia and his unwillingness for Tchaikovsky to be treated likewise.<ref>Poznansky, ''Eyes'', 17.</ref> Tchaikovsky was told to finish his course and then try for a post in the Ministry of Justice.<ref>Holden, 25; Warrack, ''Tchaikovsky'', 31.</ref>
{{quote|text=I have forgotten that there are plenty of people who managed to create for themselves an harmonic set of ideas that replaced religion for them. It remains for me only to envy those people. It seems to me that all my life I am doomed to doubt and to look for a way out of contradictions|author=Pyotr Tchaikovsky|source=''Perepiska s N. F. fon-Mekk'', vol. 1, p. 111 (letter from  Venice, December 5-17, 1877)}}


===Civil service; pursuing music===
And in 1887 again the composer makes a record in his diary touching on his religious beliefs:
[[File:Youngtchaik.jpg|thumb|left|upright|alt=A clean-shaven man in his teens wearing a dress shirt, tie and dark jacket.|Tchaikovsky as a student at the Moscow Conservatory. Photo, 1863]]


On 10 June 1859, the 19-year-old Tchaikovsky graduated as a titular counselor, a low rung on the civil service ladder. Appointed to the Ministry of Justice, he became a junior assistant within six months and a senior assistant two months after that. He remained a senior assistant for the rest of his three-year civil service career.<ref>Brown, ''Man and Music'', 14.</ref>
{{quote|text=How strange it was for me to read that 365 days ago I was still afraid to acknowledge that, despite all the fervor of sympathetic feelings awakened by Christ, I dared to doubt His Divinity. Since then, my religion has become infinitely more clear; I have been thinking much about God, life and death all this time, and especially in Aachen the fatal questions - what for, how, why? - often occupied me and anxiously flashed before me. It is the religion of mine that I would like to word in detail some time, if only to clarify for myself once and forever my beliefs and that border where they arise after the speculation. However, life with its vanities flies by, and I don't know if I shall have time to express that Credo that has been worked out by me lately. It has been worked out very clearly, but nevertheless, I do not use it for my praying practice yet. I am praying still as before, as I was taught to pray. However, God hardly needs to know how and why people pray. God does not need prayer. But we need it|author=Pyotr Tchaikovsky<ref>Wladimir Lakond, ''The Diaries of Tchaikovsky'' (1945), p. 249</ref> <ref>Dnevniki, ''P. I. Cajkovskogo'', p. 213 (record of September 21, 1887)</ref>}}


Meanwhile, the [[Russian Musical Society]] (RMS) was founded in 1859 by the [[Princess Charlotte of Württemberg|Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna]] (a German-born aunt of [[Tsar]] [[Alexander II of Russia|Alexander II]]) and her protégé, pianist and composer [[Anton Rubinstein]]. Previous tsars and the aristocracy had focused almost exclusively on importing European talent.<ref>Maes, 31.</ref> The aim of the RMS was to fulfill Alexander II's wish to foster native talent.<ref>Maes, 35.</ref> It hosted a regular season of public concerts (previously held only during the six weeks of [[Lent]] when the Imperial Theaters were closed)<ref>Volkov, 71.</ref> and provided basic professional training in music.<ref>Maes, 35; Warrack, ''Tchaikovsky'', 36.</ref> In 1861, Tchaikovsky attended RMS classes in [[music theory]] taught by [[Nikolai Zaremba]] at the [[Mikhailovsky Palace]] (now the [[Russian Museum]]).<ref>Brown, ''Early'', 60</ref> These classes were a precursor to the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, which opened in 1862. Tchaikovsky enrolled at the Conservatory as part of its premiere class. He studied [[harmony]] and [[counterpoint]] with Zaremba and instrumentation and composition with Rubinstein.<ref>Brown, ''Man and Music'', 20; Holden, 38–39; Warrack, ''Tchaikovsky'', 36–38.</ref>
{{quote|text=Ironically, Kondrat'ev's words: ''"Pray, my friend, pray. God will help you to get out of this situation"''<ref>Pëtr Il'ic Cajkovskij, ''Perepiska s N. F. fon-Mekk'', vol. 1, p. 113-114 (letter from Venice, December 5-17, 1877)</ref>, that had offended Tchaikovsky so much in 1877, appeared to be prophetic.|author=Yelena Dyachkova|source=Tchaikovsky and the Bible}}


The Conservatory benefited Tchaikovsky in two ways. It transformed him into a musical professional, with tools to help him thrive as a composer, and the in-depth exposure to European principles and musical forms gave him a sense that his art was not exclusively Russian or Western.<ref name="taruskin_go4663">Taruskin, ''Grove Opera'', 4:663–64.</ref> This mindset became important in Tchaikovsky's reconciliation of Russian and European influences in his compositional style. He believed and attempted to show that both these aspects were "intertwined and mutually dependent".<ref>Figes, xxxii; Volkov, 111–12.</ref> His efforts became both an inspiration and a starting point for other Russian composers to build their own individual styles.<ref>Hosking, 347.</ref>
It is possible that the [[tchaikovsky:Symphony No. 5|Fifth Symphony]] grew out of some of these reflections, as suggested by Tchaikovsky’s notes on the initial sketches.<ref>see the work history http://www.tchaikovsky-research.net/en/Works/Symphonies/TH029.html</ref>


[[File:Rubinstein N & A Postcard-1910.jpg|thumb|Anton (right) and Nikolai Rubinstein]]
Though having many doubts about christianity, Tchaikovsky however liked and at times attended Orthodox liturgies. Yelena Dyachkova writes:
Rubinstein was impressed by Tchaikovsky's musical talent on the whole and cited him as "a composer of genius" in his autobiography.<ref>Poznansky, ''Eyes'', 47–48; Rubinstein, 110.</ref> He was less pleased with the more progressive tendencies of some of Tchaikovsky's student work.<ref>Brown, ''Early'', 76; Wiley, ''Tchaikovsky'', 35.</ref> Nor did he change his opinion as Tchaikovsky's reputation grew.<ref group=a>Tchaikovsky ascribed Rubinstein's coolness to a difference in musical temperaments. Rubinstein could have been jealous professionally of Tchaikovsky's greater impact as a composer. [[Homophobia]] might have been another factor (Poznansky, ''Eyes'', 29).</ref><ref group=a>An exception to Rubinstein's antipathy was the ''[[Serenade for Strings (Tchaikovsky)|Serenade for Strings]]'', which he declared "Tchaikovsky's best piece" when he heard it in rehearsal. "At last this St. Petersburg pundit, who had growled with such consistent disapproval at Tchaikovsky's successive compositions, had found a work by his former pupil which he could endorse," according to Tchaikovsky biographer [[David Brown (musicologist)|David Brown]] (Brown, ''Wandering'', 121).</ref> He and Zaremba clashed with Tchaikovsky when he submitted his [[Symphony No. 1 (Tchaikovsky)|First Symphony]] for performance by the [[Russian Musical Society]]  in Saint Petersburg. Rubinstein and Zaremba refused to consider the work unless substantial changes were made. Tchaikovsky complied but they still refused to perform the symphony.<ref>Brown, ''Early'', 100–01.</ref> Tchaikovsky, distressed that he had been treated as though he were still their student, withdrew the symphony. It was given its first complete performance, minus the changes Rubinstein and Zaremba had requested, in Moscow in February 1868.<ref>Brown, ''New Grove'', 18:608.</ref>


Once Tchaikovsky graduated in 1865, Rubinstein's brother [[Nikolai Rubinstein|Nikolai]] offered him the post of Professor of Music Theory at the soon-to-open [[Moscow Conservatory]]. While the salary for his professorship was only 50 [[Russian ruble|rubles]] a month, the offer itself boosted Tchaikovsky's morale and he accepted the post eagerly. He was further heartened by news of the first public performance of one of his works, his ''Characteristic Dances'', conducted by [[Johann Strauss II]] at a concert in [[Pavlovsk Park]] on 11 September 1865 (Tchaikovsky later included this work, re-titled ''Dances of the Hay Maidens'', in his opera ''[[The Voyevoda (opera)|The Voyevoda]]'').<ref>Brown, ''Early'', 82–83.</ref>
{{quote|text=It gave him strong emotional experience. ''"My attitude to church completely differs from yours,"'' Tchaikovsky wrote to Nadežda von Meck. ''"For me it still keeps plenty of poetic charm. I attend mass very often; in my opinion, the Liturgy of John Chrysostom is one of the greatest  artistic works. Being attentive at our Orthodox service and going carefully into the sense of every ceremony, you are certainly touched by the spirit. I also love all night vigil. To go on Saturday to an old small church, to stand in twilight filled with incense smoke, to dip into yourself and to search inside yourself for the answer to eternal questions: what for, when, where to, why?, awaking from  muse when the choir begins to sing "From my youth many passions possess me", and to give yourself up to the influence of the fascinating poetry of this psalm, to be filled with some quiet admiration, when holy doors open and it is heard "Praise God from Heaven!", - oh, I like all that enormously, it is one of my greatest delights!"''<ref>Pëtr Il'ic Cajkovskij, ''Perepiska s N. F. fon-Mekk'', vol. 1, p. 91 (letter from Vienna, November 23 - December 5, 1877)</ref> In another letter the composer writes: ''"This week I have attended many church services and experienced great artistic delight. The Orthodox service acts upon the soul amazingly, if it is arranged, for example, like here in the Church of the Saviour!"''<ref>Pëtr Il'ic Cajkovskij, ''Perepiska s N. F. fon-Mekk'', vol. 3, p. 270 (letter on the way from Moscow to Kamenka, April 7, 1884)</ref>|author=Yelena Dyachkova|source=Tchaikovsky and the Bible}}


From 1867 to 1878, Tchaikovsky combined his professorial duties with [[Music journalism|music criticism]] while continuing to compose.<ref>Holden, 83; Warrack, ''Tchaikovsky'', 61.</ref> This activity exposed him to a range of contemporary music and afforded him the opportunity to travel abroad.<ref>Wiley, ''Tchaikovsky'', 87.</ref> In his reviews, he praised [[Ludwig van Beethoven|Beethoven]], considered [[Johannes Brahms|Brahms]] overrated and, despite his admiration, took [[Robert Schumann|Schumann]] to task for poor orchestration.<ref>Wiley, ''Tchaikovsky'', 79.</ref><ref group=a>His critique led Tchaikovsky to consider rescoring Schumann's symphonies, a project he never realized (Wiley, ''Tchaikovsky'', 79).</ref> He appreciated the staging of [[Richard Wagner|Wagner's]] ''[[Der Ring des Nibelungen]]'' at its inaugural performance in [[Bayreuth]] (Germany), but not the music, calling ''[[Das Rheingold]]'' "unlikely nonsense, through which, from time to time, sparkle unusually beautiful and astonishing details".<ref>As quoted in Wiley, ''Tchaikovsky'', 95.</ref> A recurring theme he addressed was the poor state of [[Russian opera]].<ref>Wiley, ''Tchaikovsky'', 77.</ref>
In particular Tchaikovsky liked the Easter celebrations:


====Relationship with The Five====
{{quote|text=In one of his letters he complains: ''"For the first time in my life I have to spend Passion Week and celebrate Easter outside Russia. It is a considerable privation for me; from my early years I used to love this festival especially, and now I feel envy while thinking of those who celebrate it in Russia"''<ref>Pëtr Il'ic Cajkovskij, ''Perepiska s N. F. fon-Mekk'', vol. 3, p. 172 (letter from Paris, April 16, 1883)</ref>|author=Yelena Dyachkova|source=Tchaikovsky and the Bible}}
{{see also|Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and The Five}}
[[File:Balakirev from 1914 Windsor Magazine.png|thumb|upright|alt=A man in his late 20s or early 30s with dark hair and a bushy beard, wearing a dark coat, dress shirt and tie.|The young [[Mily Balakirev]]]]


In 1856, while Tchaikovsky was still at the School of Jurisprudence and Anton Rubinstein lobbied aristocrats to form the [[Russian Musical Society]], critic [[Vladimir Stasov]] and an 18-year-old pianist, [[Mily Balakirev]], met and agreed upon a [[musical nationalism|nationalist]] agenda for Russian music, one that would take the operas of [[Mikhail Glinka]] as a model and incorporate elements from folk music, reject traditional Western practices and use non-Western harmonic devices such as the [[whole tone scale|whole tone]] and [[octatonic scale]]s.<ref>Figes, 178–81.</ref> They saw Western-style conservatories as unnecessary and antipathetic to fostering native talent.<ref>Maes, 8–9; Wiley, ''Tchaikovsky'', 27.</ref>
In his diary he writes of his impressions of [[w:Beethoven|Beethoven]] and [[w:Mozart|Mozart]], comparing them with his impressions of God and Jesus:


Eventually, Balakirev, [[César Cui]], [[Modest Mussorgsky]], [[Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov]] and [[Alexander Borodin]] became known as the ''moguchaya kuchka'', translated into English as the "Mighty Handful" or [[The Five (composers)|"The Five"]].<ref>Garden, ''New Grove (2001)'', 8:913.</ref> Rubinstein criticized their emphasis on amateur efforts in musical composition; Balakirev and later Mussorgsky attacked Rubinstein for his musical conservatism and his belief in professional music training.<ref>Maes, 39.</ref> Tchaikovsky and his fellow conservatory students were caught in the middle.<ref>Maes, 42.</ref>
{{quote|text=I shall begin with Beethoven, whom it is usual to extol indisputably, and it is enjoined to worship him as a god. Thus, what is Beethoven for me? I admire a greatness in some of his works - but I do not love Beethoven. My attitude to him reminds me what I felt in my childhood about the Lord of Sabaoth. I felt (and by now my feelings have not changed) amazement, and at the same time, fear towards Him. He created Heaven and Earth, and He created me also, and yet, although I cringe before Him, there is no love. Christ, on the contrary, arouses just and only feeling of love. Although he was God, at the same time he was a man. He suffered like we. We feel sorry for him, we love in him his ideal human features. And when Beethoven takes a place in my heart similar to the Lord of Sabaoth, then I love Mozart as the Christ of music. By the way, you know, he lived almost as long as Christ|author=Pyotr Tchaikovsky|source=Dnevniki P. I. Cajkovskogo, p. 209-210 (record of June 29, 1886)}}


While ambivalent about much of The Five's music, Tchaikovsky remained on friendly terms with most of its members.<ref>Maes, 49.</ref> In 1869, he and Balakirev worked together on what became Tchaikovsky's first recognized masterpiece, the fantasy-overture ''[[Romeo and Juliet (Tchaikovsky)|Romeo and Juliet]]'', a work which The Five wholeheartedly embraced.<ref>Brown, ''Man and Music'', 49.</ref> The group also welcomed his [[Symphony No. 2 (Tchaikovsky)|Second Symphony]], subtitled the ''Little Russian''.<ref>Brown, ''Early'', 255.</ref> Despite their support, Tchaikovsky made considerable efforts to ensure his musical independence from the group as well as from the conservative faction at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory.<ref>Holden, 51–52.</ref>
== Musical compositions ==


====Growing fame; budding opera composer====
[[File:Porträt_des_Komponisten_Pjotr_I._Tschaikowski_(1840-1893).jpg|thumb|212px|{{center|Pjotr I. Tschaikowski, oil on canvas, by [[w:Nikolai Dmitriyevich Kuznetsov|Nikolai Dmitriyevich Kuznetsov]] (1893)}}]]
{{Listen
| filename      = Tchaikovsky, Concerto No.1 in B-flat minor Op.23, I. Allegro.ogg
| title        = Piano Concerto No.1 in B-flat minor Op.23 – I. Allegro
| description = ''Allegro non-troppo e molto maestoso – Allegro con spirito'' from Tchaikovsky's [[Piano Concerto No. 1 (Tchaikovsky)|First Piano Concerto]]}}
The infrequency of Tchaikovsky's musical successes, won with tremendous effort, exacerbated his lifelong sensitivity to criticism. Nikolai Rubinstein's private fits of rage critiquing his music, such as attacking the [[Piano Concerto No. 1 (Tchaikovsky)|First Piano Concerto]], did not help matters.<ref name="wiley25147"/> His popularity grew, however, as several first-rate artists became willing to perform his compositions. [[Hans von Bülow]] premiered the First Piano Concerto and championed other Tchaikovsky works both as pianist and conductor.<ref>Steinberg, ''Concerto'', 474–76; Wiley, ''New Grove (2001)'', 25:161.</ref> Other artists included [[Adele Aus der Ohe]], [[Max Erdmannsdörfer]], [[Eduard Nápravník]] and [[Sergei Taneyev]].


[[File:Hans von buelow.jpg|thumb|left|upright|alt=A middle-aged, balding man with a mustache and small beard, wearing a dark suit and holding a cigarette.|The conductor [[Hans von Bülow]]]]
Musical compositions by Tchaikovsky which were religiously inspired are:


Another factor that helped Tchaikovsky's music become popular was a shift in attitude among Russian audiences. Whereas they had previously been satisfied with flashy virtuoso performances of technically demanding but musically lightweight compositions, they gradually began listening with increasing appreciation of the music itself. Tchaikovsky's works were performed frequently, with few delays between their composition and first performances; the publication from 1867 onward of his songs and great piano music for the home market also helped boost the composer's popularity.<ref>Wiley, ''New Grove (2001)'', 25:153–54.</ref>
=== The All-Night Vigil (Vesper Service), for unaccompanied chorus Op. 52 (1881-82) ===


During the late 1860s, Tchaikovsky began to compose operas. His first, ''[[The Voyevoda (opera)|The Voyevoda]]'', based on a play by [[Alexander Ostrovsky]], premiered in 1869. The composer became dissatisfied with it, however, and, having re-used parts of it in later works, destroyed the manuscript. ''[[Undina (Tchaikovsky)|Undina]]'' followed in 1870. Only excerpts were performed and it, too, was destroyed.<ref name="Taruskin 665">Taruskin, 665.</ref> Between these projects, Tchaikovsky started to compose an opera called ''Mandragora'', to a libretto by Sergei Rachinskii; the only music he completed was a short chorus of Flowers and Insects.<ref>Holden, 75–76; Warrack, ''Tchaikovsky'', 58–59.</ref>
The [[tchaikovsky:All-Night Vigil|All Night Vigil]] (Всенощное бдение), Op. 52, also known as the '''''Vesper Service''''', was written between May 1881 and March 1882. Tchaikovsky described it as "An essay in harmonisation of liturgical chants".


The first Tchaikovsky opera to survive intact, ''[[The Oprichnik]]'', premiered in 1874. During its composition, he lost Ostrovsky's part-finished libretto. Tchaikovsky, too embarrassed to ask for another copy, decided to write the libretto himself, modelling his dramatic technique on that of [[Eugène Scribe]]. Cui wrote a "characteristically savage press attack" on the opera. Mussorgsky, writing to [[Vladimir Stasov]], disapproved of the opera as pandering to the public. Nevertheless, ''The Oprichnik'' continues to be performed from time to time in Russia.<ref name="Taruskin 665"/>
==== Movements and Duration ====
There are seventeen numbers, intended to be sung at specific points during the service.
# Introductory Psalm: "Bless My Soul, O Lord" (Предначинательный псалом: «Благослови душе моя»)
# "Lord Have Mercy" and other brief responses («Господи, помилуй» и другие краткие молитвословия)
# Kathisma: "Blessed is the Man"' (Кафисма: «Блажен муж»)
# "Lord, I Call to Thee" («Господи, воззвах к Тебе»)
# "Gladsome Light" («Свете тихий»)
# "Rejoice, O Virgin" («Богородице, Дево, радуйся»)
# "The Lord is God" («Бог Господь»)
# Polyeleion: "Praise the Name of the Lord" (Полиелей: «Хвалите имя Господне»)
# Troparia: "Blessed Art Thou, Lord" (Тропари: «Благословен еси Господи»)
# Gradual Antiphon: "From My Youth" (Степенна «От юности моея»)
# Hymns after the Gospel Reading: "Having Beheld the Resurrection of Christ" (Песнопения по Евангелии: «Воскресение Христово видевше»)
# Common Katabasis: "I Shall Open My Lips" (Катавасия рядовая: «Отверзну уста моя»)
# Canticle of the Mother of God (Песнь Богоматери с припевом)
# "Holy is the Lord Our God" («Свят Господь Бог наш»)
# Theotokion: "Both Now and Forever" (Богородичен «И ныне и присно»)
# Great Doxology: "Glory to God in the Highest" (Великое славословие: «Слава в вышних Богу»)
# "To Thee the Glorious Leader" («Взбранной Воеводе победительная»)
A complete concert performance lasts around 45 minutes.


The last of the early operas, ''[[Vakula the Smith]]'' (Op.14), was composed in the second half of 1874. The libretto, based on [[Nikolai Gogol|Gogol]]'s ''[[Christmas Eve (Gogol)|Christmas Eve]]'', was to have been set to music by [[Alexander Serov]]. With Serov's death, the libretto was opened to a competition with a guarantee that the winning entry would be premiered by the [[Imperial Mariinsky Theatre]]. Tchaikovsky was declared the winner, but at the 1876 premiere, the opera enjoyed only a lukewarm reception.<ref>Brown, ''Viking'', 1086.</ref> After Tchaikovsky's death, Rimsky-Korsakov wrote the opera ''[[Christmas Eve (opera)|Christmas Eve]]'', based on the same story.<ref>Maes, 171.</ref>
==== Text ====
Tchaikovsky adapted the text from the Russian Orthodox Liturgy service. Several of the numbers are based on the text of Biblical psalms:
* No. 1 – after {{Bible quote|version=NABRE|ref=Psalm 103}}
* No. 3 – after {{Bible quote|version=NABRE|ref=Psalm 150}}
* No. 4 – after {{Bible quote|version=NABRE|ref=Psalm 140}}
* No. 7 – after {{Bible quote|version=NABRE|ref=Psalm 117}}
* No. 8 – after {{Bible quote|version=NABRE|ref=Psalm 134}} and {{Bible quote|version=NABRE|ref=Psalm 135}}
* No. 9 – after {{Bible quote|version=NABRE|ref=Psalm 148}}
* No. 10 – after {{Bible quote|version=NABRE|ref=Psalm 119}}, {{Bible quote|version=NABRE|ref=Psalm 120}}, {{Bible quote|version=NABRE|ref=Psalm 121}}, {{Bible quote|version=NABRE|ref=Psalm 122}}, {{Bible quote|version=NABRE|ref=Psalm 123}}, {{Bible quote|version=NABRE|ref=Psalm 124}}, {{Bible quote|version=NABRE|ref=Psalm 125}}, {{Bible quote|version=NABRE|ref=Psalm 126}}, {{Bible quote|version=NABRE|ref=Psalm 127}}, {{Bible quote|version=NABRE|ref=Psalm 128}}, {{Bible quote|version=NABRE|ref=Psalm 129}}, {{Bible quote|version=NABRE|ref=Psalm 130}}, {{Bible quote|version=NABRE|ref=Psalm 131}}, {{Bible quote|version=NABRE|ref=Psalm 132}}.
* No. 11 – after {{Bible quote|version=NABRE|ref=Psalm 148}}, {{Bible quote|version=NABRE|ref=Psalm 149}}, {{Bible quote|version=NABRE|ref=Psalm 150}} and {{Bible quote|version=NABRE|ref=Psalm 140}}


Other works of this period include the ''[[Variations on a Rococo Theme]]'' for cello and orchestra, the [[Symphony No. 3 (Tchaikovsky)|Third]] and [[Symphony No. 4 (Tchaikovsky)|Fourth Symphonies]], the ballet ''[[Swan Lake]]'', and the opera ''[[Eugene Onegin (opera)|Eugene Onegin]]''.
{{#ev:youtube|https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbg6_I4g0dA||center|||rel=0&enablejsapi=1&origin=https://en.seminaverbi.bibleget.io}}


===Personal life===
=== The Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom ===


[[File:Tchaikovsky with wife Antonina Miliukova.jpg|thumb|left|upright|alt=A middle aged man with dark hair and a beard, wearing a dark suit and holding a book, sits next to a young woman in a black dress wearing her hair up on her head|Tchaikovsky and Antonina on their honeymoon, 1877]]
See [[Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom (Tchaikovsky)]] and [[tchaikovsky:Liturgy_of_Saint_John_Chrysostom|Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom]].
[[File:Kotek iosif.jpg|thumb|right|alt=|[[Iosif Kotek]] (left) and Tchaikovsky (right), 1877]]
Discussion of Tchaikovsky's personal life, especially his sexuality, has perhaps been the most extensive of any composer in the 19th century and certainly of any Russian composer of his time.<ref>Wiley, ''Tchaikovsky'', xvi.</ref> It has also at times caused considerable confusion, from Soviet efforts to expunge all references to same-sex attraction and portray him as a heterosexual, to efforts at analysis by Western biographers.<ref>Maes, 133–34; Wiley, ''Tchaikovsky'', xvii.</ref>


Biographers have generally agreed that Tchaikovsky was homosexual.<ref>Poznansky, ''Quest'', all.</ref> He sought the company of other men in his circle for extended periods, "associating openly and establishing professional connections with them".<ref name="wiley25147">Wiley, ''New Grove (2001)'', 25:147.</ref> His first love was reportedly Sergey Kireyev, a younger fellow student at the Imperial School of Jurisprudence. According to Modest Tchaikovsky, this was Pyotr Ilyich's "strongest, longest and purest love". The degree to which the composer might have felt comfortable with his sexual desires has, however, remained open to debate. It is still unknown whether Tchaikovsky, according to musicologist and biographer [[David Brown (musicologist)|David Brown]], "felt tainted within himself, defiled by something from which he finally realized he could never escape"<ref>Brown, ''Early'', 50.</ref> or whether, according to Alexander Poznansky, he experienced "no unbearable guilt" over his sexual desires<ref name="wiley25147" /> and "eventually came to see his sexual peculiarities as an insurmountable and even natural part of his personality&nbsp;... without experiencing any serious psychological damage".<ref>Poznansky, as quoted in Holden, 394.</ref>
'''''Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom''''' (Литургия святого Иоанна Златоуста), Op. 41, is a setting for unaccompanied voices of fifteen numbers from the Russian Orthodox Liturgy for unaccompanied voices, made by Tchaikovsky in 1878.


Relevant portions of his brother Modest's autobiography, where he tells of the composer's same-sex attraction, have been published, as have letters previously suppressed by Soviet censors in which Tchaikovsky openly writes of it.<ref>Poznansky, ''Eyes'', 8, 24, 77, 82, 103–05, 165–68. Also see P.I. Chaikovskii. ''Al'manakh, vypusk 1'', (Moscow, 1995).</ref> Such censorship has persisted in the Russian government in 2013, resulting in many officials, including the former culture minister [[Vladimir Medinsky]], denying his homosexuality outright.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/sep/18/tchaikovsky-not-gay-russian-minister|title=Tchaikovsky was not gay, says Russian culture minister|last=Walker|first=Shaun|date=18 September 2013|work=The Guardian|access-date=21 April 2018}}</ref>
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''.<ref name=MusicaRussica>{{cite web|title=Peter Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)|work=Musica Russica|url=http://www.musicarussica.com/composers/peter-tchaikovsky|accessdate=22 March 2013}}</ref>
Passages in Tchaikovsky's letters which reveal his homosexual desires have been censored in Russia. In one such passage
he told of a homosexual acquaintance: "Petashenka used to drop by with the criminal intention of observing the Cadet Corps, which is right opposite our windows, but I've been trying to discourage these compromising visits – and with some success." In another one he wrote "After our walk, I offered him some money, which was refused. He does it for the love of art and adores men with beards."<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/jun/02/tchaikovsky-letters-saved-from-censors-reveal-secret-loves-homosexuality|title=Tchaikovsky and the secret gay loves censors tried to hide|first=Dalya|last=Alberge|date=2 June 2018|via=www.theguardian.com}}</ref>


Tchaikovsky lived as a bachelor for most of his life. In 1868 he met Belgian soprano [[Désirée Artôt]]. They became infatuated with each other and were engaged to be married,<ref>Brown, ''Early Years'', 156–57; Warrack, ''Tchaikovsky'', 53.</ref> but due to Artôt's refusal to give up the stage or settle in Russia, the relationship ended.<ref>Brown, ''Early'', 156–58; Poznansky, ''Eyes'', 88.</ref> Tchaikovsky later claimed she was the only woman he ever loved.<ref>{{cite web|title=Artôt, Désirée (1835–1907) |url=http://www.schubertiademusic.com/index.php?catalog=catalog-4 |publisher=Schubertiade music |accessdate=21 February 2009 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20090624013042/http://www.schubertiademusic.com/index.php?catalog=catalog-4 |archivedate=24 June 2009 }}</ref> In 1877, at the age of 37, he wed a former student, [[Antonina Miliukova]].<ref name="marriage">Brown, ''Crisis'', 137–47; Polayansky, ''Quest'', 207–08, 219–20; Wiley, ''Tchaikovsky'', 147–50.</ref> The marriage was a disaster. Mismatched psychologically and sexually,<ref name="wedding2">Brown, ''Crisis'', 146–48; Poznansky, ''Quest'', 234; Wiley, ''Tchaikovsky'', 152.</ref> the couple lived together for only two and a half months before Tchaikovsky left, overwrought emotionally and suffering from acute [[writer's block]].<ref name="wedding3">Brown, ''Crisis'', 157; Poznansky, ''Quest'', 234; Wiley, ''Tchaikovsky'', 155.</ref> Tchaikovsky's family remained supportive of him during this crisis and throughout his life.<ref>Wiley, ''New Grove'' (2001), 25:147.</ref>  
==== Movements and Duration ====
The fifteen numbers are intended to be sung at specific points in the liturgy service.
# '''Amen. Lord Have Mercy''' (Амин. Господи помилуй)<br/>After the exclamation "Blessed is the Kingdom" (После возглашения «Благословенно царство») (50 bars).
# '''Glory to the Father and to the Son''' (Слава Отцу и Сыну)<br/>After the First Antiphon (После первого антифона) (63 bars).
# '''Come, Let Us Worship''' (Придите, поклонимся)<br/>After the Little Entrance (После малого входа) (56 bars).
# '''Alleleuja''' (Аллилуйя)<br/>After the Epistle Reading (После чтения апостола) (15 bars).
# '''Glory to Thee, O Lord''' (Слава тебе Господи)<br/>After the Gospel Reading (После чтения евангелия) (26 bars).
# '''Cherubic Hymn''' (Херувимская песнь) (98 bars).
# '''Lord Have Mercy''' (Господи помилуй)<br/>After the Cherubic Hymn (После херувимской песни) (16 bars).
# '''I Believe in One God, The Father, The Almighty''' (Верую во Единаго Бога Отца)<br/>The Creed (Символ веры) (92 bars).
# '''Merciful Peace''' (Милость мира)<br/>After the Creed (После Cимвола веры) (42 bars).
# '''We Hymn Thee''' (Тебе поем)<br/>After the exclamation "Thine Own of Thine Own" (После возглашения «Твоя от твоих») (39 bars).
# '''It is Truly Fitting''' (Достойно есть)<br/>After the words "Especially For Our Most Holy" (После слов «Изрядко о пресвятей») (55 bars).
# '''Amen. And With Your Spirit, Lord Have Mercy''' (Амин. И со духом твоим, Господи, помилуй)<br/>After the exclamation "And Grant That With Our Mouths" (После возглашения: «И даждь нам единеми усты») (13 bars).
# '''Our Father''' (Отче наш)<br/>The Lord's Prayer (Молитва Господня) (44 bars).
# '''Praise the Lord from the Heavens''' (Хвалите, хвалите, Господа с небес)<br/>Communion Hymn (Причастный стих) (86 bars).
# '''Blessed is He Who Comes in the Name of the Lord''' (Благословен грядый во имя Господне)<br/>After the Exclamation "In the Fear of God" (После возглашения «Со страхом Божиим») (92 bars).
A complete concert performance lasts around 50 minutes.


He was also aided by [[Nadezhda von Meck]], the widow of a railway magnate, who had begun contact with him not long before the marriage. As well as an important friend and emotional support,<ref name="meck2">Holden, 159, 231–32.</ref> she became his patroness for the next 13 years, which allowed him to focus exclusively on composition.<ref name="meck1">Brown, ''Man and Music'', 171–72.</ref> While Tchaikovsky called her his "best friend" they agreed to never meet under any circumstances. Tchaikovsky's marital debacle may have forced him to face the full truth about his sexuality; he never blamed Antonina for the failure of their marriage.<ref>Warrack, ''Tchaikovsky'', 120.</ref>
==== Text ====
Tchaikovsky adapted the text from the Russian Orthodox Liturgy service.


===Years of wandering===
The Cherubikon is the usual Cherubic Hymn sung at the Great Entrance of the Byzantine liturgy. The hymn symbolically incorporates those present at the liturgy into the presence of the angels gathered around God's throne.
[[File:Von Meck.jpg|thumb|upright|alt=A middle-aged woman wearing her hair up on her head, wearing a dark dress with a large white collar|[[Nadezhda von Meck]], Tchaikovsky's patroness and confidante from 1877 to 1890]]
Tchaikovsky remained abroad for a year after the disintegration of his marriage. During this time, he completed ''Eugene Onegin'', orchestrated his Fourth Symphony, and composed the [[Violin Concerto (Tchaikovsky)|Violin Concerto]].<ref>Wiley, ''Tchaikovsky'', 159, 170, 193.</ref> He returned briefly to the Moscow Conservatory in the autumn of 1879.<ref>Brown, ''Crisis'', 297.</ref><ref group=a>Rubinstein had actually been operating under the assumption that Tchaikovsky might leave from the onset of the composer's marital crisis and was prepared for it (Wiley, ''Tchaikovsky'', 189–90). However, his meddling in the Tchaikovsky–von Meck relationship might have contributed to the composer's actual departure. Rubinstein's actions, which soured his relations with both Tchaikovsky and von Meck, included imploring von Meck in person to end Tchaikovsky's subsidy for the composer's own good (Brown, ''Crisis'', 250; Wiley, ''Tchaikovsky'', 188–89). Rubinstein's actions, in turn, had been spurred by Tchaikovsky's withdrawal from the Russian delegation for the [[Exposition Universelle (1878)|1878 Paris World's Fair]], a position for which Rubinstein had lobbied on the composer's behalf (Brown, ''Crisis'', 249–50; Wiley, ''Tchaikovsky'', 180, 188–89). Rubinstein had been scheduled to conduct four concerts there; the first featured Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto (Wiley, ''Tchaikovsky'', 190).</ref> For the next few years, assured of a regular income from von Meck, he traveled incessantly throughout Europe and rural Russia, mainly alone, and avoided social contact whenever possible.<ref name="brmm219">Brown, ''Man and Music'', 219.</ref>


During this time, Tchaikovsky's foreign reputation grew and a positive reassessment of his music also took place in Russia, thanks in part to Russian novelist [[Fyodor Dostoyevsky]]'s call for "universal unity" with the West at the unveiling of the Pushkin Monument in Moscow in 1880. Before Dostoyevsky's speech, Tchaikovsky's music had been considered "overly dependent on the West". As Dostoyevsky's message spread throughout Russia, this stigma toward Tchaikovsky's music evaporated.<ref name="volkovsp126">Volkov, 126.</ref> An unprecedented acclaim for him even drew a cult following among the young intelligentsia of Saint Petersburg, including [[Alexandre Benois]], [[Léon Bakst]] and [[Sergei Diaghilev]].<ref>Volkov, 122–23.</ref>
{{#ev:youtube|https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPlK5HwFxcw||center|||rel=0&enablejsapi=1&origin=https://en.seminaverbi.bibleget.io}}


Two musical works from this period stand out. With the [[Cathedral of Christ the Saviour (Moscow)|Cathedral of Christ the Saviour]] nearing completion in Moscow in 1880, the 25th anniversary of the coronation of [[Alexander II of Russia|Alexander II]] in 1881,<ref group="a">Celebration of this anniversary did not take place as [[Assassination of Alexander II|Alexander II was assassinated]] in March 1881.</ref> and the 1882 Moscow Arts and Industry Exhibition in the planning stage, [[Nikolai Rubinstein]] suggested that Tchaikovsky compose a grand commemorative piece. Tchaikovsky agreed and finished it within six weeks. He wrote to [[Nadezhda von Meck]] that this piece, the ''[[1812 Overture]]'', would be "very loud and noisy, but I wrote it with no warm feeling of love, and therefore there will probably be no artistic merits in it".<ref name="brwa119">As quoted in Brown, ''Wandering'', 119.</ref> He also warned conductor [[Eduard Nápravník]] that "I shan't be at all surprised and offended if you find that it is in a style unsuitable for symphony concerts".<ref name="brwa119" /> Nevertheless, the overture became, for many, "the piece by Tchaikovsky they know best",<ref name="brmm224">Brown, ''Man and Music'', 224.</ref> particularly well-known for the use of cannon in the scores.<ref>Aaron Green,[https://www.thoughtco.com/tchaikovskys-1812-overture-724401 "Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture"],''THOUGHTCo''.,25 March 2017</ref>
=== Legend ===


On 23 March 1881, Nikolai Rubinstein died in Paris. That December, Tchaikovsky started work on his [[Piano Trio (Tchaikovsky)|Piano Trio in A&nbsp;minor]], "dedicated to the memory of a great artist".<ref>As quoted in Brown, ''Wandering'', 151.</ref> First performed privately at the Moscow Conservatory on the first anniversary of Rubinstein's death, the piece became extremely popular during the composer's lifetime; in November 1893, it would become Tchaikovsky's own elegy at memorial concerts in Moscow and St. Petersburg.<ref>Brown, ''Wandering'', 151–52.</ref><ref group="a">The piece also fulfilled a long-standing request by von Meck for such a work, to be performed by her then-house pianist, [[Claude Debussy]] (Brown, ''New Grove (1980)'', 18:620).</ref>
See [[Legend (Tchaikovsky)]] and [[tchaikovsky:Sixteen_Songs_for_Children,_Op._54|Sixteen Songs for Children, Op. 54]].


===Return to Russia===
Tchaikovsky's '''''Sixteen Songs for Children''''' (Шестнадцать песен для детей), Op. 54, were written at [[tchaikovsky:Kamenka|Kamenka]] in October and November 1883, except for No. 16 which dates from around December 1880.
[[File:Alexander III. Czar Of Russia Nadar.jpg|thumb|left|upright|alt=A stocky, balding man with a beard, wearing a dark military uniform.|[[Tsar]] [[Alexander III of Russia|Alexander III]]]]


In 1884, Tchaikovsky began to shed his unsociability and restlessness. That March, [[Tsar]] [[Alexander III of Russia|Alexander III]] conferred upon him the [[Order of St. Vladimir]] (fourth class), which included a title of [[Russian nobility|hereditary nobility]]<ref name="browngrove18621"/> and a personal audience with the Tsar.<ref name="wiley162"/> This was seen as a seal of official approval which advanced Tchaikovsky's social standing<ref name="browngrove18621">Brown, ''New Grove'', 18:621; Holden, 233.</ref> and might have been cemented in the composer's mind by the success of his [[Orchestral Suite No. 3 (Tchaikovsky)|Orchestral Suite No. 3]] at its January 1885 premiere in Saint Petersburg.<ref name="brmm275">Brown, ''Man and Music'', 275.</ref>
'''''Legend''''' (Russian: Легенда, Legenda), Op. 54, No. 5 (also known as '''''The Crown of Roses''''' in some English-language sources) is a composition by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Originally written in 1883 as a song for solo voice and piano, it was subsequently arranged by Tchaikovsky for solo voice and orchestra (1884), and then for unaccompanied choir (1889). The words are based on the poem "'''''Roses and Thorns'''''" by American poet [[w:Richard Henry Stoddard|Richard Henry Stoddard]], originally published in the May 1856 edition of [[w:Graham's Magazine|Graham's Magazine]], and translated into russian by [[tchaikovsky:Aleksey Pleshcheyev|Aleksey Pleshcheyev]]:


In 1885, Alexander III requested a new production of ''[[Eugene Onegin (opera)|Eugene Onegin]]'' at the [[Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre]] in Saint Petersburg.<ref group="a">Its only other production had been by students from the Conservatory.</ref> By having the opera staged there and not at the [[Mariinsky Theatre]], he served notice that Tchaikovsky's music was replacing [[Italian opera]] as the official imperial art. In addition, by virtue of [[Ivan Vsevolozhsky]], Director of the Imperial Theaters and a patron of the composer, Tchaikovsky was awarded a lifetime annual pension of 3,000 rubles from the Tsar. This made him the premier court composer, in practice if not in actual title.<ref>Maes, 140; Taruskin, ''Grove Opera'', 4:664.</ref>
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[[File:Pjotr Tšaikovskin kotimuseo.jpg|thumb|alt=A blue two-story house with white trim and many windows, surrounded by birch trees.|Tchaikovsky's last home, in [[Klin, Klinsky District, Moscow Oblast|Klin]], now the [[Tchaikovsky State House-Museum]]]]
{{#ev:youtube|https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TBtiB4l-KQ||center|||rel=0&enablejsapi=1&origin=https://en.seminaverbi.bibleget.io}}


Despite Tchaikovsky's disdain for public life, he now participated in it as part of his increasing celebrity and out of a duty he felt to promote Russian music. He helped support his former pupil [[Sergei Taneyev]], who was now director of Moscow Conservatory, by attending student examinations and negotiating the sometimes sensitive relations among various members of the staff. He served as director of the Moscow branch of the [[Russian Musical Society]] during the 1889–1890 season. In this post, he invited many international celebrities to conduct, including [[Johannes Brahms]], [[Antonín Dvořák]] and [[Jules Massenet]].<ref name="wiley162">Wiley, ''New Grove (2001)'', 25:162.</ref>
==== Text ====


During this period, Tchaikovsky also began promoting Russian music as a conductor,<ref name="wiley162"/> In January 1887, he substituted, on short notice, at the [[Bolshoi Theatre|Bolshoi Theater]] in Moscow for performances of his opera ''[[Cherevichki]]''.<ref>Holden, 261; Warrack, ''Tchaikovsky'', 197.</ref> Within a year, he was in considerable demand throughout Europe and Russia. These appearances helped him overcome life-long [[glossophobia|stage fright]] and boosted his self-assurance.<ref>Holden, 266; Warrack, ''Tchaikovsky'', 232.</ref> In 1888, Tchaikovsky led the premiere of his [[Symphony No. 5 (Tchaikovsky)|Fifth Symphony]] in Saint Petersburg, repeating the work a week later with the first performance of his tone poem ''[[Hamlet (Tchaikovsky)|Hamlet]]''. Although critics proved hostile, with [[César Cui]] calling the symphony "routine" and "meretricious", both works were received with extreme enthusiasm by audiences and Tchaikovsky, undeterred, continued to conduct the symphony in Russia and Europe.<ref>Holden, 272–73.</ref> Conducting brought him to the United States in 1891, where he led the [[New York Symphony Orchestra|New York Music Society's]] orchestra in his ''Festival Coronation March'' at the inaugural concert of [[Carnegie Hall]].<ref>Brown, ''Final'', 319–20</ref>
{{Poem quote|text=The young child Jesus had a garden
Full of roses, rare and red;
And thrice a day he watered them,
To make a garland for his head!


===Belyayev circle and growing reputation===
When they were full-blown in the garden,
{{see also|Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and the Belyayev circle}}
He led the Jewish children there,
[[File:Čajkovskij ritratto seduto - Odessa (1893).gif|thumb|190px|Tchaikovsky in [[Odessa]], where he conducted five concerts in January 1893]]
And each did pluck himself a rose,
In November 1887, Tchaikovsky arrived at Saint Petersburg in time to hear several of the [[Russian Symphony Concerts]], devoted exclusively to the music of Russian composers. One included the first complete performance of his revised First Symphony; another featured the final version of Third Symphony of [[Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov]], with whose circle Tchaikovsky was already in touch.<ref>Brown, ''Final Years'', 90–91</ref>
Until they stripped the garden bare!


Rimsky-Korsakov, with [[Alexander Glazunov]], [[Anatoly Lyadov]] and several other nationalistically minded composers and musicians, had formed a group known as the [[Belyayev circle]], named after a merchant and amateur musician who became an influential music patron and publisher.<ref>Maes, 173</ref> Tchaikovsky spent much time in this circle, becoming far more at ease with them than he had been with the 'Five' and increasingly confident in showcasing his music alongside theirs.<ref>Brown, ''Final'', 92.</ref> This relationship lasted until Tchaikovsky's death.<ref name="poz564">Poznansky, ''Quest'', 564.</ref><ref>Rimsky-Korsakov, 308.</ref>
"And now how will you make your garland?
For not a rose your path adorns:"
"But you forget," he answered them,
"That you have left me still the thorns.


In 1892, Tchaikovsky was voted a member of the [[Académie des Beaux-Arts]] in France, only the second Russian subject to be so honored (the first was sculptor [[Mark Antokolski]]).<ref>Poznansky, ''Quest'', 548–49.</ref> The following year, the [[University of Cambridge]] in England awarded Tchaikovsky an honorary [[Doctor of Music]] degree.<ref>Warrack, ''Tchaikovsky'', 264.</ref>
They took the thorns, and made a garland,
And placed it on his shining head;
And where the roses should have shone,
Were little drops of blood instead!|title=Roses and Thorns |source={{cite journal |journal=Graham's Magazine |date=May 1856 |volume=xlviii |issue=5 |location=Philadelphia |title=Roses and Thorns |page=414 |first=R[ichard] H[enry] |last=Stoddard |url=https://hdl.handle.net/2027/iau.31858055621449?urlappend=%3Bseq=436}}}}


===Death===
=== The Maid of Orleans ===
{{see also|Death of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky|Symphony No. 6 (Tchaikovsky)}}
'''''The Maid of Orleans''''' (Орлеанская дева), in 4 acts and 6 scenes, is Tchaikovsky's sixth completed opera, based on the historical legend of [[w:Joan of Arc|Joan of Arc]]. It was composed between December 1878 and March 1879, and orchestrated between April and August 1879, with revisions in December 1880, and September-October 1882.
On 16/28 October 1893, Tchaikovsky conducted the premiere of his [[Symphony No. 6 (Tchaikovsky)|Sixth Symphony]],<ref>{{Cite web | url=http://en.tchaikovsky-research.net/pages/Symphony_No._6 | title=Symphony No. 6|website=tchaikovsky-research.net}}</ref> the ''Pathétique'', in Saint Petersburg. Nine days later, Tchaikovsky died there, aged 53. He was interred in [[Tikhvin Cemetery]] at the [[Alexander Nevsky Monastery]], near the graves of fellow-composers [[Alexander Borodin]], [[Mikhail Glinka]], and [[Modest Mussorgsky]]; later, [[Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov]] and [[Mily Balakirev]] were also buried nearby.<ref>Brown, ''Final'', 487.</ref>


While Tchaikovsky's death has traditionally been attributed to [[cholera]] from drinking unboiled water at [[Literaturnoye Kafe (Saint Petersburg)|a local restaurant]],<ref>Brown ''Man and Music'', 430–32; Holden, 371; Warrack, ''Tchaikovsky'', 269–70.</ref> there has been much speculation that his death was suicide.<ref name="brhosu">Brown, ''Man and Music'', 431–35; Holden, 373–400.</ref> In the ''[[New Grove Dictionary of Music]]'', [[Roland John Wiley]] wrote that "The [[polemics]] over [Tchaikovsky's] death have reached an impasse ... Rumors attached to the famous die hard ... As for illness, problems of evidence offer little hope of satisfactory resolution: the state of diagnosis; the confusion of witnesses; disregard of long-term effects of smoking and alcohol. We do not know how Tchaikovsky died. We may never find out".<ref name="wi25169">Wiley, ''New Grove (2001)'', 25:169.</ref>
==== Libretto ====
The opera's libretto was compiled by Tchaikovsky, after [[tchaikovsky:Friedrich Schiller|Friedrich Schiller]]'s tragedy ''Die Jungfrau von Orleans'' (1801) in a Russian translation by [[tchaikovsky:Vasily Zhukovsky|Vasily Zhukovsky]], with additional material from Auguste Mermet's opera ''Jeanne d'Arc'' and Jules Barbier's drama of the same name <ref name="note1">Jules Barbier's drama ''Jeanna d'Arc'', in 5 acts, 7 scenes with music by [[tchaikovsky:Charles Gounod|Charles Gounod]] was first performed in [[tchaikovsky:Paris|Paris]] on 8 November 1873. According to Félix Clément (1822–1885), this drama represented events with historical accuracy Among the musical numbers, Clément highly rated the chorus of refugees, the soldiers' chorus, and the funeral march — see Félix Clément & Pierre Larousse, ''Dictionnaire des operas (Dictionnaire lyrique)'' (1897 edition, revised by Arthur Pougin), p. 604. Auguste Mermet's opera ''Jeanna d'Arc'', in 4 acts, 6 scenes, was first performed in [[tchaikovsky:Paris|Paris]] on 5 April 1876.</ref>.


==Music==
During the summer of 1878 Tchaikovsky began to look for a subject for a new opera.
{{see also|List of compositions by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky|Music of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky|Symphonies by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky}}
[[File:Sleeping beauty cast.jpg|thumb|alt=A group of ballet dancers dressed in 17th-century costumes.|Original cast of Tchaikovsky's ballet, ''The Sleeping Beauty'', Saint Petersburg, 1890]]


===Creative range===
"Here I'm writing the ''Introduzione e Fuga''. Both of them will go to make up a ''suite'', which I want to do now in order to take a long break from symphonic music, and set about an opera. What shall it be? ''[[tchaikovsky:Romeo and Juliet (projected opera)|Romeo]]'' or ''[[tchaikovsky:Les Caprices de Marianne|Les Caprices de Marianne]]''?", Tchaikovsky wrote in the summer of 1878
{{Listen|type=music|filename=Violinist CARRIE REHKOPF-TCHAIKOVSKY VIOLIN CONCERTO 3rd mvt.ogg|title=Finale of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D major|description=The finale of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto, considered one of the most technically difficult works for the violin.}}
<ref name="note2">See [[tchaikovsky:Letter 900|Letter 900]] to [[tchaikovsky:Modest Tchaikovsky|Modest Tchaikovsky]], 21 August/2 September 1878.</ref>.
Tchaikovsky displayed a wide stylistic and emotional range, from light [[Salon music|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 [[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart|Mozart]] (his favorite composer). Other compositions, such as his [[Symphony No. 2 (Tchaikovsky)|''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.<ref name="brown_ng18628">Brown, ''New Grove (1980)'', 18:628.</ref> Other works, such as Tchaikovsky's last three symphonies, employ a personal musical idiom that facilitated intense emotional expression.<ref>Brown, ''New Grove'', 18:606.</ref>


===Tchaikovsky and Ukraine===
Many of the composer's statements dating from the summer and autumn of 1878 indicate his desire to find a plot for an opera that could inspire him. Ultimately a subject was found. On 21 November/3 December 1878 
Tchaikovsky first visited [[Ukraine]] in 1864, staying in [[Trostianets]] where he wrote his first orchestral work, ''[[The Storm (Tchaikovsky)|The Storm]]'' overture. Over the next 28 years, he visited over 15 places in Ukraine, where he stayed a few months at the time. Among his most favorite places was [[Kamianka, Cherkasy Oblast|Kamianka]], Cherkasy Oblast, where his sister Alexandra lived with her family. He wrote of Kamianka: "I found a feeling of peace in my soul, which I couldn't find in Moscow and St Petersburg".<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://uahistory.com/topics/famous_people/3115|title=Чайковський і Україна – UAHistory|date=7 November 2015|newspaper=UAHistory|language=uk-UA|access-date=1 January 2017}}</ref> Tchaikovsky wrote more than 30 compositions while in Ukraine. He also visited Ukrainian composer [[Mykola Lysenko]] and attended his ''[[Taras Bulba (opera)|Taras Bulba]]'' opera performance in 1890 in the [[National Opera of Ukraine|Kiev Opera House]]. Tchaikovsky was one of the founders of the [[Tchaikovsky National Music Academy of Ukraine|Kiev Music Conservatory]], which was later renamed after him. He also performed in concerts as a conductor in [[Kiev]], [[Odessa]], and [[Kharkiv]].
<ref name="note3">The original gives an incorrect date of "2 December".</ref>, Tchaikovsky writes to [[tchaikovsky:Nadezhda von Meck|Nadezhda von Meck]]: "I am attracted by a new operatic subject, namely:''The Maid of Orleans'' by [[tchaikovsky:Schiller|Schiller]] [...] The idea of writing an opera based on this story came to me in [[tchaikovsky:Kamenka|Kamenka]] while I was leafing through [[tchaikovsky:Zhukovsky|Zhukovsky]], who has translated [[tchaikovsky:Schiller|Schiller]]'s ''The Maid of Orleans''. It has wonderful potential for music [...] I was pondering the subject before my last visit to [[tchaikovsky:Saint Petersburg|Saint Petersburg]], but now I am seriously interested" 
<ref name="note4">[[tchaikovsky:Letter 973|Letter 973]] to [[tchaikovsky:Nadezhda von Meck|Nadezhda von Meck]], 21 November/3 December 1878; see also [[tchaikovsky:Letter 966|Letter 966]] to [[tchaikovsky:Modest Tchaikovsky|Modest Tchaikovsky]], 13/25 November 1878.</ref>.


===Compositional style===
Intending to write the libretto himself, Tchaikovsky embarked on studying the story. The composer did not restrict himself to [[tchaikovsky:Schiller|Schiller]]'s drama only: he sought to incorporate a variety of historical and artistic sources 
{{listen|type=music|pos=left
<ref name="note5">See [[tchaikovsky:Letter 968|Letter 968]] to [[tchaikovsky:Pyotr Jurgenson|Pyotr Jurgenson]], 15/27 November 1878; [[tchaikovsky:Letter 976|Letter 976]] to [[tchaikovsky:Nadezhda von Meck|Nadezhda von Meck]], 23 November/5 December 1878; [[tchaikovsky:Letter 1016|Letter 1016]] to [[tchaikovsky:Anatoly Tchaikovsky|Anatoly Tchaikovsky]], 11/23 December 1878; and [[tchaikovsky:Letter 1008|Letter 1008]] to [[tchaikovsky:Modest Tchaikovsky|Modest Tchaikovsky]], 6/18 December 1878.</ref>. On 6/18 December 1878 he told [[tchaikovsky:Nadezhda von Meck|Nadezhda von Meck]]: "For the moment I have only [[tchaikovsky:Schiller|Schiller]]'s drama translated by [[tchaikovsky:Zhukovsky|Zhukovsky]]. Obviously the opera text cannot be based strictly on [[tchaikovsky:Schiller|Schiller]]'s scenario. There are too many characters, too many minor episodes. It requires a reworking, not just an abridgement..." 
|filename=Tschikovsky Op 40.ogg|title=Valse in F-sharp minor|description=From ''Twelve Pieces for piano'', Op. 40, No. 9, a digital recording by [[Kevin MacLeod]]
<ref name="note6">[[tchaikovsky:Letter 1007|Letter 1007]] to [[tchaikovsky:Nadezhda von Meck|Nadezhda von Meck]], 6/18 December 1878.</ref>. "I want to burrow in catalogues and obtain a small collection of books on '' Jeanne d'Arc''" 
|filename2=Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - romeo and juliet- overture-fantasy.ogg|title2=Romeo and Juliet Overture|description2=Performed by the Skidmore College Orchestra, courtesy of [[Musopen]]
<ref name="note7">See [[tchaikovsky:Letter 1007|Letter 1007]] to [[tchaikovsky:Nadezhda von Meck|Nadezhda von Meck]], 6/18 December 1878.</ref> . "I'm thinking a very great deal about the libretto and can't yet make a definite plan. There's much that pleases me in [[tchaikovsky:Schiller|Schiller]], but I must admit I'm disturbed by his disdain for historical accuracy"
| filename3    = Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - 1812 overture.ogg
<ref name="note8">[[tchaikovsky:Letter 1013|Letter 1013]] to [[tchaikovsky:Modest Tchaikovsky|Nadezhda von Meck]], 10/22 December 1878.</ref>.
| title3      = 1812 Overture
| description3 = Performed by the Skidmore College Orchestra. Courtesy of Musopen
}}


====Melody====
He was particularly impressed by a scene in which "the king, archbishops and knights recognize Jeanne as a missionary from on high"<ref>Pëtr Il'ic Cajkovskij, Perepiska s N. F. fon-Mekk, vol. 1, p. 543 (letter from Florence, December 6-18, 1878)</ref> and decided that it just had to be a part of his opera. And the scenes of her passion, which he related to the passion of Christ, had a profound impact on him:
American music critic and journalist [[Harold C. Schonberg]] wrote of Tchaikovsky's "sweet, inexhaustible, supersensuous fund of [[melody]]", a feature that has ensured his music's continued success with audiences.<ref name="schonberg366">Schonberg, 366.</ref> Tchaikovsky's complete range of melodic styles was as wide as that of his compositions. Sometimes he used Western-style melodies, sometimes original melodies written in the style of Russian folk song; sometimes he used actual folk songs.<ref name="brown_ng18628"/> According to ''The New Grove'', Tchaikovsky's melodic gift could also become his worst enemy in two ways.


The first challenge arose from his ethnic heritage. Unlike Western themes, the melodies that Russian composers wrote tended to be self-contained: they functioned with a mindset of stasis and repetition rather than one of progress and ongoing development. On a technical level, it made [[modulation (music)|modulating]] to a new key to introduce a contrasting second theme exceedingly difficult, as this was literally a foreign concept that did not exist in Russian music.<ref name="brown_final424">Brown, ''Final'', 424.</ref>
{{quote|text=Imagine, my dear friend, that my heroine, that is Jeanne d'Arc, is to blame for my yesterday's abnormally excited condition and bad night. At last, in the evening I began reading your book [Henri-Alexandre Wallon, Jeanne d'Arc, Paris, 1876.], and having reached Jeanne's last days, her sufferings and execution that was preceded by abjuration, when her strength was out and she admitted that she was a witch, I felt such a pity and pain for all the mankind in her person, that it made me feel completely destroyed|author=Pyotr Tchaikovsky|source=Perepiska s N. F. fon-Mekk, vol. 1, p. 539-540 (letter from Florence, December 10, 1878)}}


The second way melody worked against Tchaikovsky was a challenge that he shared with the majority of Romantic-age composers. They did not write in the regular, symmetrical melodic shapes that worked well with [[sonata form]], such as those favored by Classical composers such as Haydn, Mozart or Beethoven, but were complete and independent in themselves.<ref>Cooper, 26.</ref> This completeness hindered their use as structural elements in combination with one another. This challenge was why the Romantics "were never natural symphonists".<ref>Cooper, 24.</ref> All a composer like Tchaikovsky could do with them was to essentially repeat them, even when he modified them to generate tension, maintain interest and satisfy listeners.<ref>Warrack, ''Symphonies'', 8–9.</ref>
==== Movements and Duration ====
''See [[tchaikovsky:The_Maid_of_Orleans#Movements_and_Duration|The Maid of Orleans#Movements_and_Duration]] on the Tchaikovsky wiki.''


====Harmony====
{{#ev:youtube|https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCynRoXfRlk||center|||rel=0&enablejsapi=1&origin=https://en.seminaverbi.bibleget.io}}
Harmony could be a potential trap for Tchaikovsky, according to Brown, since Russian creativity tended to focus on inertia and self-enclosed tableaux, while Western harmony worked against this to propel the music onward and, on a larger scale, shape it.<ref>Brown, ''Final'', 422, 432–34.</ref> [[modulation (music)|Modulation]], the shifting from one key to another, was a driving principle in both harmony and [[sonata form]], the primary Western large-scale [[musical form|musical structure]] since the middle of the 18th century. Modulation maintained harmonic interest over an extended time-scale, provided a clear contrast between musical themes and showed how those themes were related to each other.<ref>Roberts, ''New Grove (1980)'', 12:454.</ref>


One point in Tchaikovsky's favor was "a flair for harmony" that "astonished" Rudolph Kündinger, Tchaikovsky's music tutor during his time at the School of Jurisprudence.<ref>As quoted in Polyansky, ''Eyes'', 18.</ref> Added to what he learned at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory studies, this talent allowed Tchaikovsky to employ a varied range of harmony in his music, from the Western harmonic and textural practices of his first two string quartets to the use of the [[whole tone scale]] in the center of the finale of the Second Symphony, a practice more typically used by The Five.<ref name="brown_ng18628" />
{{#ev:youtube|https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmpp6RGVsro||center|||rel=0&enablejsapi=1&origin=https://en.seminaverbi.bibleget.io}}
 
====Rhythm====
[[Rhythm (music)|Rhythmically]], Tchaikovsky sometimes experimented with unusual [[Meter (music)|meters]]. More often, he used a firm, regular meter, a practice that served him well in dance music. At times, his rhythms became pronounced enough to become the main expressive agent of the music. They also became a means, found typically in Russian folk music, of simulating movement or progression in large-scale symphonic movements—a "synthetic propulsion", as Brown phrases it, which substituted for the momentum that would be created in strict sonata form by the interaction of melodic or motivic elements. This interaction generally does not take place in Russian music.<ref>Brown, ''New Grove (1980)'', 18:628; ''Final'', 424.</ref> (For more on this, please see '''[[Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky#Repetition|Repetition]]''' below.)
 
====Structure====
Tchaikovsky struggled with sonata form. Its principle of organic growth through the interplay of musical themes was alien to Russian practice.<ref name="brown_final424"/> The traditional argument that Tchaikovsky seemed unable to develop themes in this manner fails to consider this point; it also discounts the possibility that Tchaikovsky might have intended the development passages in his large-scale works to act as "enforced hiatuses" to build tension, rather than grow organically as smoothly progressive musical arguments.<ref>Zajaczkowski, 25</ref>
 
According to Brown and musicologists [[Hans Keller]] and [[Daniel Zhitomirsky]], Tchaikovsky found his solution to large-scale structure while composing the Fourth Symphony. He essentially sidestepped thematic interaction and kept sonata form only as an "outline", as Zhitomirsky phrases it.<ref name="zhitomirsky102">Zhitomirsky, 102.</ref> Within this outline, the focus centered on periodic alternation and juxtaposition. Tchaikovsky placed blocks of dissimilar tonal and thematic material alongside one another, with what Keller calls "new and violent contrasts" between [[Theme (music)|musical themes]], [[Key (music)|keys]], and harmonies.<ref>Brown, ''Final'', 426; Keller, 347.</ref> This process, according to Brown and Keller, builds momentum<ref name="brown_final426">Brown, ''Final'', 426.</ref> and adds intense drama.<ref>Keller, 346–47.</ref> While the result, Warrack charges, is still "an ingenious episodic treatment of two tunes rather than a symphonic development of them" in the Germanic sense,<ref>Warrack, ''Symphonies'', 11.</ref> Brown counters that it took the listener of the period "through a succession of often highly charged sections which ''added up'' to a radically new kind of symphonic experience" (italics Brown), one that functioned not on the basis of summation, as Austro-German symphonies did, but on one of accumulation.<ref name="brown_final426"/>
 
Partly due to the melodic and structural intricacies involved in this accumulation and partly due to the composer's nature, Tchaikovsky's music became intensely expressive.<ref>Brown, ''New Grove (1980)'', 18:628; Keller, 346–47; Maes, 161.</ref> This intensity was entirely new to Russian music and prompted some Russians to place Tchaikovsky's name alongside that of Dostoyevsky.<ref>Volkov, 115</ref> German musicologist [[Hermann Kretzschmar]] credits Tchaikovsky in his later symphonies with offering "full images of life, developed freely, sometimes even dramatically, around psychological contrasts ... This music has the mark of the truly lived and felt experience".<ref>As quoted in {{harvnb|Botstein|loc=101}}</ref> [[Leon Botstein]], in elaborating on this comment, suggests that listening to Tchaikovsky's music "became a psychological mirror connected to everyday experience, one that reflected on the dynamic nature of the listener's own emotional self". This active engagement with the music "opened for the listener a vista of emotional and psychological tension and an extremity of feeling that possessed relevance because it seemed reminiscent of one's own 'truly lived and felt experience' or one's search for intensity in a deeply personal sense".<ref name="Botstein, 101">{{harvnb|Botstein|loc=101}}</ref>
 
====Repetition====
[[File:Sequence ascending from C tonal.png|thumb|right|350px|Sequence ascending by step {{Audio|Sequence ascending from C tonal.mid|Play}}. Note that there are only four segments, continuously higher, and that the segments continue by the same distance (seconds: C–D, D–E, etc.).]]
 
As mentioned above, repetition was a natural part of Tchaikovsky's music, just as it is an integral part of Russian music.<ref>Warrack, ''Symphonies'', 9. Also see Brown, ''Final'', 422–23.</ref> His use of [[Sequence (music)|sequences]] within melodies ([[repetition (music)|repeating]] a tune at a higher or lower [[pitch (music)|pitch]] in the same voice){{sfn|Benward|Saker|loc=111–12}} could go on for extreme length.<ref name="brown_ng18628"/> The problem with repetition is that, over a period of time, the melody being repeated remains static, even when there is a surface level of rhythmic activity added to it.<ref>Brown, ''Final'', 423–24; Warrack, ''Symphonies'', 9.</ref> Tchaikovsky kept the musical conversation flowing by treating melody, tonality, rhythm and sound color as one integrated unit, rather than as separate elements.<ref name="Maes161">Maes, 161.</ref>
 
By making subtle but noticeable changes in the rhythm or phrasing of a tune, modulating to another key, changing the melody itself or varying the instruments playing it, Tchaikovsky could keep a listener's interest from flagging. By extending the number of repetitions, he could increase the musical and dramatic tension of a passage, building "into an emotional experience of almost unbearable intensity", as Brown phrases it, controlling when the peak and release of that tension would take place.<ref>Brown, ''New Grove'' (1980), 18:628. Also see Bostrick, 105.</ref> Musicologist Martin Cooper calls this practice a subtle form of unifying a piece of music and adds that Tchaikovsky brought it to a high point of refinement.<ref>Cooper, 32.</ref> (For more on this practice, see the next section.)
 
====Orchestration====
{{listen|type=music|filename=Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies (ISRC USUAN1100270).oga|title=Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy|description="Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" from ''The Nutcracker'' makes extensive use of the then newly invented and very rare [[celesta]]}}
Like other late Romantic composers, Tchaikovsky relied heavily on [[orchestration]] for musical effects.<ref>Holoman, ''New Grove (2001)'', 12:413.</ref> Tchaikovsky, however, became noted for the "sensual opulence" and "voluptuous timbrel virtuosity" of his orchestration.<ref>Maes, 73; Taruskin, ''Grove Opera'', 4:669.</ref> Like Glinka, Tchaikovsky tended toward bright primary [[timbre|colors]] and sharply delineated contrasts of [[texture (music)|texture]].<ref>Brown, ''New Grove (1980)'', 18:628; Hopkins, ''New Grove (1980)'', 13:698.</ref> However, beginning with the [[Symphony No. 3 (Tchaikovsky)|Third Symphony]], Tchaikovsky experimented with an increased range of timbres<ref>Maes, 78.</ref> Tchaikovsky's scoring was noted and admired by some of his peers. Rimsky-Korsakov regularly referred his students at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory to it and called it "devoid of all striving after effect, [to] give a healthy, beautiful sonority".<ref>As quoted in Taruskin, ''Stravinsky'', 206.</ref> This sonority, musicologist [[Richard Taruskin]] points out, is essentially Germanic in effect. Tchaikovsky's expert use of having two or more instruments play a melody simultaneously (a practice called [[Voicing (music)#Doubling|doubling]]) and his ear for uncanny combinations of instruments resulted in "a generalized orchestral sonority in which the individual timbres of the instruments, being thoroughly mixed, would vanish".<ref>Taruskin, ''Stravinsky'', 206</ref>
 
====Pastiche (Passé-ism)====
In works like the "Serenade for Strings" and the ''Variations on a Rococo Theme'', Tchaikovsky showed he was highly gifted at writing in a style of 18th-century European [[pastiche]]. In the ballet ''The Sleeping Beauty'' and the opera ''The Queen of Spades'', Tchaikovsky graduated from imitation to full-scale evocation. This practice, which Alexandre Benois calls "passé-ism", lends an air of timelessness and immediacy, making the past seem as though it were the present.<ref>Volkov, 124.</ref> On a practical level, Tchaikovsky was drawn to past styles because he felt he might find the solution to certain structural problems within them. His Rococo pastiches also may have offered escape into a musical world purer than his own, into which he felt himself irresistibly drawn. (In this sense, Tchaikovsky operated in the opposite manner to [[Igor Stravinsky]], who turned to [[Neoclassicism (music)|Neoclassicism]] partly as a form of compositional self-discovery.) Tchaikovsky's attraction to ballet might have allowed a similar refuge into a fairy-tale world, where he could freely write dance music within a tradition of French elegance.<ref>Brown, ''New Grove (1980)'', 18:613, 615.</ref>
 
===Antecedents and influences===
[[File:Robert Schumann 1839.jpg|thumb|180px|[[Robert Schumann]], lithograph by [[Josef Kriehuber]], in 1839]]
 
Of Tchaikovsky's Western contemporaries, Robert Schumann stands out as an influence in formal structure, harmonic practices and piano writing, according to Brown and musicologist [[Roland John Wiley]].<ref>Brown, ''New Grove (1980)'', 18:613, 18:620; Wiley, ''Tchaikovsky'', 58.</ref> [[Boris Asafyev]] comments that Schumann left his mark on Tchaikovsky not just as a formal influence but also as an example of musical dramaturgy and self-expression.{{sfn|Asafyev|loc=13–14}} [[Leon Botstein]] claims the music of [[Franz Liszt]] and [[Richard Wagner]] also left their imprints on Tchaikovsky's orchestral style.<ref>Bostein, 103.</ref><ref group=a>As proof of Wagner's influence, Botstein cites a letter from Tchaikovsky to Taneyev, in which the composer "readily admits the influence of the ''[[Der Ring des Nibelungen|Nibelungen]]'' on ''Francesca da Rimini''". This letter is quoted in Brown, ''Crisis'', 108.</ref> The late-Romantic trend for writing orchestral suites, begun by [[Franz Lachner]], [[Jules Massenet]], and [[Joachim Raff]] after the rediscovery of [[Johann Sebastian Bach|Bach]]'s works in that genre, may have influenced Tchaikovsky to try his own hand at them.<ref>Fuller, ''New Grove (2001)'', 24:681–62; Maes, 155.</ref>
 
His teacher Anton Rubinstein's opera ''[[The Demon (opera)|The Demon]]'' became a model for the final tableau of ''Eugene Onegin''.<ref>Taruskin, ''Grove Opera'', 4:664.</ref> So did [[Léo Delibes]]' ballets ''[[Coppélia]]'' and ''[[Sylvia (ballet)|Sylvia]]'' for ''The Sleeping Beauty''<ref group="a">While it is sometimes thought these two ballets also influenced Tchaikovsky's work on ''Swan Lake'', he had already composed that work before learning of them (Brown, ''Crisis'', 77).</ref> and [[Georges Bizet]]'s opera ''[[Carmen]]'' (a work Tchaikovsky admired tremendously) for ''The Queen of Spades''.<ref>Brown, ''Final'', 189; Maes, 131, 138, 152.</ref> Otherwise, it was to composers of the past that Tchaikovsky turned—Beethoven, whose music he respected;<ref name="wiley_tchaik293" /> Mozart, whose music he loved;<ref name="wiley_tchaik293">Wiley, ''Tchaikovsky'', 293–94.</ref> Glinka, whose opera ''[[A Life for the Tsar]]'' made an indelible impression on him as a child and whose scoring he studied assiduously;<ref>Brown, ''Early'', 34, 97.</ref> and [[Adolphe Adam]], whose ballet ''[[Giselle]]'' was a favorite of his from his student days and whose score he consulted while working on ''The Sleeping Beauty''.<ref>Brown, ''Early'', 39, 52, ''Final'', 187.</ref> Beethoven's string quartets may have influenced Tchaikovsky's attempts in that medium.<ref>Wiley, ''New Grove (2001)'', 25:149.</ref> Other composers whose work interested Tchaikovsky included [[Hector Berlioz]], [[Felix Mendelssohn]], [[Giacomo Meyerbeer]], [[Gioachino Rossini]],<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://en.tchaikovsky-research.net/pages/Gioachino_Rossini#Tchaikovsky_and_Rossini|title=Gioachino Rossini|website=tchaikovsky-research.net}}</ref> [[Giuseppe Verdi]],<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://en.tchaikovsky-research.net/pages/Giuseppe_Verdi#Tchaikovsky_and_Verdi|title=Giuseppe Verdi|website=tchaikovsky-research.net}}</ref> [[Vincenzo Bellini]]<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://en.tchaikovsky-research.net/pages/Vincenzo_Bellini|title=Vincenzo Bellini|website=tchaikovsky-research.net}}</ref> and [[Henry Litolff]].<ref>Brown, ''Early'', 72.</ref>
 
===Aesthetic impact===
Maes maintains that, regardless of what he was writing, Tchaikovsky's main concern was how his music impacted his listeners on an aesthetic level, at specific moments in the piece and on a cumulative level once the music had finished. What his listeners experienced on an emotional or visceral level became an end in itself.<ref>Maes, 138.</ref> Tchaikovsky's focus on pleasing his audience might be considered closer to that of Mendelssohn or Mozart. Considering that he lived and worked in what was probably the last 19th-century feudal nation, the statement is not actually that surprising.<ref>Figes, 274; Maes, 139–41.</ref>
 
And yet, even when writing so-called 'programme' music, for example his Romeo and Juliet fantasy overture, he cast it in sonata form. His use of stylized 18th-century melodies and patriotic themes was geared toward the values of Russian aristocracy.<ref name="maes137">Maes, 137.</ref> He was aided in this by Ivan Vsevolozhsky, who commissioned ''The Sleeping Beauty'' from Tchaikovsky and the libretto for ''The Queen of Spades'' from Modest with their use of 18th century settings stipulated firmly.<ref>Maes, 146, 152.</ref><ref group="a">Vsevolozhsky originally intended the libretto for a now-unknown composer named Nikolai Klenovsky, not Tchaikovsky (Maes, 152).</ref> Tchaikovsky also used the [[polonaise (dance)|polonaise]] frequently, the dance being a musical code for the [[House of Romanov|Romanov dynasty]] and a symbol of Russian patriotism. Using it in the finale of a work could assure its success with Russian listeners.<ref>Figes, 274; Maes, 78–79, 137.</ref>
 
===Reception===
 
====Dedicatees and collaborators====
[[File:Marius Ivanovich Petipa -Feb. 14 1898.JPG|180px|thumb|upright|Marius Petipa]]
 
Tchaikovsky's relationship with collaborators was mixed. Like Nikolai Rubinstein with the First Piano Concerto, virtuoso and pedagogue [[Leopold Auer]] rejected the Violin Concerto initially but changed his mind; he played it to great public success and taught it to his students, who included [[Jascha Heifetz]] and [[Nathan Milstein]].<ref>Steinberg</ref> [[Wilhelm Fitzenhagen]] "intervened considerably in shaping what he considered 'his' piece", the ''Variations on a Rococo Theme'', according to music critic [[Michael Steinberg (music critic)|Michael Steinberg]]. Tchaikovsky was angered by Fitzenhagen's license but did nothing; the Rococo Variations were published with the cellist's amendments.<ref>Brown, ''Crisis'', 122.</ref><ref group=a>The composer's original has since been published but most cellists still perform Fitzenhagen's version (Campbell, 77).</ref>
 
His collaboration on the three ballets went better and in [[Marius Petipa]], who worked with him on the last two, he might have found an advocate.<ref group="a">Tchaikovsky's work with Julius Reisinger on ''Swan Lake'' was evidently also successful, since it left him with no qualms about working with Petipa, but very little is written about it (Maes, 146).</ref> When ''The Sleeping Beauty'' was seen by its dancers as needlessly complicated, Petipa convinced them to put in the extra effort. Tchaikovsky compromised to make his music as practical as possible for the dancers and was accorded more creative freedom than ballet composers were usually accorded at the time. He responded with scores that minimized the rhythmic subtleties normally present in his work but were inventive and rich in melody, with more refined and imaginative orchestration than in the average ballet score.<ref>Maes, 145–48.</ref>
 
====Critics====
[[File:Hanslick.jpg|thumb|upright|left|Eduard Hanslick]]
Critical reception to Tchaikovsky's music was also varied but also improved over time. Even after 1880, some inside Russia held it suspect for not being nationalistic enough and thought Western European critics lauded it for exactly that reason.<ref name="botstein99">{{harvnb|Botstein|loc=99}}</ref> There might have been a grain of truth in the latter, according to musicologist and conductor Leon Botstein, as German critics especially wrote of the "indeterminacy of [Tchaikovsky's] artistic character ... being truly at home in the non-Russian".<ref>As quoted in {{harvnb|Botstein|loc=100}}</ref> Of the foreign critics who did not care for his music, [[Eduard Hanslick]] lambasted the Violin Concerto as a musical composition "whose stink one can hear"<ref>[[Eduard Hanslick|Hanslick, Eduard]], ''Music Criticisms 1850–1900'', ed. and trans. [[Henry Pleasants (music critic)|Henry Pleasants]] (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1963). As quoted in Steinberg, ''Concerto'', 487.</ref> and William Forster Abtrop wrote of the Fifth Symphony, "The furious peroration sounds like nothing so much as a horde of demons struggling in a torrent of brandy, the music growing drunker and drunker. Pandemonium, [[delirium tremens]], raving, and above all, noise worse confounded!"<ref>''Boston Evening Transcript'', 23 October 1892. As quoted in Steinberg, ''Symphony'', 631</ref>
 
The division between Russian and Western critics remained through much of the 20th century but for a different reason. According to Brown and Wiley, the prevailing view of Western critics was that the same qualities in Tchaikovsky's music that appealed to audiences—its strong emotions, directness and eloquence and colorful orchestration—added up to compositional shallowness.<ref>Brown, ''New Grove (1980)'', 18:628; Wiley, ''New Grove (2001)'', 25:169.</ref> The music's use in popular and film music, Brown says, lowered its esteem in their eyes still further.<ref name="brown_ng18628"/> There was also the fact, pointed out earlier, that Tchaikovsky's music demanded active engagement from the listener and, as Botstein phrases it, "spoke to the listener's imaginative interior life, regardless of nationality". Conservative critics, he adds, may have felt threatened by the "violence and 'hysteria' " they detected and felt such emotive displays "attacked the boundaries of conventional aesthetic appreciation—the cultured reception of art as an act of formalist discernment—and the polite engagement of art as an act of amusement".<ref name="Botstein, 101"/>
 
There has also been the fact that the composer did not follow sonata form strictly, relying instead on juxtaposing blocks of tonalities and thematic groups. Maes states this point has been seen at times as a weakness rather than a sign of originality.<ref name="Maes161"/> Even with what Schonberg termed "a professional reevaluation" of Tchaikovsky's work,<ref name="schonberg367">Schonberg, 367.</ref> the practice of faulting Tchaikovsky for not following in the steps of the Viennese masters has not gone away entirely, while his intent of writing music that would please his audiences is also sometimes taken to task. In a 1992 article, ''New York Times'' critic [[Allan Kozinn]] writes, "It is Tchaikovsky's flexibility, after all, that has given us a sense of his variability.... Tchaikovsky was capable of turning out music—entertaining and widely beloved though it is—that seems superficial, manipulative and trivial when regarded in the context of the whole literature. The First Piano Concerto is a case in point. It makes a joyful noise, it swims in pretty tunes and its dramatic rhetoric allows (or even requires) a soloist to make a grand, swashbuckling impression. But it is entirely hollow".{{sfn|Kozinn|1992}}
 
In the 21st century, however, critics are reacting more positively to Tchaikovsky's tunefulness, originality, and craftsmanship.<ref name="schonberg367"/> "Tchaikovsky is being viewed again as a composer of the first rank, writing music of depth, innovation and influence," according to [[Cultural history|cultural historian]] and author [[Joseph Horowitz]].<ref name="horowitz"/> Important in this reevaluation is a shift in attitude away from the disdain for overt emotionalism that marked half of the 20th century.<ref name="wiley_ng25169">Wiley, ''New Grove (2001), 25:169.</ref> "We have acquired a different view of Romantic 'excess,'" Horowitz says. "Tchaikovsky is today more admired than deplored for his emotional frankness; if his music seems harried and insecure, so are we all".<ref name="horowitz">{{cite news|url=http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11030/1121245-388.stm |last=Druckenbrod|first=Andrew|title=Festival to explore Tchaikovsky's changing reputation|newspaper=Pittsburgh Post-Gazette|date=30 January 2011 |accessdate=18 August 2013}}</ref>
 
====Public====
{{see also|Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in popular media}}
 
Horowitz maintains that, while the standing of Tchaikovsky's music has fluctuated among critics, for the public, "it never went out of style, and his most popular works have yielded iconic [[Sound bite|sound-bytes]] {{sic}}, such as the love theme from ''Romeo and Juliet''".<ref name="horowitz"/> Along with those tunes, Botstein adds, "Tchaikovsky appealed to audiences outside of Russia with an immediacy and directness that were startling even for music, an art form often associated with emotion".{{sfn|Botstein|loc=100}} Tchaikovsky's melodies, stated with eloquence and matched by his inventive use of harmony and orchestration, have always ensured audience appeal.<ref>Brown, ''New Grove'', 18:606–07, 628.</ref> His popularity is considered secure, with his following in many countries, including Great Britain and the United States, second only to that of Beethoven.<ref name="wi25169"/> His music has also been used frequently in popular music and film.<ref>Steinberg, ''The Symphony'', 611.</ref>
 
===Legacy===
[[File:Симферополь. Памятник П. И. Чайковскому..JPG|thumb|Statue of Tchaikovsky in [[Simferopol]], Crimea]]
According to Wiley, Tchaikovsky was a pioneer in several ways. "Thanks in large part to Nadezhda von Meck", Wiley writes, "he became the first full-time professional Russian composer". This, Wiley adds, allowed him the time and freedom to consolidate the Western compositional practices he had learned at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory with Russian folk song and other native musical elements to fulfill his own expressive goals and forge an original, deeply personal style. He made an impact in not only absolute works such as the symphony but also program music and, as Wiley phrases it, "transformed Liszt's and Berlioz's achievements ... into matters of Shakespearean elevation and psychological import".<ref>Wiley, ''New Grove (2001)'', 25:144.</ref> Wiley and Holden both note that Tchaikovsky did all this without a native school of composition upon which to fall back. They point out that only Glinka had preceded him in combining Russian and Western practices and his teachers in Saint Petersburg had been thoroughly Germanic in their musical outlook. He was, they write, for all intents and purposes alone in his artistic quest.<ref>Holden, xxi; Wiley, ''New Grove (2001)'', 25:144.</ref>
 
[[File:Russia stamp Swan Lake 1993 25r.jpg|thumb|left|190px|Stamp of Russia, ''Swan Lake'', 1993]]
Maes and Taruskin write that Tchaikovsky believed that his professionalism in combining skill and high standards in his musical works separated him from his contemporaries in The Five.<ref>Maes, 73; Taruskin, ''Grove Opera'', 4:663.</ref> Maes adds that, like them, he wanted to produce music that reflected Russian national character but which did so to the highest European standards of quality.<ref>Maes, 73.</ref> Tchaikovsky, according to Maes, came along at a time when the nation itself was deeply divided as to what that character truly was. Like his country, Maes writes, it took him time to discover how to express his Russianness in a way that was true to himself and what he had learned. Because of his professionalism, Maes says, he worked hard at this goal and succeeded. The composer's friend, music critic [[Hermann Laroche]], wrote of ''The Sleeping Beauty'' that the score contained "an element deeper and more general than color, in the internal structure of the music, above all in the foundation of the element of melody. This basic element is undoubtedly Russian".<ref>As quoted in Maes, 166.</ref>
 
Tchaikovsky was inspired to reach beyond Russia with his music, according to Maes and Taruskin.<ref>Maes, 73; Taruskin, ''Grove Opera'', 664.</ref> His exposure to Western music, they write, encouraged him to think it belonged to not just Russia but also the world at large.<ref name="taruskin_go4663"/> Volkov adds that this mindset made him think seriously about Russia's place in European musical culture—the first Russian composer to do so.<ref name="volkovsp126"/> It steeled him to become the first Russian composer to acquaint foreign audiences personally with his own works, Warrack writes, as well as those of other Russian composers.<ref>Warrack, 209.</ref> In his biography of Tchaikovsky, [[Anthony Holden]] recalls the dearth of Russian classical music before Tchaikovsky's birth, then places the composer's achievements into historical perspective: "Twenty years after Tchaikovsky's death, in 1913, [[Igor Stravinsky]]'s ''[[The Rite of Spring]]'' erupted onto the musical scene, signalling Russia's arrival into [[20th-century music]]. Between these two very different worlds, Tchaikovsky's music became the sole bridge".<ref>Holden, xxi.</ref>
 
On 7 May 2010, Google celebrated his 170th birthday with a [[Google Doodle]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.google.com/doodles/pyotr-ilyich-tchaikovskys-170th-birthday|title=Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's 170th Birthday|date=7 May 2010}}</ref>
 
==Tchaikovsky's voice==
The following recording was made in Moscow in January 1890, by Julius Block on behalf of [[Thomas Edison]].<ref>[http://en.tchaikovsky-research.net/pages/Endorsement_of_Thomas_Edison%27s_%22Phonograph%22 "Endorsement of Thomas Edison's 'Phonograph'&thinsp;"], tchaikovsky-research.net</ref>
{|
|<poem>[[Anton Rubinstein]]: What a wonderful thing.
J. Block: Certainly.
[[Yelizaveta Lavrovskaya|E. Lavrovskaya]] A disgusting...how he dares slyly to name me.
[[Vasily Safonov]]: (Sings).
P. Tchaikovsky: This trill could be better.
E. Lavrovskaya: (sings).
P. Tchaikovsky: Block is a good fellow, but [[Thomas Edison|Edison]] is even better.
E. Lavrovskaya: (sings) A-o, a-o.
V. Safonov: (In German) [[P. Jurgenson|Peter Jurgenson]] in Moscow.
P. Tchaikovsky: Who just spoke? It seems to have been Safonov. (Whistles)</poem>
|style="vertical-align: top;"|{{Listen|type=speech
|filename=Tchaikowsky & Anton Rubinstein & friends(1890).ogg|title=Tchaikovsky's real voice
|description=Recorded January 1890}}
|}
According to musicologist [[Leonid Sabaneyev]], Tchaikovsky was not comfortable with being recorded for posterity and tried to shy away from it. On an apparently separate visit from the one related above, Block asked the composer to play something on a piano or at least say something. Tchaikovsky refused. He told Block, "I am a bad pianist and my voice is raspy. Why should one eternalize it?"<ref>As quoted in Poznansky, ''Eyes'', 216.</ref>


==Notes==
==Notes==
Line 272: Line 214:
* {{cite book|last1=Benward|first1=Bruce|last2=Saker|first2=Marilyn|title=Music: In Theory and Practice, Vol. 1|location=New York|publisher=McGraw-Hill|year=200|edition=Seventh|isbn=978-0-07-294262-0|ref={{harvid|Benward|Saker}}}}
* {{cite book|last1=Benward|first1=Bruce|last2=Saker|first2=Marilyn|title=Music: In Theory and Practice, Vol. 1|location=New York|publisher=McGraw-Hill|year=200|edition=Seventh|isbn=978-0-07-294262-0|ref={{harvid|Benward|Saker}}}}
* {{cite book|last=Botstein|first=Leon|authorlink=Leon Botstein|chapter=Music as the Language of Psychological Realm|title=Tchaikovsky and His World|location=Princeton, New Jersey|publisher=Princeton University Press|year=1998|editor-last=Kearney|editor-first=Leslie|isbn=0-691-00429-3|ref={{harvid|Botstein}}}}
* {{cite book|last=Botstein|first=Leon|authorlink=Leon Botstein|chapter=Music as the Language of Psychological Realm|title=Tchaikovsky and His World|location=Princeton, New Jersey|publisher=Princeton University Press|year=1998|editor-last=Kearney|editor-first=Leslie|isbn=0-691-00429-3|ref={{harvid|Botstein}}}}
* [[David Brown (musicologist)|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}}.
* [[wikipedia:David Brown (musicologist)|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 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 Crisis Years, 1874–1878'', (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1983). {{ISBN|0-393-01707-9}}.
Line 278: Line 220:
* Brown, David, ''Tchaikovsky: The Final Years, 1885–1893'', (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1991). {{ISBN|0-393-03099-7}}.
* 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}}.
* 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. [[Gerald Abraham|Abraham, Gerald]]. ISBN n/a. {{OCLC|385829}}
* Cooper, Martin, "The Symphonies". In ''Music of Tchaikovsky'' (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1946), ed. [[wikipedia:Gerald Abraham|Abraham, Gerald]]. ISBN n/a. {{OCLC|385829}}
* Druckenbrod, Andrew, [http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11030/1121245-388.stm "Festival to explore Tchaikovsky's changing reputation". In ''Pittsburgh Post-Gazette'', 30 January 2011. Retrieved 27 February 2012.]
* Druckenbrod, Andrew, [http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11030/1121245-388.stm "Festival to explore Tchaikovsky's changing reputation". In ''Pittsburgh Post-Gazette'', 30 January 2011. Retrieved 27 February 2012.]
* Dyachova, Yelena, ''Tchaikovsky and the Bible''. In ''Musikgeschichte in Mittel- und Osteuropa : Mitteilungen der internationalen Arbeitsgemeinschaft an der Technischen Universität Chemnitz'', p. 79-86 (Chemnitz ; Leipzig : Gudrun Schröder Verlag, 1997) {{OCLC|977041781}}
* Figes, Orlando, ''Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia'' (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2002). {{ISBN|0-8050-5783-8}} (hc.).
* 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}}.
* [[wikipedia:Holden, Anthony|Holden, Anthony]], ''Tchaikovsky: A Biography'' (New York: Random House, 1995). {{ISBN|0-679-42006-1}}.
* [[D. Kern Holoman|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}}.
* [[wikipedia:D. Kern Holoman|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}}.
* 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}}.
* 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}}.
* 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}}.
* {{wikicite|ref={{SfnRef|Kozinn|1992}}|reference=[[wikipedia:Allan Kozinn|Kozinn, Allan]], [https://www.nytimes.com/1992/07/18/arts/critic-s-notebook-defending-tchaikovsky-with-gravity-and-with-froth.html?ref=peterilyichtchaikovsky "Critic's Notebook; Defending Tchaikovsky, With Gravity and With Froth"]. In ''[[wikipedia:The New York Times|The New York Times]]'', 18 July 1992. Retrieved 27 February 2012.}}
* {{wikicite|ref={{SfnRef|Kozinn|1992}}|reference=[[Allan Kozinn|Kozinn, Allan]], [https://www.nytimes.com/1992/07/18/arts/critic-s-notebook-defending-tchaikovsky-with-gravity-and-with-froth.html?ref=peterilyichtchaikovsky "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. [[wikipedia:Gerald Abraham|Abraham, Gerald]]. ISBN n/a. {{OCLC|385829}}
* Lockspeiser, Edward, "Tchaikovsky the Man". In ''Music of Tchaikovsky'' (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1946), ed. [[Gerald Abraham|Abraham, Gerald]]. ISBN n/a. {{OCLC|385829}}
* Maes, Francis, tr. [[wikipedia:Arnold J. Pomerans|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}}.
* 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|6510833}}.
* Mochulsky, Konstantin, tr. Minihan, Michael A., ''Dostoyevsky: His Life and Work'' (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967). {{LCCN|6510833}}.
* [[Alexander Poznansky|Poznansky, Alexander]], ''Tchaikovsky: The Quest for the Inner Man'' (New York: Schirmer Books, 1991). {{ISBN|0-02-871885-2}}.
* [[wikipedia:Alexander Poznansky|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}}.
* 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}}.
* 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}}.
* 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}}.
* 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}}.
* [[Anton Rubinstein|Rubinstein, Anton]], tr. Aline Delano, ''Autobiography of Anton Rubinstein: 1829–1889'' (New York: Little, Brown & Co., 1890). Library of Congress Control Number {{LCCN|06004844}}.
* [[wikipedia:Anton Rubinstein|Rubinstein, Anton]], tr. Aline Delano, ''Autobiography of Anton Rubinstein: 1829–1889'' (New York: Little, Brown & Co., 1890). Library of Congress Control Number {{LCCN|06004844}}.
* [[Schonberg, Harold C.]] ''Lives of the Great Composers'' (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 3rd ed. 1997). {{ISBN|0-393-03857-2}}.
* [[wikipedia:Schonberg, Harold C.|Schonberg, Harold C.]] ''Lives of the Great Composers'' (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 3rd ed. 1997). {{ISBN|0-393-03857-2}}.
* [[Michael Steinberg (music critic)|Steinberg, Michael]], ''The Concerto'' (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).
* [[wikipedia:Michael Steinberg (music critic)|Steinberg, Michael]], ''The Concerto'' (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).
* Steinberg, Michael, ''The Symphony'' (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).
* Steinberg, Michael, ''The Symphony'' (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).
* [[Richard Taruskin|Taruskin, Richard]], "Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Il'yich", ''[[The New Grove Dictionary of Opera]]'' (London and New York: Macmillan, 1992), 4 vols, ed. [[Stanley Sadie|Sadie, Stanley]]. {{ISBN|0-333-48552-1}}.
* [[wikipedia:Richard Taruskin|Taruskin, Richard]], "Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Il'yich", ''[[wikipedia:The New Grove Dictionary of Opera|The New Grove Dictionary of Opera]]'' (London and New York: Macmillan, 1992), 4 vols, ed. [[wikipedia:Stanley Sadie|Sadie, Stanley]]. {{ISBN|0-333-48552-1}}.
* [[Solomon Volkov|Volkov, Solomon]], ''Romanov Riches: Russian Writers and Artists Under the Tsars'' (New York: Alfred A. Knopf House, 2011), tr. [[Antonina W. Bouis|Bouis, Antonina W.]] {{ISBN|0-307-27063-7}}.
* [[wikipedia:Solomon Volkov|Volkov, Solomon]], ''Romanov Riches: Russian Writers and Artists Under the Tsars'' (New York: Alfred A. Knopf House, 2011), tr. [[wikipedia:Antonina W. Bouis|Bouis, Antonina W.]] {{ISBN|0-307-27063-7}}.
* [[Warrack, John]], ''Tchaikovsky Symphonies and Concertos'' (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1969). {{LCCN|78105437}}.
* [[wikipedia:Warrack, John|Warrack, John]], ''Tchaikovsky Symphonies and Concertos'' (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1969). {{LCCN|78105437}}.
* Warrack, John, ''Tchaikovsky'' (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973). {{ISBN|0-684-13558-2}}.
* Warrack, John, ''Tchaikovsky'' (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973). {{ISBN|0-684-13558-2}}.
* [[Roland John Wiley|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}}.
* [[wikipedia:Roland John Wiley|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}}.
* Wiley, Roland John, ''The Master Musicians: Tchaikovsky'' (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009). {{ISBN|978-0-19-536892-5}}.
* [[Daniel Zhitomirsky|Zhitomirsky, Daniel]], "Symphonies". In ''Russian Symphony: Thoughts About Tchaikovsky'' (New York: Philosophical Library, 1947). ISBN n/a.
* [[wikipedia:Daniel Zhitomirsky|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}}.
* Zajaczkowski, Henry, ''Tchaikovsky's Musical Style'' (Ann Arbor and London: UMI Research Press, 1987). {{ISBN|0-8357-1806-9}}.
{{div col end}}
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{{Wikiquote}}
{{Wikiquote}}
* [http://www.tchaikovsky-research.net Tchaikovsky Research]
* [http://www.tchaikovsky-research.net Tchaikovsky Research]
* {{imslpscore|The_Maid_of_Orleans_(Tchaikovsky,_Pyotr)|''The Maid of Orleans''}}
* {{BBC composer page|tchaikovsky|Tchaikovsky}}
* {{BBC composer page|tchaikovsky|Tchaikovsky}}
* [http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?query=+Tchaikovsky&queryType=%40attr+1%3D1 Tchaikovsky cylinder recordings], from the [[Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project]] at the [[University of California, Santa Barbara]] Library.
* [http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?query=+Tchaikovsky&queryType=%40attr+1%3D1 Tchaikovsky cylinder recordings], from the [[wikipedia:Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project|Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project]] at the [[wikipedia:University of California, Santa Barbara|University of California, Santa Barbara]] Library.
* {{IBDB name}}
* {{IBDB name}}
* {{Gutenberg author | id=Tchaikovsky,+Peter+Ilich}}
* {{Gutenberg author | id=Tchaikovsky,+Peter+Ilich}}
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* {{IMSLP|id=Tchaikovsky%2C_Pyotr_Ilyich|cname=Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky}}
* {{IMSLP|id=Tchaikovsky%2C_Pyotr_Ilyich|cname=Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20150518111217/http://www.studioceleste.eu/ Tchaikovsky Arias and Piano works performed live in Brussels]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20150518111217/http://www.studioceleste.eu/ Tchaikovsky Arias and Piano works performed live in Brussels]


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Latest revision as of 01:19, October 15, 2020

"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[a 1]
Tchaikovsky's signature

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky[a 2] (English: /tʃaɪˈkɒfski/ chy-KOF-skee;[1] Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский,[a 3] IPA: [pʲɵtr ɪlʲˈjitɕ tɕɪjˈkofskʲɪj] (About this soundlisten); 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893[a 4]) 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.

Though a russian orthodox, Tchaikovsky had a number of personal doubts about the Christian faith, which in any case had a profound impact on him and his works.

Religious views

Tchaikovsky expresses his views on religion and christianity in his letters[2] and in his personal diary[3].

Touching on the question of eternal life, he writes in a letter to Nadezhda von Meck in 1877:

However, conviction is one thing, and instinct and feeling another. Whilst I deny an eternal afterlife, it is with indignation that I reject at the same time the monstrous thought that I shall never see again some loved ones who are now dead. In spite of the triumphant force of my convictions, I shall never reconcile myself to the thought that my mother, whom I so loved and who was such a wonderful person, has disappeared forever and that I will never be able to tell her that even after twenty-three years of separation I still love her the same

— Pyotr Tchaikovsky, http://www.tchaikovsky-research.net/en/people/index.html

In another letter to Mrs von Meck in 1879, he recounts his impressions of reading the scene in The Brothers Karamazov where Father Zosima has to comfort a woman who has lost all her children. The question of the afterlife thus seems to be one which he thought about often:

Yes, my friend! It is better to have to die oneself every day for a thousand years than to lose those whom one loves and to seek consolation in the hypothetical idea that we shall meet again in the other world! Will we meet again? Happy are those who manage not to have doubts about this

— Pyotr Tchaikovsky, http://www.tchaikovsky-research.net/en/people/index.html

In his special diary he made a note in 1886 about his relationship with the Sacred Scriptures:

What an infinitely deep abyss between the Old and the New Testament! Am reading the Psalms of David and do not understand why, first, they are placed so high artistically and, second, in what way they could have anything in common with the Gospel. David is entirely worldly. The whole human race he divides into two unequal parts: in one, the godless (here belongs the vast majority), in the other, the godly and at their head he places himself. Upon the godless, he invokes in each psalm divine punishment, upon the godly, reward; but both punishment and reward are earthly. The sinners will be annihilated; the godly will reap the benefits of all the blessings of earthly life. How unlike Christ who prayed for his enemies and to his fellow man promised not earthly blessings but the Kingdom of Heaven. What eternal poetry and, touching to tears, what feeling of love and pity toward mankind in the words: “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden.” All the Psalms of David are nothing in comparison with these simple words.

— Pyotr Tchaikovsky[4]

This contrast between the Old and New Testament and his admiration for the figure of Christ, and, in particular, for Christ’s exhortation: “Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden” (Matthew 11:28) — the underlying idea of which he once tried to set into music — are themes he often returned to in those years. Another interesting diary entry is that which he made in Maydanovo in 1887, on the same day that his old friend Nikolay Kondratyev died after a long illness in Aachen (where Tchaikovsky had visited him that summer):

Yelena Dyachkova ( o r), Ph.D. in History of Arts and Assistant professor at the Petro Tchaikovsky National Music Academy of Ukraine, wrote an interesting essay entitled “Tchaikovsky and the Bible”. Her thesis begins by stating:

Biblical mythology as a possible programme for a musical work never attracted Tchaikovsky's interest. Epistolary heritage also does not give the reason to suppose that the Bible was the composer's favourite book. Nevertheless, these superficially obvious facts do not settle the question about Tchaikovsky and the Bible. The Bible, together with ancient mythology, forms one of the basic conceptual paradigms of European culture. Its major semantic and psychological constants, such as the linear perception of time as a stream flowing from its source (the Creation) towards the end (the Judgement Day), the fear of Death, the responsibility for deeds (ethical principles), and finally, treating anguish and torments of the indi- vidual as a spiritual feat, are characteristics of practically all the works belonging to the European literature tradition. In particular, these constants may be perceived as peculiar cultural and artistic archetypes in Tchaikovsky's work.

— Yelena Dyachkova, Tchaikovsky and the Bible

It was in the decade between 1877 and 1887 that Tchaikovsky created most of his spiritual works. This also happened to be a time in which his close friendship with Nikolaj Kondrat'ev and family was under some stress, and they did not visit each other very much. During this time Tchaikovsky thought about existential questions, up to creating his own creed. In 1877 the composer writes:

I have forgotten that there are plenty of people who managed to create for themselves an harmonic set of ideas that replaced religion for them. It remains for me only to envy those people. It seems to me that all my life I am doomed to doubt and to look for a way out of contradictions

— Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Perepiska s N. F. fon-Mekk, vol. 1, p. 111 (letter from Venice, December 5-17, 1877)

And in 1887 again the composer makes a record in his diary touching on his religious beliefs:

How strange it was for me to read that 365 days ago I was still afraid to acknowledge that, despite all the fervor of sympathetic feelings awakened by Christ, I dared to doubt His Divinity. Since then, my religion has become infinitely more clear; I have been thinking much about God, life and death all this time, and especially in Aachen the fatal questions - what for, how, why? - often occupied me and anxiously flashed before me. It is the religion of mine that I would like to word in detail some time, if only to clarify for myself once and forever my beliefs and that border where they arise after the speculation. However, life with its vanities flies by, and I don't know if I shall have time to express that Credo that has been worked out by me lately. It has been worked out very clearly, but nevertheless, I do not use it for my praying practice yet. I am praying still as before, as I was taught to pray. However, God hardly needs to know how and why people pray. God does not need prayer. But we need it

— Pyotr Tchaikovsky[5] [6]

Ironically, Kondrat'ev's words: "Pray, my friend, pray. God will help you to get out of this situation"[7], that had offended Tchaikovsky so much in 1877, appeared to be prophetic.

— Yelena Dyachkova, Tchaikovsky and the Bible

It is possible that the Fifth Symphony grew out of some of these reflections, as suggested by Tchaikovsky’s notes on the initial sketches.[8]

Though having many doubts about christianity, Tchaikovsky however liked and at times attended Orthodox liturgies. Yelena Dyachkova writes:

It gave him strong emotional experience. "My attitude to church completely differs from yours," Tchaikovsky wrote to Nadežda von Meck. "For me it still keeps plenty of poetic charm. I attend mass very often; in my opinion, the Liturgy of John Chrysostom is one of the greatest artistic works. Being attentive at our Orthodox service and going carefully into the sense of every ceremony, you are certainly touched by the spirit. I also love all night vigil. To go on Saturday to an old small church, to stand in twilight filled with incense smoke, to dip into yourself and to search inside yourself for the answer to eternal questions: what for, when, where to, why?, awaking from muse when the choir begins to sing "From my youth many passions possess me", and to give yourself up to the influence of the fascinating poetry of this psalm, to be filled with some quiet admiration, when holy doors open and it is heard "Praise God from Heaven!", - oh, I like all that enormously, it is one of my greatest delights!"[9] In another letter the composer writes: "This week I have attended many church services and experienced great artistic delight. The Orthodox service acts upon the soul amazingly, if it is arranged, for example, like here in the Church of the Saviour!"[10]

— Yelena Dyachkova, Tchaikovsky and the Bible

In particular Tchaikovsky liked the Easter celebrations:

In one of his letters he complains: "For the first time in my life I have to spend Passion Week and celebrate Easter outside Russia. It is a considerable privation for me; from my early years I used to love this festival especially, and now I feel envy while thinking of those who celebrate it in Russia"[11]

— Yelena Dyachkova, Tchaikovsky and the Bible

In his diary he writes of his impressions of Beethoven and Mozart, comparing them with his impressions of God and Jesus:

I shall begin with Beethoven, whom it is usual to extol indisputably, and it is enjoined to worship him as a god. Thus, what is Beethoven for me? I admire a greatness in some of his works - but I do not love Beethoven. My attitude to him reminds me what I felt in my childhood about the Lord of Sabaoth. I felt (and by now my feelings have not changed) amazement, and at the same time, fear towards Him. He created Heaven and Earth, and He created me also, and yet, although I cringe before Him, there is no love. Christ, on the contrary, arouses just and only feeling of love. Although he was God, at the same time he was a man. He suffered like we. We feel sorry for him, we love in him his ideal human features. And when Beethoven takes a place in my heart similar to the Lord of Sabaoth, then I love Mozart as the Christ of music. By the way, you know, he lived almost as long as Christ

— Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Dnevniki P. I. Cajkovskogo, p. 209-210 (record of June 29, 1886)

Musical compositions

Pjotr I. Tschaikowski, oil on canvas, by Nikolai Dmitriyevich Kuznetsov (1893)

Musical compositions by Tchaikovsky which were religiously inspired are:

The All-Night Vigil (Vesper Service), for unaccompanied chorus Op. 52 (1881-82)

The All Night Vigil (Всенощное бдение), Op. 52, also known as the Vesper Service, was written between May 1881 and March 1882. Tchaikovsky described it as "An essay in harmonisation of liturgical chants".

Movements and Duration

There are seventeen numbers, intended to be sung at specific points during the service.

  1. Introductory Psalm: "Bless My Soul, O Lord" (Предначинательный псалом: «Благослови душе моя»)
  2. "Lord Have Mercy" and other brief responses («Господи, помилуй» и другие краткие молитвословия)
  3. Kathisma: "Blessed is the Man"' (Кафисма: «Блажен муж»)
  4. "Lord, I Call to Thee" («Господи, воззвах к Тебе»)
  5. "Gladsome Light" («Свете тихий»)
  6. "Rejoice, O Virgin" («Богородице, Дево, радуйся»)
  7. "The Lord is God" («Бог Господь»)
  8. Polyeleion: "Praise the Name of the Lord" (Полиелей: «Хвалите имя Господне»)
  9. Troparia: "Blessed Art Thou, Lord" (Тропари: «Благословен еси Господи»)
  10. Gradual Antiphon: "From My Youth" (Степенна «От юности моея»)
  11. Hymns after the Gospel Reading: "Having Beheld the Resurrection of Christ" (Песнопения по Евангелии: «Воскресение Христово видевше»)
  12. Common Katabasis: "I Shall Open My Lips" (Катавасия рядовая: «Отверзну уста моя»)
  13. Canticle of the Mother of God (Песнь Богоматери с припевом)
  14. "Holy is the Lord Our God" («Свят Господь Бог наш»)
  15. Theotokion: "Both Now and Forever" (Богородичен «И ныне и присно»)
  16. Great Doxology: "Glory to God in the Highest" (Великое славословие: «Слава в вышних Богу»)
  17. "To Thee the Glorious Leader" («Взбранной Воеводе победительная»)

A complete concert performance lasts around 45 minutes.

Text

Tchaikovsky adapted the text from the Russian Orthodox Liturgy service. Several of the numbers are based on the text of Biblical psalms:

  • No. 1 – after Psalm 103
  • No. 3 – after Psalm 150
  • No. 4 – after Psalm 140
  • No. 7 – after Psalm 117
  • No. 8 – after Psalm 134 and Psalm 135
  • No. 9 – after Psalm 148
  • No. 10 – after Psalm 119, Psalm 120, Psalm 121, Psalm 122, Psalm 123, Psalm 124, Psalm 125, Psalm 126, Psalm 127, Psalm 128, Psalm 129, Psalm 130, Psalm 131, Psalm 132.
  • No. 11 – after Psalm 148, Psalm 149, Psalm 150 and Psalm 140

The Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom

See Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom (Tchaikovsky) and Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom.

Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom (Литургия святого Иоанна Златоуста), Op. 41, is a setting for unaccompanied voices of fifteen numbers from the Russian Orthodox Liturgy for unaccompanied voices, made by Tchaikovsky in 1878.

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.[12]

Movements and Duration

The fifteen numbers are intended to be sung at specific points in the liturgy service.

  1. Amen. Lord Have Mercy (Амин. Господи помилуй)
    After the exclamation "Blessed is the Kingdom" (После возглашения «Благословенно царство») (50 bars).
  2. Glory to the Father and to the Son (Слава Отцу и Сыну)
    After the First Antiphon (После первого антифона) (63 bars).
  3. Come, Let Us Worship (Придите, поклонимся)
    After the Little Entrance (После малого входа) (56 bars).
  4. Alleleuja (Аллилуйя)
    After the Epistle Reading (После чтения апостола) (15 bars).
  5. Glory to Thee, O Lord (Слава тебе Господи)
    After the Gospel Reading (После чтения евангелия) (26 bars).
  6. Cherubic Hymn (Херувимская песнь) (98 bars).
  7. Lord Have Mercy (Господи помилуй)
    After the Cherubic Hymn (После херувимской песни) (16 bars).
  8. I Believe in One God, The Father, The Almighty (Верую во Единаго Бога Отца)
    The Creed (Символ веры) (92 bars).
  9. Merciful Peace (Милость мира)
    After the Creed (После Cимвола веры) (42 bars).
  10. We Hymn Thee (Тебе поем)
    After the exclamation "Thine Own of Thine Own" (После возглашения «Твоя от твоих») (39 bars).
  11. It is Truly Fitting (Достойно есть)
    After the words "Especially For Our Most Holy" (После слов «Изрядко о пресвятей») (55 bars).
  12. Amen. And With Your Spirit, Lord Have Mercy (Амин. И со духом твоим, Господи, помилуй)
    After the exclamation "And Grant That With Our Mouths" (После возглашения: «И даждь нам единеми усты») (13 bars).
  13. Our Father (Отче наш)
    The Lord's Prayer (Молитва Господня) (44 bars).
  14. Praise the Lord from the Heavens (Хвалите, хвалите, Господа с небес)
    Communion Hymn (Причастный стих) (86 bars).
  15. Blessed is He Who Comes in the Name of the Lord (Благословен грядый во имя Господне)
    After the Exclamation "In the Fear of God" (После возглашения «Со страхом Божиим») (92 bars).

A complete concert performance lasts around 50 minutes.

Text

Tchaikovsky adapted the text from the Russian Orthodox Liturgy service.

The Cherubikon is the usual Cherubic Hymn sung at the Great Entrance of the Byzantine liturgy. The hymn symbolically incorporates those present at the liturgy into the presence of the angels gathered around God's throne.

Legend

See Legend (Tchaikovsky) and Sixteen Songs for Children, Op. 54.

Tchaikovsky's Sixteen Songs for Children (Шестнадцать песен для детей), Op. 54, were written at Kamenka in October and November 1883, except for No. 16 which dates from around December 1880.

Legend (Russian: Легенда, Legenda), Op. 54, No. 5 (also known as The Crown of Roses in some English-language sources) is a composition by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Originally written in 1883 as a song for solo voice and piano, it was subsequently arranged by Tchaikovsky for solo voice and orchestra (1884), and then for unaccompanied choir (1889). The words are based on the poem "Roses and Thorns" by American poet Richard Henry Stoddard, originally published in the May 1856 edition of Graham's Magazine, and translated into russian by Aleksey Pleshcheyev:

Text

The young child Jesus had a garden
Full of roses, rare and red;
And thrice a day he watered them,
To make a garland for his head!

When they were full-blown in the garden,
He led the Jewish children there,
And each did pluck himself a rose,
Until they stripped the garden bare!

"And now how will you make your garland?
For not a rose your path adorns:"
"But you forget," he answered them,
"That you have left me still the thorns.

They took the thorns, and made a garland,
And placed it on his shining head;
And where the roses should have shone,
Were little drops of blood instead!

— Roses and Thorns, Stoddard, R[ichard] H[enry] (May 1856). "Roses and Thorns". Graham's Magazine. Philadelphia. xlviii (5): 414.

The Maid of Orleans

The Maid of Orleans (Орлеанская дева), in 4 acts and 6 scenes, is Tchaikovsky's sixth completed opera, based on the historical legend of Joan of Arc. It was composed between December 1878 and March 1879, and orchestrated between April and August 1879, with revisions in December 1880, and September-October 1882.

Libretto

The opera's libretto was compiled by Tchaikovsky, after Friedrich Schiller's tragedy Die Jungfrau von Orleans (1801) in a Russian translation by Vasily Zhukovsky, with additional material from Auguste Mermet's opera Jeanne d'Arc and Jules Barbier's drama of the same name [13].

During the summer of 1878 Tchaikovsky began to look for a subject for a new opera.

"Here I'm writing the Introduzione e Fuga. Both of them will go to make up a suite, which I want to do now in order to take a long break from symphonic music, and set about an opera. What shall it be? Romeo or Les Caprices de Marianne?", Tchaikovsky wrote in the summer of 1878 [14].

Many of the composer's statements dating from the summer and autumn of 1878 indicate his desire to find a plot for an opera that could inspire him. Ultimately a subject was found. On 21 November/3 December 1878 [15], Tchaikovsky writes to Nadezhda von Meck: "I am attracted by a new operatic subject, namely:The Maid of Orleans by Schiller [...] The idea of writing an opera based on this story came to me in Kamenka while I was leafing through Zhukovsky, who has translated Schiller's The Maid of Orleans. It has wonderful potential for music [...] I was pondering the subject before my last visit to Saint Petersburg, but now I am seriously interested" [16].

Intending to write the libretto himself, Tchaikovsky embarked on studying the story. The composer did not restrict himself to Schiller's drama only: he sought to incorporate a variety of historical and artistic sources [17]. On 6/18 December 1878 he told Nadezhda von Meck: "For the moment I have only Schiller's drama translated by Zhukovsky. Obviously the opera text cannot be based strictly on Schiller's scenario. There are too many characters, too many minor episodes. It requires a reworking, not just an abridgement..." [18]. "I want to burrow in catalogues and obtain a small collection of books on Jeanne d'Arc" [19] . "I'm thinking a very great deal about the libretto and can't yet make a definite plan. There's much that pleases me in Schiller, but I must admit I'm disturbed by his disdain for historical accuracy" [20].

He was particularly impressed by a scene in which "the king, archbishops and knights recognize Jeanne as a missionary from on high"[21] and decided that it just had to be a part of his opera. And the scenes of her passion, which he related to the passion of Christ, had a profound impact on him:

Imagine, my dear friend, that my heroine, that is Jeanne d'Arc, is to blame for my yesterday's abnormally excited condition and bad night. At last, in the evening I began reading your book [Henri-Alexandre Wallon, Jeanne d'Arc, Paris, 1876.], and having reached Jeanne's last days, her sufferings and execution that was preceded by abjuration, when her strength was out and she admitted that she was a witch, I felt such a pity and pain for all the mankind in her person, that it made me feel completely destroyed

— Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Perepiska s N. F. fon-Mekk, vol. 1, p. 539-540 (letter from Florence, December 10, 1878)

Movements and Duration

See The Maid of Orleans#Movements_and_Duration on the Tchaikovsky wiki.

Notes

  1. ↑ Published in 1903
  2. ↑ Often anglicized as Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky; also standardized by the Library of Congress. His names are also transliterated as Piotr or Petr; Ilitsch or Il'ich; and Tschaikowski, Tschaikowsky, Chajkovskij, or Chaikovsky. He used to sign his name/was known as P. Tschaïkowsky/Pierre Tschaïkowsky in French (as in his afore-reproduced signature), and Peter Tschaikowsky in German, spellings also displayed on several of his scores' title pages in their first printed editions alongside or in place of his native name.
  3. ↑ Петръ Ильичъ Чайковскій in Russian pre-revolutionary script.
  4. ↑ Russia was still using old style dates in the 19th century, rendering his lifespan as 25 April 1840 – 25 October 1893. Some sources in the article report dates as old style rather than new style.

References

  1. ↑ "Tchaikovsky". Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.
  2. ↑ Perepiska s N. F. fon-Mekk [Correspondence with N. F. von Meck], ed. by V. A. Ždanov and N. T. Žegina, Moscow-Leningrad 1934-1936, ISBN 5962801423
  3. ↑ Dnevniki P. I. Cajkovskogo [Tchaikovsky's Diaries], Moscow-Petrograd 1923
  4. ↑ Wladimir Lakond, The Diaries of Tchaikovsky (1945), p. 244
  5. ↑ Wladimir Lakond, The Diaries of Tchaikovsky (1945), p. 249
  6. ↑ Dnevniki, P. I. Cajkovskogo, p. 213 (record of September 21, 1887)
  7. ↑ Pëtr Il'ic Cajkovskij, Perepiska s N. F. fon-Mekk, vol. 1, p. 113-114 (letter from Venice, December 5-17, 1877)
  8. ↑ see the work history http://www.tchaikovsky-research.net/en/Works/Symphonies/TH029.html
  9. ↑ Pëtr Il'ic Cajkovskij, Perepiska s N. F. fon-Mekk, vol. 1, p. 91 (letter from Vienna, November 23 - December 5, 1877)
  10. ↑ Pëtr Il'ic Cajkovskij, Perepiska s N. F. fon-Mekk, vol. 3, p. 270 (letter on the way from Moscow to Kamenka, April 7, 1884)
  11. ↑ Pëtr Il'ic Cajkovskij, Perepiska s N. F. fon-Mekk, vol. 3, p. 172 (letter from Paris, April 16, 1883)
  12. ↑ "Peter Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)". Musica Russica. Retrieved 22 March 2013.
  13. ↑ Jules Barbier's drama Jeanna d'Arc, in 5 acts, 7 scenes with music by Charles Gounod was first performed in Paris on 8 November 1873. According to Félix Clément (1822–1885), this drama represented events with historical accuracy Among the musical numbers, Clément highly rated the chorus of refugees, the soldiers' chorus, and the funeral march — see Félix Clément & Pierre Larousse, Dictionnaire des operas (Dictionnaire lyrique) (1897 edition, revised by Arthur Pougin), p. 604. Auguste Mermet's opera Jeanna d'Arc, in 4 acts, 6 scenes, was first performed in Paris on 5 April 1876.
  14. ↑ See Letter 900 to Modest Tchaikovsky, 21 August/2 September 1878.
  15. ↑ The original gives an incorrect date of "2 December".
  16. ↑ Letter 973 to Nadezhda von Meck, 21 November/3 December 1878; see also Letter 966 to Modest Tchaikovsky, 13/25 November 1878.
  17. ↑ See Letter 968 to Pyotr Jurgenson, 15/27 November 1878; Letter 976 to Nadezhda von Meck, 23 November/5 December 1878; Letter 1016 to Anatoly Tchaikovsky, 11/23 December 1878; and Letter 1008 to Modest Tchaikovsky, 6/18 December 1878.
  18. ↑ Letter 1007 to Nadezhda von Meck, 6/18 December 1878.
  19. ↑ See Letter 1007 to Nadezhda von Meck, 6/18 December 1878.
  20. ↑ Letter 1013 to Nadezhda von Meck, 10/22 December 1878.
  21. ↑ Pëtr Il'ic Cajkovskij, Perepiska s N. F. fon-Mekk, vol. 1, p. 543 (letter from Florence, December 6-18, 1878)

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Further reading

External links

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