Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Difference between revisions

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{{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}}

In another letter to Mrs von Meck in 1879, he recounts his impressions of reading the scene in [[W: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 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:

{{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}}

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{{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>}}

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 [[W:Maydanovo]] in 1887, on the same day that his old friend [[W:Nikolay Kondratyev]] died after a long illness in Aachen (where Tchaikovsky had visited him that summer):

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 [[W:Maydanovo]] in 1887, on the same day that his old friend [[W:Nikolay Kondratyev|Nikolay Kondratyev]] died after a long illness in Aachen (where Tchaikovsky had visited him that summer):

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