Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Difference between revisions

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'''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]].  

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.