Concert Review And Bio: Tchaikovsky

Classical Concert

Who likes classical music anyway? That is a question that you may have found me

asking a few months ago. As I have listened to the music in class and on my CD that

came with the text book, I have noticed that I am growing a little bit more fond of

this style of music. I had never really given it a chance until I started attending my

younger sister's concerts and really paying attention to the music. I have realized that

classical music isn't half bad. modern rock is still the music for me, but I have really

learned to like and respect classical music over the last few months. The last classical

concert I attended was a Christmas themed concert last week. Along with Christmas

favorites and carols, they played a song called Trepak, by Tchaikovsky. I had heard of

Tchaikovsky before, but had never seen any of his music performed live.

My first impression of the concert was that the players were all dressed in black

slacks or skirts and white tops. Some of them were wearing festive Santa Clause style

hats and some even had garland wrapped around their instruments. The orchestra played

first. They were all seated in a very specific order, facing the audience with the conductor

standing on a podium in front of them. As they began to play I was very impressed with

the level of skill that they played with, being only in high school. It sounded as if I was

listening to a CD of professionals playing the songs. As the conductor lead them through

the songs I became very attentive to the playing. I realized that I was actually enjoying

classical music. After the orchestra finished playing, the jazz band played a few songs.

The jazz band only contained ten different players and their songs were much more up

beat and had quiet a few solos. As the concert came to a close I started to become

curious about the people who composed the music that these high school kids were

performing. In particular I was interested in Tchaikovsky. I had heard the name before,

but didn't know all that much about the man whose music has lasted all this time.

When I started my research, on of the first things that I discovered was that

Tchaikovsky was a very shy man who put all of his emotions into his music. He was born

on May 7th 1840, in Votkinsk, Russia (in the Ural mountains). He first took piano lessons

when he was just 7 years old and by the time he was 10, he was attending the school of

laws in St. Petersburg. In 1859 he graduated and became a clerk at the Ministry of

Justice. As the young man grew older he became more and more interested in music, and

in 1861 he began to study with Anton Rubinstein. When he was 26 he started teaching

at the Moscow conservatory. While he was teaching, he wrote some of his most famous

works, including the ballet, "Swan Lake" and the very popular, "First Piano Concerto".

At the time when he was writing these works they were not very well received. However,

there was a very wealthy widow named Nadezhda