Tchaikovsky

Tchaikovsky

The memorable melodies, strong colors and uninhibited emotionalism of

Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky have long made him one of the most widely popular of all

composers. These same qualities have also perhaps made it harder for some critics and

professionals to fully appreciate Tchaikovsky's originality and accomplishments. In these

biographical essays it has been noted how the opera is at the core of Mozart and the lied

is central to Schubert. With Tchaikovsky, his essence is in many ways the idealized fairy

tale world of the classic ballet, and this colorful and dramatic spirit pervades much of

his music, including the great symphonies.

Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky was born to a middle class family in Votkinsk, Russia in 1840.

Like Schumann, a composer who had a strong influence on him, Tchaikovsky dutifully studied

law before following his true calling by entering the St. Petersburg Conservatory where he

studied from 1863 to 1865. Among his teachers was Anton Rubinstein with whom he studied

composition. In 1866 he went to Moscow to become the professor of harmony at the new

conservatory headed by Nicholas Rubinstein (Anton's brother). In his first two years, he

wrote his first symphony (Winter Daydreams) and first opera (Voyevod).

At the conservatory, Tchaikovsky became acquainted with the group of Russian composers

headed by Rimsky-Korsakov and Balakierev whose nationalist passions inspired his second

symphony (Little Russian). Tchaikovsky was later rejected by this group for being too

conservatory trained, cosmopolitan and not sufficiently Russian. In fact, Tchaikovsky's

music, while ultimately deeply Russian, is also imbued with his love of Mozart and other

western European influences, particularly the French music of Bizet and Saint-Saлns. But

as Stravinsky wrote, "Tchaikovsky's music, which does not appear specifically Russian to

everybody, is more often profoundly Russian than music which has long since been awarded

the facile label of Muscovite picturesqueness. This music is quite as Russian as Pushkin's

verse or Glinka's song... Tchaikovsky drew unconsciously from the the true, popular sources

of our race."

From 1869 to 1876, Tchaikovsky wrote three more operas, and the Piano Concerto No. 1 in

Bb- (1st movement). He was also the music critic of "Russikye vedomosti," and this took him

to the first Bayreuth festival in 1876, although Wagner's music meant nothing to him. Nor

did Brahms' for that matter. "It angers me that that presumptuous mediocrity is recognized

as a genius." Regarding Beethoven, "I acknowledge the greatness of some of his works, but I

do not love him." Mozart however, was "a musical Christ." Meanwhile the piano concerto was

premiered by Van Bulow in Boston after being rejected with scathing criticism by Nicholas

Rubinstein. The reviews called it an "extremely difficult, strange wild, ultra-Russian

concerto", and asked, "Could we ever learn to love such music?"

In 1877, Tchaikovsky made the disastrous mistake of marrying one of his pupils,

Antonina Ivanova Miliukova. Tchaikovsky was a hyperemotional, unhappy and secretive

homosexual hoping that a respectable marriage with a hero worshipping student would be a

workable solution to his plight. Unfortunately he chose a woman who was not only not bright,

but a nymphomaniac as well. The marriage lasted nine weeks culminating in Tchaikovsky

attempting suicide by jumping in a river to give himself pneumonia (again reminiscent of

Schumann). His brother Modest, also homosexual, saved him and took him back to St Petersburg

where Tchaikovsky suffered a complete nervous breakdown.

About this time Tchaikovsky started a relationship with a wealthy widow, Nadejda von Meck,

who became his patron for the next fourteen years. She was forty-six and the mother of

seven. She offered to subsidize Tchaikovsky with the proviso that they never meet. During

their voluminous correspondence she wrote, "...I fear your acquaintanceship. I prefer to

think of you from afar, to hear you speak in your music and share your feelings through it."

This of course was a perfect situation for the morbidly shy composer who wrote back, "You

are afraid you will fail to find in my personality all those qualities with which your

idealizing imagination has endowed me. And in that you are quite right." When they once

met