"White guys? Who cares?"
Posted on 05/07/2015 9:48:39 AM PDT by Borges
With a body of work of 169 compositions, whose genres include symponies, concertos, operas, ballet, chamber music and even a choral setting of the Russian Orthodox Divine Liturgy, Tchaikovsky composed some of the most popular theatrical music within the classical repertoire. He was the first Russian composer to acquire a solid reputation and career abroad, to the point that he appeared at the inaugural concert of Carnegie Hall in New York in 1891.
Tchaikovsky studied at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, where he received a western-oriented teaching that set him apart from the nationalist Russian composers known as “The Five,” with whom he had a complicated professional relationship. In fact, even though he had a solid reputation abroad, in Russia he was considered as too dependent on Western traditions. However, in 1880, during commemoration ceremonies for the Pushkin Monument in Moscow, Fyodor Dostoyevsky maintained that Pushkin had voiced the need for Russia to pursue a “universal unity with the west.” Not only was Dostoyevsky’s message widely acclaimed throughout the country, but the disdain for Tchaikovsky’s music just… evaporated. What’s more, the young intelligentsia of Saint Petersburg, including Alexandre Benois, Leon Bakst and Sergei Diaghilev followed him like a cult leader.
(Excerpt) Read more at cmuse.org ...
Classical Ping
Very little in life can compare to experiencing his magnificent violin concerto live, performed by a superb soloist.
I like his ballet works and symphonies. His Piano Concerto #1 is good but I prefer Mozart and Rachmaninoff.
Tchaikovsky requested unboiled water and drank it anyway, despite the fact that he had been warned not to do so: the next day, he started displaying symptoms of cholera. The circumstances of his death, however, gave way to a wide array of theories: while the “tainted water theory” has a robust following, Biographer Anthony Holden postulates Tchaikovsky might have contracted cholera by less-than-hygienic sexual practices he had been engaging in with male prostitutes in St. Petersburg, and that drinking unboiled water was just a means to conceal the real way he had become infected.
So it appears likely that Tchaikovsky contacted the Rock Hudson disease before Rock Hudson made it famous.
Tchaikovsky was still a musical genius with great imagination. Connecting an organ designed to discharge urine and semen with a sewage discharge pipe just isn't a very bright thing to do.
The evidence is pretty strong that he committed suicide.
FIRE THE CANNONS!!!....................
” His Piano Concerto #1 is good but I prefer Mozart and Rachmaninoff.”
Interesting combo.
I’ll take Mozart for 800, Alex.
Maybe. But connecting an organ designed to discharge urine and semen with a sewage discharge pipe is one way to commit suicide, just not very efficient.
Well the suicide theory is connected to his lifestyle. The story is that he was blackmailed into killing himself or his affair with a government official would be revealed (causing him possible exile and his family embarrassment). What’s sad is that he certainly would not have been exiled. The Tsar would have thrown the accusation in the garbage like he did with such accusations about notables all the time.
One need only look at the crop of great musicians from Russia who evolved about the time Tchaikovsky made his debut on the world state and the dearth of them after the Bolshevik Revolution. Those who survived the Communists either escaped or somehow managed to convince the Bolsheviks they were promoting their new world order.
Vienna’s best days ended when Schubert died in 1828. Towards the end of the 19th century the city had become a smug metropolis living in the past regardless of Brahms.
Wow, what was with the guy on WQXR today, he talked about it being Brahms birthday but not Tchaikovsky, my personal fave.
Happy birthday to both you dead white guys!
performed by a superb soloist.
Jascha Heifetz
Yep. Heifetz was the soloist the first time I heard it, on CD.
He set the bar pretty high. Just about anyone else I've heard has suffered in comparison.
But, last Saturday night a young violinist named Vadim Gluzman hit it out of the park. It was magnificent.
May 7th is a big day in musical circles...
1824 - premiere of Beethoven’s 9th symphony
1825 - death of Antonio Salieri
1833 - birth of Brahms
1840 - birth of Tchaikovsky
1942 - death of Felix Weingartner - first conductor to record all 9 Beethoven symphonies.
Thanks! The afternoon gal actually played the 1812 Overture tonight during my drive home. I really don’t like her 1/2 as much as the morning guy, but she hooked me up today.
She even talked about some meme that’s going around in which Tchaikovsky says: they said I could use any instruments I wanted.....so I used cannons!
That sounded very FR to me.
He was a genius.
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