Петр Ильич Чайковский [а] ( / tʃ aɪ к ɒ е с к я / chy- КОФ -skee ; [2] русский: Пётр Ильич Чайковский, [2] IPA: [pʲɵtr ɨlʲjitɕ tɕɪjkofskʲɪj] ( слушать ) ; 7 мая 1840 - 6 ноября 1893 [а 3] ) - русский композитор эпохи романтизма . Он был первым российским композитором, чья музыка произвела неизгладимое впечатление на международном уровне. В 1884 году он был удостоен чести царя Александра III. и назначили пожизненную пенсию.
Несмотря на то, что Чайковский не по годам развит в музыкальном плане, он получил образование в качестве государственного служащего. В то время в России было мало возможностей для музыкальной карьеры и отсутствовала система государственного музыкального образования. Когда появилась возможность получить такое образование, он поступил в зарождающуюся Санкт-Петербургскую консерваторию , которую окончил в 1865 году. Формальное западноориентированное обучение, которое он получил там, отличало его от композиторов современного националистического движения, воплощенного в русских композиторах. Пятерка, с которой его профессиональные отношения были смешанными .
Обучение Чайковского поставило его на путь примирения того, чему он научился, с местными музыкальными практиками, которым он был приобщен с детства. Благодаря этому примирению он создал личный, но безошибочно русский стиль. Принципы, которые управляли мелодией, гармонией и другими основами русской музыки, полностью противоречили принципам, которые управляли западноевропейской музыкой, что, казалось, сводило на нет возможность использования русской музыки в крупномасштабной западной композиции или для формирования композитного стиля, и это привело к личные антипатии, подорвавшие самоуверенность Чайковского. Русская культура демонстрировала раздвоение личности: ее исконные и заимствованные элементы все больше расходились со времен Петра Великого . Это привело к неуверенности среди интеллигенции в отношении национальной идентичности страны, неоднозначности, отраженной в карьере Чайковского.
Несмотря на его многочисленные успехи в народе, жизнь Чайковского была отмечена личными кризисами и депрессией. К числу способствующих факторов относились его раннее разлучение с матерью в школе-интернате с последующей ранней смертью матери; смерть его близкого друга и коллеги Николая Рубинштейна ; и крах единственных прочных отношений его взрослой жизни, его 13-летней связи с богатой вдовой Надеждой фон Мекк , которая была его покровительницей, хотя на самом деле они никогда не встречались друг с другом. Его гомосексуальность, который он держал в секрете, традиционно также считался важным фактором, хотя некоторые музыковеды теперь преуменьшают его важность. Внезапную смерть Чайковского в возрасте 53 лет обычно связывают с холерой , но продолжаются споры о том, действительно ли холера была причиной его смерти.
Хотя его музыка оставалась популярной среди публики, критические мнения поначалу были неоднозначными. Некоторые россияне не считали его достаточно репрезентативным для местных музыкальных ценностей и высказывали подозрение, что европейцы принимают музыку как западные элементы. В качестве очевидного подкрепления последнего утверждения некоторые европейцы хвалили Чайковского за то, что он предлагал музыку более содержательную, чем базовую экзотику, и заявили, что он превзошел стереотипы русской классической музыки. Другие отвергали музыку Чайковского как «лишенную возвышенного мышления» [3] и высмеивали ее формальную работу как несовершенную, поскольку они не следовали строго западным принципам.
Жизнь
Детство
Петр Ильич Чайковский родился в Воткинске , небольшом городке в Вятской губернии (современная Удмуртия ) в Российской империи , в семье с многолетней военной службой. Его отец, Илья Петрович Чайковский, служил подполковником и инженером в Горном управлении [4] и руководил Камско-Воткинским металлургическим заводом. Его дед, Петр Федорович Чайковский (урожденный Петр Федорович Чайка), родился в селе Николаевка Полтавской губернии Российской империи (современная Украина) [5] и служил сначала фельдшером в армии, а затем в городе. губернатор Глазова в Вятке. Его прадед, [6] [7] Запорожец по имени Федор Чайка, отличился под Петром в Полтавской битве в 1709. [8] [9]
Мать Чайковского, Александра Андреевна (урожденная д'Ассье), была второй из трех жен Ильи, на 18 лет младше ее мужа и француженкой и немкой по отцовской линии. [10] И Илья, и Александра получили образование в области искусства, в том числе музыки - необходимость, поскольку командировка в отдаленный район России также означала потребность в развлечениях, будь то наедине или на общественных собраниях. [11] Из его шести братьев и сестер [a 4] Чайковский был близок со своей сестрой Александрой и братьями-близнецами Анатолием и Модестом . Брак Александры со Львом Давыдовым [12] произвел на свет семерых детей [13] и предоставил Чайковскому единственную настоящую семейную жизнь, которую он знал бы, став взрослым [14], особенно в годы скитаний. [14] Один из тех детей, Владимир Давыдов , которого композитор называл «Боб», стал ему очень близок. [15]
В 1844 году семья наняла Фанни Дюрбах, 22-летнюю французскую гувернантку. [16] Четырех с половиной лет Чайковский изначально считался слишком молодым, чтобы учиться вместе со своим старшим братом Николаем и племянницей семьи. Его настойчивость убедила Дюрбаха в обратном. [17] К шести годам он свободно говорил на французском и немецком языках. [11] Чайковский тоже привязался к молодой женщине; ее привязанность к нему, как сообщается, противоречила холодности его матери и эмоциональной дистанцированности от него [18], хотя другие утверждают, что мать обожала своего сына. [19] Дюрбах сохранил большую часть работ Чайковского этого периода, включая его самые ранние известные сочинения, и стал источником нескольких детских анекдотов. [20]
Чайковский начал уроки игры на фортепиано в пять лет. Не по годам развитый, за три года он стал таким же искусным в чтении нот, как и его учитель. Его родители, изначально поддерживающие его, наняли репетитора, купили оркестрион (форма шарманки, которая могла имитировать сложные оркестровые эффекты) и поощряли его изучение игры на фортепиано как по эстетическим, так и по практическим причинам.
Однако в 1850 году решили отправить Чайковского в Императорское училище правоведения в Санкт-Петербурге. Оба они окончили институты в Санкт-Петербурге и Школу правоведения, которая в основном обслуживала низшее дворянство, и думали, что это образование подготовит Чайковского к карьере государственного служащего. [21] Независимо от талантов, единственная музыкальная карьера, доступная в России в то время, - за исключением богатой аристократии - была преподавателем в академии или инструменталистом в одном из Императорских театров. Оба считались на самом низком уровне социальной лестницы, причем отдельные лица в них пользовались не большими правами, чем крестьяне. [22]
Доход его отца также становился все более неопределенным, поэтому оба родителя, возможно, хотели, чтобы Чайковский как можно скорее стал независимым. [23] Поскольку минимальный возраст для приема составлял 12 лет, а Чайковскому было только 10 в то время, он должен был провести два года в интернате в подготовительной школе Императорской школы юриспруденции, в 1300 километрах (800 миль) от его семьи. [24] По прошествии этих двух лет Чайковский перешел в Императорскую школу юриспруденции, чтобы начать семилетний курс обучения. [25]
Раннее расставание Чайковского с матерью вызвало эмоциональную травму, которая длилась до конца его жизни и усугубилась ее смертью от холеры в 1854 году, когда ему было четырнадцать. [26] [a 5] Потеря матери также побудила Чайковского сделать свою первую серьезную попытку сочинения, вальс в ее памяти. Отец Чайковского, который тоже заразился холерой, но полностью выздоровел, немедленно отправил его обратно в школу в надежде, что классные занятия займут мальчика. [27] Изолированный, Чайковский компенсировал это дружбой с однокурсниками, которая стала пожизненной; в их число вошли Алексей Апухтин и Владимир Герард. [28]
Музыка, хотя и не является официальным приоритетом в школе, также ликвидировала разрыв между Чайковским и его сверстниками. Они регулярно посещали оперу [29], а Чайковский импровизировал на школьной фисгармонии на темы, которые он и его друзья пели во время хоровой репетиции. «Мы были удивлены, - вспоминал позже Владимир Герард, - но не питали никаких надежд на его будущую славу». [30] Чайковский также продолжил свое обучение игре на фортепиано через Франца Беккера, производителя инструментов, который время от времени посещал школу; однако результаты, по словам музыковеда Дэвида Брауна , были «незначительными». [31]
В 1855 году отец Чайковского финансировал частные уроки у Рудольфа Кюндингера и расспрашивал его о музыкальной карьере его сына. Впечатленный талантом мальчика, Кюндингер сказал, что не видит ничего, что могло бы подсказать будущее композитора или исполнителя. [32] Позже он признал, что его оценка была также основана на его собственном негативном опыте музыканта в России и его нежелании относиться к Чайковскому так же. [33] Чайковскому сказали закончить учебу и затем попытаться получить должность в Министерстве юстиции. [34]
Гражданская служба; заниматься музыкой
10 июня 1859 года 19-летний Чайковский получил высшее образование, получив звание титулярного советника, низкую ступеньку служебной лестницы. Назначенный в Министерство юстиции, он стал младшим помощником в течение шести месяцев и старшим помощником через два месяца после этого. Он оставался старшим помощником до конца своей трехлетней карьеры на государственной службе. [35]
Между тем, Русское музыкальное общество (РМС) было основано в 1859 году великой княгиней Еленой Павловной (родившейся в Германии тётей царя Александра II ) и её протеже, пианистом и композитором Антоном Рубинштейном . Предыдущие цари и аристократия были сосредоточены почти исключительно на импорте европейских талантов. [36] Целью RMS было исполнение желания Александра II развивать местные таланты. [37] Здесь регулярно проводились публичные концерты (ранее проводились только в течение шести недель Великого поста, когда были закрыты Императорские театры) [38], а также проводилась базовая профессиональная музыкальная подготовка. [39] В 1861 году Чайковский посещал классы RMS по теории музыки, которые вел Николай Заремба в Михайловском дворце (ныне Русский музей ). [40] Эти классы были предшественниками Санкт-Петербургской консерватории, которая открылась в 1862 году. Чайковский поступил в консерваторию как часть ее премьер-класса. Он изучал гармонию и контрапункт у Зарембы, а инструменты и композицию - у Рубинштейна. [41]
Консерватория принесла Чайковскому двоякую пользу. Это превратило его в музыкального профессионала с инструментами, которые помогут ему преуспеть как композитор, а глубокое знакомство с европейскими принципами и музыкальными формами дало ему ощущение, что его искусство не было исключительно русским или западным. [42] Это мышление стало важным в примирении Чайковского русских и европейских влияний в его композиционном стиле. Он верил и пытался показать, что оба эти аспекта «переплетены и взаимозависимы». [43] Его усилия стали одновременно источником вдохновения и отправной точкой для других русских композиторов в создании собственных индивидуальных стилей. [44]
Рубинштейн был впечатлен музыкальным талантом Чайковского в целом и назвал его «гениальным композитором» в своей автобиографии. [45] Он был менее доволен более прогрессивными тенденциями в некоторых студенческих работах Чайковского. [46] Он также не изменил своего мнения, поскольку репутация Чайковского росла. [a 6] [a 7] Он и Заремба поссорились с Чайковским, когда он представил свою Первую симфонию для исполнения Русским музыкальным обществом в Санкт-Петербурге. Рубинштейн и Заремба отказались рассматривать работу, если не будут внесены существенные изменения. Чайковский подчинился, но они все равно отказались исполнять симфонию. [47] Чайковский, огорченный тем, что с ним обращались так, как будто он все еще был их учеником, отозвал симфонию. Его первое полное исполнение, за вычетом изменений, которые потребовали Рубинштейн и Заремба, было дано в Москве в феврале 1868 года [48].
После того, как Чайковский окончил институт в 1865 году, брат Рубинштейна Николай предложил ему должность профессора теории музыки в Московской консерватории, которая вскоре должна была открыться . Хотя зарплата его профессора составляла всего 50 рублей в месяц, само предложение подняло моральный дух Чайковского, и он с радостью принял эту должность. Его воодушевили новости о первом публичном исполнении одного из его произведений, его « Характерных танцев» , которое дирижировал Иоганн Штраус II на концерте в Павловском парке 11 сентября 1865 г. (Чайковский позже включил это произведение, переименованное в « Танцы сена»). Девы в опере «Воевода» ). [49]
С 1867 по 1878 год Чайковский совмещал свои профессорские обязанности с музыкальной критикой , продолжая сочинять. [50] Эта деятельность познакомила его с целым рядом современной музыки и дала ему возможность путешествовать за границу. [51] В своих обзорах он хвалил Бетховена , считал Брамса переоцененным и, несмотря на свое восхищение, критиковал Шумана за плохую оркестровку. [52] [a 8] Он оценил постановку оперы Вагнера Der Ring des Nibelungen на ее первом представлении в Байройте (Германия), но не музыку, назвавшую Das Rheingold «невероятной ерундой, через которую, время от времени, сверкают необычайно красивые и удивительные подробности ». [53] Постоянной темой, к которой он обращался, было плохое состояние русской оперы . [54]
Отношения с пятеркой
В 1856 году, когда Чайковский еще учился в Школе правоведения и Антон Рубинштейн лоббировал аристократов с целью создания Русского музыкального общества , критик Владимир Стасов и 18-летний пианист Милий Балакирев встретились и согласовали националистическую повестку дня в русской музыке. тот, который будет брать оперы Михаила Глинки в качестве модели и включать элементы народной музыки, отвергать традиционные западные практики и использовать незападные гармонические приемы, такие как цельный тон и октатонические гаммы . [55] Они считали консерватории в западном стиле ненужными и антипатичными для развития местных талантов. [56]
Со временем Балакирев, Сезар Кюи , Модест Мусоргский , Николай Римский-Корсаков и Александр Бородин стали известны как могучая кучка , что в переводе на английский означает «Могучая горстка» или «Пятерка» . [57] Рубинштейн критиковал их акцент на любительские усилия в музыкальной композиции; Балакирев, а затем и Мусоргский критиковали Рубинштейна за его музыкальный консерватизм и веру в профессиональное музыкальное образование. [58] Чайковский и его однокурсники из консерватории оказались посередине. [59]
While ambivalent about much of The Five's music, Tchaikovsky remained on friendly terms with most of its members.[60] In 1869, he and Balakirev worked together on what became Tchaikovsky's first recognized masterpiece, the fantasy-overture Romeo and Juliet, a work which The Five wholeheartedly embraced.[61] The group also welcomed his Second Symphony, subtitled the Little Russian.[62] Despite their support, Tchaikovsky made considerable efforts to ensure his musical independence from the group as well as from the conservative faction at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory.[63]
Growing fame; budding opera composer
The infrequency of Tchaikovsky's musical successes, won with tremendous effort, exacerbated his lifelong sensitivity to criticism. Nikolai Rubinstein's private fits of rage critiquing his music, such as attacking the First Piano Concerto, did not help matters.[64] His popularity grew, however, as several first-rate artists became willing to perform his compositions. Hans von Bülow premiered the First Piano Concerto and championed other Tchaikovsky works both as pianist and conductor.[65] Other artists included Adele Aus der Ohe, Max Erdmannsdörfer, Eduard Nápravník and Sergei Taneyev.
Another factor that helped Tchaikovsky's music become popular was a shift in attitude among Russian audiences. Whereas they had previously been satisfied with flashy virtuoso performances of technically demanding but musically lightweight works, they gradually began listening with increasing appreciation of the composition itself. Tchaikovsky's works were performed frequently, with few delays between their composition and first performances; the publication from 1867 onward of his songs and great piano music for the home market also helped boost the composer's popularity.[66]
During the late 1860s, Tchaikovsky began to compose operas. His first, The Voyevoda, based on a play by Alexander Ostrovsky, premiered in 1869. The composer became dissatisfied with it, however, and, having re-used parts of it in later works, destroyed the manuscript. Undina followed in 1870. Only excerpts were performed and it, too, was destroyed.[67] Between these projects, Tchaikovsky started to compose an opera called Mandragora, to a libretto by Sergei Rachinskii; the only music he completed was a short chorus of Flowers and Insects.[68]
The first Tchaikovsky opera to survive intact, The Oprichnik, premiered in 1874. During its composition, he lost Ostrovsky's part-finished libretto. Tchaikovsky, too embarrassed to ask for another copy, decided to write the libretto himself, modelling his dramatic technique on that of Eugène Scribe. Cui wrote a "characteristically savage press attack" on the opera. Mussorgsky, writing to Vladimir Stasov, disapproved of the opera as pandering to the public. Nevertheless, The Oprichnik continues to be performed from time to time in Russia.[67]
The last of the early operas, Vakula the Smith (Op.14), was composed in the second half of 1874. The libretto, based on Gogol's Christmas Eve, was to have been set to music by Alexander Serov. With Serov's death, the libretto was opened to a competition with a guarantee that the winning entry would be premiered by the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre. Tchaikovsky was declared the winner, but at the 1876 premiere, the opera enjoyed only a lukewarm reception.[69] After Tchaikovsky's death, Rimsky-Korsakov wrote the opera Christmas Eve, based on the same story.[70]
Other works of this period include the Variations on a Rococo Theme for cello and orchestra, the Third and Fourth Symphonies, the ballet Swan Lake, and the opera Eugene Onegin.
Personal life
Discussion of Tchaikovsky's personal life, especially his sexuality, has perhaps been the most extensive of any composer in the 19th century and certainly of any Russian composer of his time.[71] It has also at times caused considerable confusion, from Soviet efforts to expunge all references to same-sex attraction and portray him as a heterosexual, to efforts at analysis by Western biographers.[72]
Biographers have generally agreed that Tchaikovsky was homosexual.[73] He sought the company of other men in his circle for extended periods, "associating openly and establishing professional connections with them."[64] His first love was reportedly Sergey Kireyev, a younger fellow student at the Imperial School of Jurisprudence. According to Modest Tchaikovsky, this was Pyotr Ilyich's "strongest, longest and purest love." The degree to which the composer might have felt comfortable with his sexual desires has, however, remained open to debate. It is still unknown whether Tchaikovsky, according to musicologist and biographer David Brown, "felt tainted within himself, defiled by something from which he finally realized he could never escape"[74] or whether, according to Alexander Poznansky, he experienced "no unbearable guilt" over his sexual desires[64] and "eventually came to see his sexual peculiarities as an insurmountable and even natural part of his personality ... without experiencing any serious psychological damage."[75]
Relevant portions of his brother Modest's autobiography, where he tells of the composer's same-sex attraction, have been published, as have letters previously suppressed by Soviet censors in which Tchaikovsky openly writes of it.[76] Such censorship has persisted in the Russian government, resulting in many officials, including the former culture minister Vladimir Medinsky, denying his homosexuality outright.[77] Passages in Tchaikovsky's letters which reveal his homosexual desires have been censored in Russia. In one such passage he said of a homosexual acquaintance: "Petashenka used to drop by with the criminal intention of observing the Cadet Corps, which is right opposite our windows, but I've been trying to discourage these compromising visits—and with some success." In another one he wrote "After our walk, I offered him some money, which was refused. He does it for the love of art and adores men with beards."[78]
Tchaikovsky lived as a bachelor for most of his life. In 1868 he met Belgian soprano Désirée Artôt. They became infatuated with each other and were engaged to be married,[79] but due to Artôt's refusal to give up the stage or settle in Russia, the relationship ended.[80] Tchaikovsky later claimed she was the only woman he ever loved.[81] In 1877, at the age of 37, he wed a former student, Antonina Miliukova.[82] The marriage was a disaster. Mismatched psychologically and sexually,[83] the couple lived together for only two and a half months before Tchaikovsky left, overwrought emotionally and suffering from acute writer's block.[84] Tchaikovsky's family remained supportive of him during this crisis and throughout his life.[85] Tchaikovsky's marital debacle may have forced him to face the full truth about his sexuality; he never blamed Antonina for the failure of their marriage.[86]
He was also aided by Nadezhda von Meck, the widow of a railway magnate, who had begun contact with him not long before the marriage. As well as an important friend and emotional support,[87] she became his patroness for the next 13 years, which allowed him to focus exclusively on composition.[88] While Tchaikovsky called her his "best friend" they agreed to never meet under any circumstances.
Years of wandering
Tchaikovsky remained abroad for a year after the disintegration of his marriage. During this time, he completed Eugene Onegin, orchestrated his Fourth Symphony, and composed the Violin Concerto.[89] He returned briefly to the Moscow Conservatory in the autumn of 1879.[90][a 9] For the next few years, assured of a regular income from von Meck, he traveled incessantly throughout Europe and rural Russia, mainly alone, and avoided social contact whenever possible.[91]
During this time, Tchaikovsky's foreign reputation grew and a positive reassessment of his music also took place in Russia, thanks in part to Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky's call for "universal unity" with the West at the unveiling of the Pushkin Monument in Moscow in 1880. Before Dostoyevsky's speech, Tchaikovsky's music had been considered "overly dependent on the West". As Dostoyevsky's message spread throughout Russia, this stigma toward Tchaikovsky's music evaporated.[92] The unprecedented acclaim for him even drew a cult following among the young intelligentsia of Saint Petersburg, including Alexandre Benois, Léon Bakst and Sergei Diaghilev.[93]
Two musical works from this period stand out. With the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour nearing completion in Moscow in 1880, the 25th anniversary of the coronation of Alexander II in 1881,[a 10] and the 1882 Moscow Arts and Industry Exhibition in the planning stage, Nikolai Rubinstein suggested that Tchaikovsky compose a grand commemorative piece. Tchaikovsky agreed and finished it within six weeks. He wrote to Nadezhda von Meck that this piece, the 1812 Overture, would be "very loud and noisy, but I wrote it with no warm feeling of love, and therefore there will probably be no artistic merits in it".[94] He also warned conductor Eduard Nápravník that "I shan't be at all surprised and offended if you find that it is in a style unsuitable for symphony concerts".[94] Nevertheless, the overture became, for many, "the piece by Tchaikovsky they know best",[95] particularly well-known for the use of cannon in the scores.[96]
On 23 March 1881, Nikolai Rubinstein died in Paris. That December, Tchaikovsky started work on his Piano Trio in A minor, "dedicated to the memory of a great artist".[97] First performed privately at the Moscow Conservatory on the first anniversary of Rubinstein's death, the piece became extremely popular during the composer's lifetime; in November 1893, it would become Tchaikovsky's own elegy at memorial concerts in Moscow and St. Petersburg.[98][a 11]
Return to Russia
In 1884, Tchaikovsky began to shed his unsociability and restlessness. That March, Tsar Alexander III conferred upon him the Order of St. Vladimir (fourth class), which included a title of hereditary nobility[99] and a personal audience with the Tsar.[100] This was seen as a seal of official approval which advanced Tchaikovsky's social standing[99] and might have been cemented in the composer's mind by the success of his Orchestral Suite No. 3 at its January 1885 premiere in Saint Petersburg.[101]
In 1885, Alexander III requested a new production of Eugene Onegin at the Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre in Saint Petersburg.[a 12] By having the opera staged there and not at the Mariinsky Theatre, he served notice that Tchaikovsky's music was replacing Italian opera as the official imperial art. In addition, at the instigation of Ivan Vsevolozhsky, Director of the Imperial Theaters and a patron of the composer, Tchaikovsky was awarded a lifetime annual pension of 3,000 rubles from the Tsar. This made him the premier court composer, in practice if not in actual title.[102]
Despite Tchaikovsky's disdain for public life, he now participated in it as part of his increasing celebrity and out of a duty he felt to promote Russian music. He helped support his former pupil Sergei Taneyev, who was now director of Moscow Conservatory, by attending student examinations and negotiating the sometimes sensitive relations among various members of the staff. He served as director of the Moscow branch of the Russian Musical Society during the 1889–1890 season. In this post, he invited many international celebrities to conduct, including Johannes Brahms, Antonín Dvořák and Jules Massenet.[100]
During this period, Tchaikovsky also began promoting Russian music as a conductor,[100] In January 1887, he substituted, on short notice, at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow for performances of his opera Cherevichki.[103] Within a year, he was in considerable demand throughout Europe and Russia. These appearances helped him overcome life-long stage fright and boosted his self-assurance.[104] In 1888, Tchaikovsky led the premiere of his Fifth Symphony in Saint Petersburg, repeating the work a week later with the first performance of his tone poem Hamlet. Although critics proved hostile, with César Cui calling the symphony "routine" and "meretricious", both works were received with extreme enthusiasm by audiences and Tchaikovsky, undeterred, continued to conduct the symphony in Russia and Europe.[105] Conducting brought him to the United States in 1891, where he led the New York Music Society's orchestra in his Festival Coronation March at the inaugural concert of Carnegie Hall.[106]
Belyayev circle and growing reputation
In November 1887, Tchaikovsky arrived at Saint Petersburg in time to hear several of the Russian Symphony Concerts, devoted exclusively to the music of Russian composers. One included the first complete performance of his revised First Symphony; another featured the final version of Third Symphony of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, with whose circle Tchaikovsky was already in touch.[107]
Rimsky-Korsakov, with Alexander Glazunov, Anatoly Lyadov and several other nationalistically minded composers and musicians, had formed a group known as the Belyayev circle, named after a merchant and amateur musician who became an influential music patron and publisher.[108] Tchaikovsky spent much time in this circle, becoming far more at ease with them than he had been with the 'Five' and increasingly confident in showcasing his music alongside theirs.[109] This relationship lasted until Tchaikovsky's death.[110][111]
In 1892, Tchaikovsky was voted a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in France, only the second Russian subject to be so honored (the first was sculptor Mark Antokolsky).[112] The following year, the University of Cambridge in England awarded Tchaikovsky an honorary Doctor of Music degree.[113]
Death
On 16/28 October 1893, Tchaikovsky conducted the premiere of his Sixth Symphony,[114] the Pathétique, in Saint Petersburg. Nine days later, Tchaikovsky died there, aged 53. He was interred in Tikhvin Cemetery at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery, near the graves of fellow-composers Alexander Borodin, Mikhail Glinka, and Modest Mussorgsky; later, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Mily Balakirev were also buried nearby.[115]
While Tchaikovsky's death has traditionally been attributed to cholera from drinking unboiled water at a local restaurant,[116] there has been much speculation that his death was suicide.[117] In the New Grove Dictionary of Music, Roland John Wiley wrote that "The polemics over [Tchaikovsky's] death have reached an impasse ... Rumors attached to the famous die hard ... As for illness, problems of evidence offer little hope of satisfactory resolution: the state of diagnosis; the confusion of witnesses; disregard of long-term effects of smoking and alcohol. We do not know how Tchaikovsky died. We may never find out".[118]
Музыка
Creative range
Tchaikovsky displayed a wide stylistic and emotional range, from light salon works to grand symphonies. Some of his works, such as the Variations on a Rococo Theme, employ a "Classical" form reminiscent of 18th-century composers such as Mozart (his favorite composer). Other compositions, such as his Little Russian symphony and his opera Vakula the Smith, flirt with musical practices more akin to those of the 'Five', especially in their use of folk song.[119] Other works, such as Tchaikovsky's last three symphonies, employ a personal musical idiom that facilitated intense emotional expression.[120]
Tchaikovsky and Ukraine
Tchaikovsky first visited Ukraine in 1864, staying in Trostianets where he wrote his first orchestral work, The Storm overture. Over the next 28 years, he visited over 15 places in Ukraine, where he stayed a few months at the time. Among his most favorite places was Kamianka, Cherkasy Oblast, where his sister Alexandra lived with her family. He wrote of Kamianka: "I found a feeling of peace in my soul, which I couldn't find in Moscow and St Petersburg".[121] Tchaikovsky wrote more than 30 compositions while in Ukraine. He also visited Ukrainian composer Mykola Lysenko and attended his Taras Bulba opera performance in 1890 in the Kyiv Opera House. Tchaikovsky was one of the founders of the Kyiv Music Conservatory, which was later renamed after him. He also performed in concerts as a conductor in Kyiv, Odessa, and Kharkiv.
Compositional style
Melody
American music critic and journalist Harold C. Schonberg wrote of Tchaikovsky's "sweet, inexhaustible, supersensuous fund of melody", a feature that has ensured his music's continued success with audiences.[122] Tchaikovsky's complete range of melodic styles was as wide as that of his compositions. Sometimes he used Western-style melodies, sometimes original melodies written in the style of Russian folk song; sometimes he used actual folk songs.[119] According to The New Grove, Tchaikovsky's melodic gift could also become his worst enemy in two ways.
The first challenge arose from his ethnic heritage. Unlike Western themes, the melodies that Russian composers wrote tended to be self-contained: they functioned with a mindset of stasis and repetition rather than one of progress and ongoing development. On a technical level, it made modulating to a new key to introduce a contrasting second theme exceedingly difficult, as this was literally a foreign concept that did not exist in Russian music.[123]
The second way melody worked against Tchaikovsky was a challenge that he shared with the majority of Romantic-age composers. They did not write in the regular, symmetrical melodic shapes that worked well with sonata form, such as those favored by Classical composers such as Haydn, Mozart or Beethoven; rather, the themes favored by Romantics were complete and independent in themselves.[124] This completeness hindered their use as structural elements in combination with one another. This challenge was why the Romantics "were never natural symphonists".[125] All a composer like Tchaikovsky could do with them was to essentially repeat them, even when he modified them to generate tension, maintain interest and satisfy listeners.[126]
Harmony
Harmony could be a potential trap for Tchaikovsky, according to Brown, since Russian creativity tended to focus on inertia and self-enclosed tableaux, while Western harmony worked against this to propel the music onward and, on a larger scale, shape it.[127] Modulation, the shifting from one key to another, was a driving principle in both harmony and sonata form, the primary Western large-scale musical structure since the middle of the 18th century. Modulation maintained harmonic interest over an extended time-scale, provided a clear contrast between musical themes and showed how those themes were related to each other.[128]
One point in Tchaikovsky's favor was "a flair for harmony" that "astonished" Rudolph Kündinger, Tchaikovsky's music tutor during his time at the School of Jurisprudence.[129] Added to what he learned at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory studies, this talent allowed Tchaikovsky to employ a varied range of harmony in his music, from the Western harmonic and textural practices of his first two string quartets to the use of the whole tone scale in the center of the finale of the Second Symphony, a practice more typically used by The Five.[119]
Rhythm
Rhythmically, Tchaikovsky sometimes experimented with unusual meters. More often, he used a firm, regular meter, a practice that served him well in dance music. At times, his rhythms became pronounced enough to become the main expressive agent of the music. They also became a means, found typically in Russian folk music, of simulating movement or progression in large-scale symphonic movements—a "synthetic propulsion", as Brown phrases it, which substituted for the momentum that would be created in strict sonata form by the interaction of melodic or motivic elements. This interaction generally does not take place in Russian music.[130] (For more on this, please see Repetition below.)
Structure
Tchaikovsky struggled with sonata form. Its principle of organic growth through the interplay of musical themes was alien to Russian practice.[123] The traditional argument that Tchaikovsky seemed unable to develop themes in this manner fails to consider this point; it also discounts the possibility that Tchaikovsky might have intended the development passages in his large-scale works to act as "enforced hiatuses" to build tension, rather than grow organically as smoothly progressive musical arguments.[131]
According to Brown and musicologists Hans Keller and Daniel Zhitomirsky, Tchaikovsky found his solution to large-scale structure while composing the Fourth Symphony. He essentially sidestepped thematic interaction and kept sonata form only as an "outline", as Zhitomirsky phrases it.[132] Within this outline, the focus centered on periodic alternation and juxtaposition. Tchaikovsky placed blocks of dissimilar tonal and thematic material alongside one another, with what Keller calls "new and violent contrasts" between musical themes, keys, and harmonies.[133] This process, according to Brown and Keller, builds momentum[134] and adds intense drama.[135] While the result, Warrack charges, is still "an ingenious episodic treatment of two tunes rather than a symphonic development of them" in the Germanic sense,[136] Brown counters that it took the listener of the period "through a succession of often highly charged sections which added up to a radically new kind of symphonic experience" (italics Brown), one that functioned not on the basis of summation, as Austro-German symphonies did, but on one of accumulation.[134]
Partly due to the melodic and structural intricacies involved in this accumulation and partly due to the composer's nature, Tchaikovsky's music became intensely expressive.[137] This intensity was entirely new to Russian music and prompted some Russians to place Tchaikovsky's name alongside that of Dostoyevsky.[138] German musicologist Hermann Kretzschmar credits Tchaikovsky in his later symphonies with offering "full images of life, developed freely, sometimes even dramatically, around psychological contrasts ... This music has the mark of the truly lived and felt experience".[139] Leon Botstein, in elaborating on this comment, suggests that listening to Tchaikovsky's music "became a psychological mirror connected to everyday experience, one that reflected on the dynamic nature of the listener's own emotional self". This active engagement with the music "opened for the listener a vista of emotional and psychological tension and an extremity of feeling that possessed relevance because it seemed reminiscent of one's own 'truly lived and felt experience' or one's search for intensity in a deeply personal sense".[140]
Repetition
As mentioned above, repetition was a natural part of Tchaikovsky's music, just as it is an integral part of Russian music.[141] His use of sequences within melodies (repeating a tune at a higher or lower pitch in the same voice)[142] could go on for extreme length.[119] The problem with repetition is that, over a period of time, the melody being repeated remains static, even when there is a surface level of rhythmic activity added to it.[143] Tchaikovsky kept the musical conversation flowing by treating melody, tonality, rhythm and sound color as one integrated unit, rather than as separate elements.[144]
By making subtle but noticeable changes in the rhythm or phrasing of a tune, modulating to another key, changing the melody itself or varying the instruments playing it, Tchaikovsky could keep a listener's interest from flagging. By extending the number of repetitions, he could increase the musical and dramatic tension of a passage, building "into an emotional experience of almost unbearable intensity", as Brown phrases it, controlling when the peak and release of that tension would take place.[145] Musicologist Martin Cooper calls this practice a subtle form of unifying a piece of music and adds that Tchaikovsky brought it to a high point of refinement.[146] (For more on this practice, see the next section.)
Orchestration
Like other late Romantic composers, Tchaikovsky relied heavily on orchestration for musical effects.[147] Tchaikovsky, however, became noted for the "sensual opulence" and "voluptuous timbrel virtuosity" of his orchestration.[148] Like Glinka, Tchaikovsky tended toward bright primary colors and sharply delineated contrasts of texture.[149] However, beginning with the Third Symphony, Tchaikovsky experimented with an increased range of timbres[150] Tchaikovsky's scoring was noted and admired by some of his peers. Rimsky-Korsakov regularly referred his students at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory to it and called it "devoid of all striving after effect, [to] give a healthy, beautiful sonority".[151] This sonority, musicologist Richard Taruskin points out, is essentially Germanic in effect. Tchaikovsky's expert use of having two or more instruments play a melody simultaneously (a practice called doubling) and his ear for uncanny combinations of instruments resulted in "a generalized orchestral sonority in which the individual timbres of the instruments, being thoroughly mixed, would vanish".[152]
Pastiche (Passé-ism)
In works like the "Serenade for Strings" and the Variations on a Rococo Theme, Tchaikovsky showed he was highly gifted at writing in a style of 18th-century European pastiche. In the ballet The Sleeping Beauty and the opera The Queen of Spades, Tchaikovsky graduated from imitation to full-scale evocation. This practice, which Alexandre Benois calls "passé-ism", lends an air of timelessness and immediacy, making the past seem as though it were the present.[153] On a practical level, Tchaikovsky was drawn to past styles because he felt he might find the solution to certain structural problems within them. His Rococo pastiches also may have offered escape into a musical world purer than his own, into which he felt himself irresistibly drawn. (In this sense, Tchaikovsky operated in the opposite manner to Igor Stravinsky, who turned to Neoclassicism partly as a form of compositional self-discovery.) Tchaikovsky's attraction to ballet might have allowed a similar refuge into a fairy-tale world, where he could freely write dance music within a tradition of French elegance.[154]
Antecedents and influences
Of Tchaikovsky's Western contemporaries, Robert Schumann stands out as an influence in formal structure, harmonic practices and piano writing, according to Brown and musicologist Roland John Wiley.[155] Boris Asafyev comments that Schumann left his mark on Tchaikovsky not just as a formal influence but also as an example of musical dramaturgy and self-expression.[156] Leon Botstein claims the music of Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner also left their imprints on Tchaikovsky's orchestral style.[157][a 13] The late-Romantic trend for writing orchestral suites, begun by Franz Lachner, Jules Massenet, and Joachim Raff after the rediscovery of Bach's works in that genre, may have influenced Tchaikovsky to try his own hand at them.[158]
His teacher Anton Rubinstein's opera The Demon became a model for the final tableau of Eugene Onegin.[159] So did Léo Delibes' ballets Coppélia and Sylvia for The Sleeping Beauty[a 14] and Georges Bizet's opera Carmen (a work Tchaikovsky admired tremendously) for The Queen of Spades.[160] Otherwise, it was to composers of the past that Tchaikovsky turned—Beethoven, whose music he respected;[161] Mozart, whose music he loved;[161] Glinka, whose opera A Life for the Tsar made an indelible impression on him as a child and whose scoring he studied assiduously;[162] and Adolphe Adam, whose ballet Giselle was a favorite of his from his student days and whose score he consulted while working on The Sleeping Beauty.[163] Beethoven's string quartets may have influenced Tchaikovsky's attempts in that medium.[164] Other composers whose work interested Tchaikovsky included Hector Berlioz, Felix Mendelssohn, Giacomo Meyerbeer, Gioachino Rossini,[165] Giuseppe Verdi,[166] Vincenzo Bellini,[167] Carl Maria von Weber[168] and Henry Litolff.[169]
Aesthetic impact
Maes maintains that, regardless of what he was writing, Tchaikovsky's main concern was how his music impacted his listeners on an aesthetic level, at specific moments in the piece and on a cumulative level once the music had finished. What his listeners experienced on an emotional or visceral level became an end in itself.[170] Tchaikovsky's focus on pleasing his audience might be considered closer to that of Mendelssohn or Mozart. Considering that he lived and worked in what was probably the last 19th-century feudal nation, the statement is not actually that surprising.[171]
And yet, even when writing so-called 'programme' music, for example his Romeo and Juliet fantasy overture, he cast it in sonata form. His use of stylized 18th-century melodies and patriotic themes was geared toward the values of Russian aristocracy.[172] He was aided in this by Ivan Vsevolozhsky, who commissioned The Sleeping Beauty from Tchaikovsky and the libretto for The Queen of Spades from Modest with their use of 18th century settings stipulated firmly.[173][a 15] Tchaikovsky also used the polonaise frequently, the dance being a musical code for the Romanov dynasty and a symbol of Russian patriotism. Using it in the finale of a work could assure its success with Russian listeners.[174]
Прием
Dedicatees and collaborators
Tchaikovsky's relationship with collaborators was mixed. Like Nikolai Rubinstein with the First Piano Concerto, virtuoso and pedagogue Leopold Auer rejected the Violin Concerto initially but changed his mind; he played it to great public success and taught it to his students, who included Jascha Heifetz and Nathan Milstein.[175] Wilhelm Fitzenhagen "intervened considerably in shaping what he considered 'his' piece", the Variations on a Rococo Theme, according to music critic Michael Steinberg. Tchaikovsky was angered by Fitzenhagen's license but did nothing; the Rococo Variations were published with the cellist's amendments.[176][a 16]
His collaboration on the three ballets went better and in Marius Petipa, who worked with him on the last two, he might have found an advocate.[a 17] When The Sleeping Beauty was seen by its dancers as needlessly complicated, Petipa convinced them to put in the extra effort. Tchaikovsky compromised to make his music as practical as possible for the dancers and was accorded more creative freedom than ballet composers were usually accorded at the time. He responded with scores that minimized the rhythmic subtleties normally present in his work but were inventive and rich in melody, with more refined and imaginative orchestration than in the average ballet score.[177]
Critics
Critical reception to Tchaikovsky's music was also varied but also improved over time. Even after 1880, some inside Russia held it suspect for not being nationalistic enough and thought Western European critics lauded it for exactly that reason.[178] There might have been a grain of truth in the latter, according to musicologist and conductor Leon Botstein, as German critics especially wrote of the "indeterminacy of [Tchaikovsky's] artistic character ... being truly at home in the non-Russian".[179] Of the foreign critics who did not care for his music, Eduard Hanslick lambasted the Violin Concerto as a musical composition "whose stink one can hear"[180] and William Forster Abtrop wrote of the Fifth Symphony, "The furious peroration sounds like nothing so much as a horde of demons struggling in a torrent of brandy, the music growing drunker and drunker. Pandemonium, delirium tremens, raving, and above all, noise worse confounded!"[181]
The division between Russian and Western critics remained through much of the 20th century but for a different reason. According to Brown and Wiley, the prevailing view of Western critics was that the same qualities in Tchaikovsky's music that appealed to audiences—its strong emotions, directness and eloquence and colorful orchestration—added up to compositional shallowness.[182] The music's use in popular and film music, Brown says, lowered its esteem in their eyes still further.[119] There was also the fact, pointed out earlier, that Tchaikovsky's music demanded active engagement from the listener and, as Botstein phrases it, "spoke to the listener's imaginative interior life, regardless of nationality". Conservative critics, he adds, may have felt threatened by the "violence and 'hysteria' " they detected and felt such emotive displays "attacked the boundaries of conventional aesthetic appreciation—the cultured reception of art as an act of formalist discernment—and the polite engagement of art as an act of amusement".[140]
There has also been the fact that the composer did not follow sonata form strictly, relying instead on juxtaposing blocks of tonalities and thematic groups. Maes states this point has been seen at times as a weakness rather than a sign of originality.[144] Even with what Schonberg termed "a professional reevaluation" of Tchaikovsky's work,[183] the practice of faulting Tchaikovsky for not following in the steps of the Viennese masters has not gone away entirely, while his intent of writing music that would please his audiences is also sometimes taken to task. In a 1992 article, New York Times critic Allan Kozinn writes, "It is Tchaikovsky's flexibility, after all, that has given us a sense of his variability.... Tchaikovsky was capable of turning out music—entertaining and widely beloved though it is—that seems superficial, manipulative and trivial when regarded in the context of the whole literature. The First Piano Concerto is a case in point. It makes a joyful noise, it swims in pretty tunes and its dramatic rhetoric allows (or even requires) a soloist to make a grand, swashbuckling impression. But it is entirely hollow".[184]
In the 21st century, however, critics are reacting more positively to Tchaikovsky's tunefulness, originality, and craftsmanship.[183] "Tchaikovsky is being viewed again as a composer of the first rank, writing music of depth, innovation and influence," according to cultural historian and author Joseph Horowitz.[185] Important in this reevaluation is a shift in attitude away from the disdain for overt emotionalism that marked half of the 20th century.[186] "We have acquired a different view of Romantic 'excess,'" Horowitz says. "Tchaikovsky is today more admired than deplored for his emotional frankness; if his music seems harried and insecure, so are we all".[185]
Public
Horowitz maintains that, while the standing of Tchaikovsky's music has fluctuated among critics, for the public, "it never went out of style, and his most popular works have yielded iconic sound-bytes [sic], such as the love theme from Romeo and Juliet".[185] Along with those tunes, Botstein adds, "Tchaikovsky appealed to audiences outside of Russia with an immediacy and directness that were startling even for music, an art form often associated with emotion".[187] Tchaikovsky's melodies, stated with eloquence and matched by his inventive use of harmony and orchestration, have always ensured audience appeal.[188] His popularity is considered secure, with his following in many countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, second only to that of Beethoven.[118] His music has also been used frequently in popular music and film.[189]
Наследие
According to Wiley, Tchaikovsky was a pioneer in several ways. "Thanks in large part to Nadezhda von Meck", Wiley writes, "he became the first full-time professional Russian composer". This, Wiley adds, allowed him the time and freedom to consolidate the Western compositional practices he had learned at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory with Russian folk song and other native musical elements to fulfill his own expressive goals and forge an original, deeply personal style. He made an impact in not only absolute works such as the symphony but also program music and, as Wiley phrases it, "transformed Liszt's and Berlioz's achievements ... into matters of Shakespearean elevation and psychological import".[190] Wiley and Holden both note that Tchaikovsky did all this without a native school of composition upon which to fall back. They point out that only Glinka had preceded him in combining Russian and Western practices and his teachers in Saint Petersburg had been thoroughly Germanic in their musical outlook. He was, they write, for all intents and purposes alone in his artistic quest.[191]
Maes and Taruskin write that Tchaikovsky believed that his professionalism in combining skill and high standards in his musical works separated him from his contemporaries in The Five.[192] Maes adds that, like them, he wanted to produce music that reflected Russian national character but which did so to the highest European standards of quality.[193] Tchaikovsky, according to Maes, came along at a time when the nation itself was deeply divided as to what that character truly was. Like his country, Maes writes, it took him time to discover how to express his Russianness in a way that was true to himself and what he had learned. Because of his professionalism, Maes says, he worked hard at this goal and succeeded. The composer's friend, music critic Hermann Laroche, wrote of The Sleeping Beauty that the score contained "an element deeper and more general than color, in the internal structure of the music, above all in the foundation of the element of melody. This basic element is undoubtedly Russian".[194]
Tchaikovsky was inspired to reach beyond Russia with his music, according to Maes and Taruskin.[195] His exposure to Western music, they write, encouraged him to think it belonged to not just Russia but also the world at large.[42] Volkov adds that this mindset made him think seriously about Russia's place in European musical culture—the first Russian composer to do so.[92] It steeled him to become the first Russian composer to acquaint foreign audiences personally with his own works, Warrack writes, as well as those of other Russian composers.[196] In his biography of Tchaikovsky, Anthony Holden recalls the dearth of Russian classical music before Tchaikovsky's birth, then places the composer's achievements into historical perspective: "Twenty years after Tchaikovsky's death, in 1913, Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring erupted onto the musical scene, signalling Russia's arrival into 20th-century music. Between these two very different worlds, Tchaikovsky's music became the sole bridge".[197]
On 7 May 2010, Google celebrated his 170th birthday with a Google Doodle.[198]
Голос Чайковского
A recording was made in Moscow in January 1890, by Julius Block
on behalf of Thomas Edison.[199] A transcript of the recording follows:Anton Rubinstein: | What a wonderful thing. | Какая прекрасная вещь ....хорошо... (in Russian) |
Julius Block: | At last. | Наконец-то. |
Lavrovskaya: | You're disgusting. How dare you call me crafty? | Пративный *** да как вы смеете называть меня коварной? |
Vasily Safonov: | (sings) | |
Pyotr Tchaikovsky: | This trill could be better. | Эта трель могла бы быть и лучше. |
Lavrovskaya: | (sings) | |
Tchaikovsky: | Blok is a good fellow, but Edison is even better. | Блок молодец, но у Эдисона ещё лучше! |
Lavrovskaya: | (sings) A-o, a-o. | А-о, а-о. |
Safonov: | Peter Jurgenson in Moscow. | Peter Jurgenson in Moskau. (in German) |
Tchaikovsky: | Who's speaking now? It seems like Safonov's voice. | Кто сейчас говорит? Кажется голос Сафонова. |
Safonov: | (whistles) |
According to musicologist Leonid Sabaneyev, Tchaikovsky was not comfortable with being recorded for posterity and tried to shy away from it. On an apparently separate visit from the one related above, Block asked the composer to play something on a piano or at least say something. Tchaikovsky refused. He told Block, "I am a bad pianist and my voice is raspy. Why should one eternalize it?"[200]
Заметки
- ^ 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. The modern transliterations of Russian produce the following results for 'Пётр Ильич Чайковский' — ISO 9: Pëtr Ilʹič Čajkovskij, ALA-LC: Pëtr Ilʹich Chaĭkovskiĭ, BGN/PCGN: Pëtr Il’ich Chaykovskiy.[1]
- ^ Published in 1903
- ^ Петръ Ильичъ Чайковскій in Russian pre-revolutionary script.
- ^ Russia was still using old style dates in the 19th century, rendering his lifespan as 25 April 1840 – 25 October 1893. Some sources in the article report dates as old style rather than new style.
- ^ Tchaikovsky had four brothers (Nikolai, Ippolit, Anatoly and Modest), a sister (Alexandra) and a half-sister (Zinaida) from his father's first marriage (Holden, 6, 13; Warrack, Tchaikovsky, 18). Anatoly would later have a prominent legal career, while Modest became a dramatist, librettist, and translator (Poznansky, Eyes, 2).
- ^ Her death affected him so much that he could not inform Fanny Dürbach until two years later (Brown, The Early Years, 47; Holde, 23; Warrack, 29). More than 25 years after his loss, Tchaikovsky wrote to his patroness, Nadezhda von Meck, "Every moment of that appalling day is as vivid to me as though it were yesterday" (As quoted in Holden, 23.)
- ^ Tchaikovsky ascribed Rubinstein's coolness to a difference in musical temperaments. Rubinstein could have been jealous professionally of Tchaikovsky's greater impact as a composer. Homophobia might have been another factor (Poznansky, Eyes, 29).
- ^ An exception to Rubinstein's antipathy was the Serenade for Strings, which he declared "Tchaikovsky's best piece" when he heard it in rehearsal. "At last this St. Petersburg pundit, who had growled with such consistent disapproval at Tchaikovsky's successive compositions, had found a work by his former pupil which he could endorse", according to Tchaikovsky biographer David Brown (Brown, The Years of Wandering, 121).
- ^ His critique led Tchaikovsky to consider rescoring Schumann's symphonies, a project he never realized (Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 79).
- ^ Rubinstein had actually been operating under the assumption that Tchaikovsky might leave from the onset of the composer's marital crisis and was prepared for it (Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 189–90). However, his meddling in the Tchaikovsky–von Meck relationship might have contributed to the composer's actual departure. Rubinstein's actions, which soured his relations with both Tchaikovsky and von Meck, included imploring von Meck in person to end Tchaikovsky's subsidy for the composer's own good (Brown, The Crisis Years, 250; Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 188–89). Rubinstein's actions, in turn, had been spurred by Tchaikovsky's withdrawal from the Russian delegation for the 1878 Paris World's Fair, a position for which Rubinstein had lobbied on the composer's behalf (Brown, The Crisis Years, 249–250; Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 180, 188–89). Rubinstein had been scheduled to conduct four concerts there; the first featured Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto (Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 190).
- ^ Celebration of this anniversary did not take place as Alexander II was assassinated in March 1881.
- ^ The piece also fulfilled a long-standing request by von Meck for such a work, to be performed by her then-house pianist, Claude Debussy (Brown, New Grove vol. 18, p. 620).
- ^ Its only other production had been by students from the Conservatory.
- ^ As proof of Wagner's influence, Botstein cites a letter from Tchaikovsky to Taneyev, in which the composer "readily admits the influence of the Nibelungen on Francesca da Rimini". This letter is quoted in Brown, The Crisis Years, 108.
- ^ While it is sometimes thought these two ballets also influenced Tchaikovsky's work on Swan Lake, he had already composed that work before learning of them (Brown, The Crisis Years, 77).
- ^ Vsevolozhsky originally intended the libretto for a now-unknown composer named Nikolai Klenovsky, not Tchaikovsky (Maes, 152).
- ^ The composer's original has since been published but most cellists still perform Fitzenhagen's version (Campbell, 77).
- ^ Tchaikovsky's work with Julius Reisinger on Swan Lake was evidently also successful, since it left him with no qualms about working with Petipa, but very little is written about it (Maes, 146).
Рекомендации
- ^ "Russian – BGN/PCGN transliteration system". transliteration.com. Retrieved 2 December 2020.
- ^ "Tchaikovsky". Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary.
- ^ According to longtime New York Times music critic Harold C. Schonberg.
- ^ Holden, 4.
- ^ "Tchaikovsky: A Life". tchaikovsky-research.net.
- ^ "Pyotr Tchaikovsky, a Ukrainian by creative spirit". The Day. Kyiv.
- ^ Kearney, Leslie (2014). Tchaikovsky and His World. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-1-4008-6488-1.
- ^ Brown, The Early Years, 19
- ^ Poznansky, Alexander (1999). Tchaikovsky Through Others' Eyes. p. 1.
- ^ Poznansky, Eyes, 1; Holden, 5.
- ^ a b Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 6.
- ^ Holden, 31.
- ^ "Aleksandra Davydova". en.tchaikovsky-research.net.
- ^ a b Holden, 43.
- ^ Holden, 202.
- ^ Brown, The Early Years, 22; Holden, 7.
- ^ Holden, 7.
- ^ Brown, The Early Years, 27; Holden, 6–8.
- ^ Poznansky, Quest, 5.
- ^ Brown, The Early Years, 25–26; Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 7.
- ^ Brown, The Early Years, 31; Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 8.
- ^ Maes, 33.
- ^ Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 8.
- ^ Holden, 14; Warrack, Tchaikovsky, 26.
- ^ Holden, 20.
- ^ Holden, 15; Poznansky, Quest, 11–12.
- ^ Holden, 23.
- ^ Holden, 23–24, 26; Poznansky, Quest, 32–37; Warrack, Tchaikovsky, 30.
- ^ Holden, 24; Poznansky, Quest, 26
- ^ As quoted in Holden, 25.
- ^ Brown, The Early Years, 43.
- ^ Holden, 24–25; Warrack, Tchaikovsky, 31.
- ^ Poznansky, Eyes, 17.
- ^ Holden, 25; Warrack, Tchaikovsky, 31.
- ^ Brown, Man and Music, 14.
- ^ Maes, 31.
- ^ Maes, 35.
- ^ Volkov, 71.
- ^ Maes, 35; Warrack, Tchaikovsky, 36.
- ^ Brown, The Early Years, 60.
- ^ Brown, Man and Music, 20; Holden, 38–39; Warrack, Tchaikovsky, 36–38.
- ^ a b Taruskin, Grove Opera, 4:663–64.
- ^ Figes, xxxii; Volkov, 111–12.
- ^ Hosking, 347.
- ^ Poznansky, Eyes, 47–48; Rubinstein, 110.
- ^ Brown, The Early Years, 76; Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 35.
- ^ Brown, The Early Years, 100–101.
- ^ Brown, New Grove vol. 18, p. 608.
- ^ Brown, The Early Years, 82–83.
- ^ Holden, 83; Warrack, Tchaikovsky, 61.
- ^ Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 87.
- ^ Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 79.
- ^ As quoted in Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 95.
- ^ Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 77.
- ^ Figes, 178–181
- ^ Maes, 8–9; Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 27.
- ^ Garden, New Grove (2001), 8:913.
- ^ Maes, 39.
- ^ Maes, 42.
- ^ Maes, 49.
- ^ Brown, Man and Music, 49.
- ^ Brown, The Early Years, 255.
- ^ Holden, 51–52.
- ^ a b c Wiley, New Grove (2001), 25:147.
- ^ Steinberg, Concerto, 474–76; Wiley, New Grove (2001), 25:161.
- ^ Wiley, New Grove (2001), 25:153–54.
- ^ a b Taruskin, 665.
- ^ Holden, 75–76; Warrack, Tchaikovsky, 58–59.
- ^ Brown, Viking Opera Guide, 1086.
- ^ Maes, 171.
- ^ Wiley, Tchaikovsky, xvi.
- ^ Maes, 133–34; Wiley, Tchaikovsky, xvii.
- ^ Poznansky, Quest, 32 et passim.
- ^ Brown, The Early Years, 50.
- ^ Poznansky, as quoted in Holden, 394.
- ^ Poznansky, Eyes, 8, 24, 77, 82, 103–05, 165–68. Also see P.I. Chaikovskii. Al'manakh, vypusk 1, (Moscow, 1995).
- ^ Walker, Shaun (18 September 2013). "Tchaikovsky was not gay, says Russian culture minister". The Guardian. Retrieved 21 April 2018.
- ^ Alberge, Dalya (2 June 2018). "Tchaikovsky and the secret gay loves censors tried to hide". The Guardian.
- ^ Brown, The Early Years, 156–157; Warrack, Tchaikovsky, 53.
- ^ Brown, The Early Years, 156–158; Poznansky, Eyes, 88.
- ^ "Artôt, Désirée (1835–1907)". Schubertiade music. Archived from the original on 24 June 2009. Retrieved 21 February 2009.
- ^ Brown, The Crisis Years, 137–147; Polayansky, Quest, 207–08, 219–20; Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 147–50.
- ^ Brown, The Crisis Years, 146–148; Poznansky, Quest, 234; Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 152.
- ^ Brown, The Crisis Years, 157; Poznansky, Quest, 234; Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 155.
- ^ Wiley, New Grove (2001), 25:147.
- ^ Warrack, Tchaikovsky, 120.
- ^ Holden, 159, 231–232.
- ^ Brown, Man and Music, 171–172.
- ^ Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 159, 170, 193.
- ^ Brown, The Crisis Years, 297.
- ^ Brown, Man and Music, 219.
- ^ a b Volkov, 126.
- ^ Volkov, 122–23.
- ^ a b As quoted in Brown, The Years of Wandering, 119.
- ^ Brown, Man and Music, 224.
- ^ Aaron Green,"Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture", thoughtco.com, 25 March 2017
- ^ As quoted in Brown, The Years of Wandering, 151.
- ^ Brown, The Years of Wandering, 151–152.
- ^ a b Brown, New Grove vol. 18, p. 621; Holden, 233.
- ^ a b c Wiley, New Grove (2001), 25:162.
- ^ Brown, Man and Music, 275.
- ^ Maes, 140; Taruskin, Grove Opera, 4:664.
- ^ Holden, 261; Warrack, Tchaikovsky, 197.
- ^ Holden, 266; Warrack, Tchaikovsky, 232.
- ^ Holden, 272–273.
- ^ Brown, The Final Years, 319–320.
- ^ Brown, The Final Years, 90–91.
- ^ Maes, 173
- ^ Brown, The Final Years, 92.
- ^ Poznansky, Quest, 564.
- ^ Rimsky-Korsakov, 308.
- ^ Poznansky, Quest, 548–49.
- ^ Warrack, Tchaikovsky, 264.
- ^ "Symphony No. 6". tchaikovsky-research.net.
- ^ Brown, The Final Years, 487.
- ^ Brown, Man and Music, 430–432; Holden, 371; Warrack, Tchaikovsky, 269–70.
- ^ Brown, Man and Music, 431–435; Holden, 373–400.
- ^ a b Wiley, New Grove (2001), 25:169.
- ^ a b c d e Brown, New Grove vol. 18, p. 628.
- ^ Brown, New Grove vol. 18, p. 606.
- ^ "Чайковський і Україна – UAHistory". UAHistory (in Ukrainian). 7 November 2015. Retrieved 1 January 2017.
- ^ Schonberg, 366.
- ^ a b Brown, The Final Years, 424.
- ^ Cooper, 26.
- ^ Cooper, 24.
- ^ Warrack, Symphonies, 8–9.
- ^ Brown, The Final Years, 422, 432–434.
- ^ Roberts, New Grove (1980), 12:454.
- ^ As quoted in Polyansky, Eyes, 18.
- ^ Brown, New Grove vol. 18, p. 628; Final Years, 424.
- ^ Zajaczkowski, 25
- ^ Zhitomirsky, 102.
- ^ Brown, The Final Years, 426; Keller, 347.
- ^ a b Brown, The Final Years, 426.
- ^ Keller, 346–47.
- ^ Warrack, Symphonies, 11.
- ^ Brown, New Grove vol. 18, p. 628; Keller, 346–47; Maes, 161.
- ^ Volkov, 115
- ^ As quoted in Botstein, 101.
- ^ a b Botstein, 101.
- ^ Warrack, Symphonies, 9. Also see Brown, The Final Years, 422–423.
- ^ Benward & Saker, 111–12.
- ^ Brown, The Final Years, 423–424; Warrack, Symphonies, 9.
- ^ a b Maes, 161.
- ^ Brown, New Grove vol. 18, p. 628. Also see Bostrick, 105.
- ^ Cooper, 32.
- ^ Holoman, New Grove (2001), 12:413.
- ^ Maes, 73; Taruskin, Grove Opera, 4:669.
- ^ Brown, New Grovevol. 18, p. 628; Hopkins, New Grove (1980), 13:698.
- ^ Maes, 78.
- ^ As quoted in Taruskin, Stravinsky, 206.
- ^ Taruskin, Stravinsky, 206
- ^ Volkov, 124.
- ^ Brown, New Grove vol. 18, pp. 613, 615.
- ^ Brown, New Grove vol. 18, pp. 613, 620; Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 58.
- ^ Asafyev, 13–14.
- ^ Bostein, 103.
- ^ Fuller, New Grove (2001), 24:681–62; Maes, 155.
- ^ Taruskin, Grove Opera, 4:664.
- ^ Brown, The Final Years, 189; Maes, 131, 138, 152.
- ^ a b Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 293–94.
- ^ Brown, The Early Years, 34, 97.
- ^ Brown, The Early Years, 39, 52; Brown, The Final Years, 187.
- ^ Wiley, New Grove (2001), 25:149.
- ^ "Gioachino Rossini". tchaikovsky-research.net.
- ^ "Giuseppe Verdi". tchaikovsky-research.net.
- ^ "Vincenzo Bellini". tchaikovsky-research.net.
- ^ "Carl Maria von Weber". tchaikovsky-research.net.
- ^ Brown, The Early Years, 72.
- ^ Maes, 138.
- ^ Figes, 274; Maes, 139–41.
- ^ Maes, 137.
- ^ Maes, 146, 152.
- ^ Figes, 274; Maes, 78–79, 137.
- ^ Steinberg
- ^ Brown, The Crisis Years, 122.
- ^ Maes, 145–48.
- ^ Botstein, 99.
- ^ As quoted in Botstein, 100.
- ^ Hanslick, Eduard, Music Criticisms 1850–1900, ed. and trans. Henry Pleasants (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1963). As quoted in Steinberg, Concerto, 487.
- ^ Boston Evening Transcript, 23 October 1892. As quoted in Steinberg, Symphony, 631
- ^ Brown, New Grove vol. 18, p. 628; Wiley, New Grove (2001), 25:169.
- ^ a b Schonberg, 367.
- ^ Kozinn
- ^ a b c Druckenbrod
- ^ Wiley, New Grove (2001), 25:169.
- ^ Botstein, 100.
- ^ Brown, New Grove vol. 18, pp. 606–607, 628.
- ^ Steinberg, The Symphony, 611.
- ^ Wiley, New Grove (2001), 25:144.
- ^ Holden, xxi; Wiley, New Grove (2001), 25:144.
- ^ Maes, 73; Taruskin, Grove Opera, 4:663.
- ^ Maes, 73.
- ^ As quoted in Maes, 166.
- ^ Maes, 73; Taruskin, Grove Opera, 664.
- ^ Warrack, 209.
- ^ Holden, xxi.
- ^ "Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's 170th Birthday". 7 May 2010.
- ^ [1] website
- ^ As quoted in Poznansky, Eyes, 216.
Sources
- Asafyev, Boris (1947). "The Great Russian Composer". Russian Symphony: Thoughts About Tchaikovsky. New York: Philosophical Library. OCLC 385806.
- Benward, Bruce; Saker, Marilyn (200). Music: In Theory and Practice, Vol. 1 (Seventh ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0-07-294262-0.
- Botstein, Leon (1998). "Music as the Language of Psychological Realm". In Kearney, Leslie (ed.). Tchaikovsky and His World. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-00429-7.
- Brown, David (1980). "'Glinka, Mikhail Ivanovich' and 'Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich'". In Stanley Sadie (ed.). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (20 volumes). London: MacMillan. ISBN 978-0-333-23111-1.
- Brown, David (1978). Tchaikovsky: The Early Years, 1840–1874. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-07535-9.
- — (1983). Tchaikovsky: The Crisis Years, 1874–1878. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-01707-6.
- — (1986). Tchaikovsky: The Years of Wandering, 1878–1885. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-02311-4.
- — (1991). Tchaikovsky: The Final Years, 1885–1893. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-03099-0.
- Brown, David (1993). "Pyotr Tchaikovsky". In Amanda Holden; Nicholas Kenyon; Stephen Walsh (eds.). The Viking Opera Guide. London: Viking. ISBN 978-0-670-81292-9.
- Brown, David (2007). Tchaikovsky: The Man and His Music. New York: Pegasus. ISBN 978-0-571-23194-2.
- Cooper, Martin (1946). "The Symphonies". In Gerald Abraham (ed.). Music of Tchaikovsky. New York: W. W. Norton. OCLC 385829.
- Druckenbrod, Andrew (30 January 2011). "Festival to explore Tchaikovsky's changing reputation". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Retrieved 27 February 2012.
- Figes, Orlando (2002). Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia. New York: Metropolitan Books. ISBN 978-0-8050-5783-6.
- Holden, Anthony (1995). Tchaikovsky: A Biography. New York: Random House. ISBN 978-0-679-42006-4.
- Holoman, D. Kern, "Instrumentation and orchestration, 4: 19th century". In The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Second Edition (London: Macmillan, 2001), 29 vols., ed. Sadie, Stanley. ISBN 978-1-56159-239-5.
- Hopkins, G. W., "Orchestration, 4: 19th century". In The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London: MacMillan, 1980), 20 vols., ed. Sadie, Stanley. ISBN 978-0-333-23111-1.
- Hosking, Geoffrey, Russia and the Russians: A History (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2001). ISBN 978-0-674-00473-3.
- Jackson, Timothy L., Tchaikovsky, Symphony no. 6 (Pathétique) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999). ISBN 978-0-521-64676-5.
- Karlinsky, Simon, "Russia's Gay Literature and Culture: The Impact of the October Revolution". In Hidden from History: Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past (New York: American Library, 1989), ed. Duberman, Martin, Martha Vicinus and George Chauncey. ISBN 978-0-452-01067-3.
- Kozinn, Allan, "Critic's Notebook; Defending Tchaikovsky, With Gravity and With Froth". In The New York Times, 18 July 1992. Retrieved 27 February 2012.
- Lockspeiser, Edward, "Tchaikovsky the Man". In Music of Tchaikovsky (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1946), ed. Abraham, Gerald. OCLC 385829.
- Maes, Francis, tr. Arnold J. Pomerans and Erica Pomerans, A History of Russian Music: From Kamarinskaya to Babi Yar (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 2002). ISBN 978-0-520-21815-4.
- Mochulsky, Konstantin, tr. Minihan, Michael A., Dostoyevsky: His Life and Work (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967). LCCN 65-10833.
- Poznansky, Alexander, Tchaikovsky: The Quest for the Inner Man (New York: Schirmer Books, 1991). ISBN 978-0-02-871885-9.
- Poznansky, Alexander, Tchaikovsky Through Others' Eyes. (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1999). ISBN 978-0-253-33545-6.
- Ridenour, Robert C., Nationalism, Modernism and Personal Rivalry in Nineteenth-Century Russian Music (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1981). ISBN 978-0-8357-1162-3.
- Ritzarev, Marina, Tchaikovsky's Pathétique and Russian Culture (Ashgate, 2014). ISBN 978-1-4724-2411-2.
- Roberts, David, "Modulation (i)". In The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London: MacMillan, 1980), 20 vols., ed. Sadie, Stanley. ISBN 978-0-333-23111-1.
- Rubinstein, Anton, tr. Aline Delano, Autobiography of Anton Rubinstein: 1829–1889 (New York: Little, Brown & Co., 1890). Library of Congress Control Number LCCN 06-4844.
- Schonberg, Harold C. Lives of the Great Composers (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 3rd ed. 1997). ISBN 978-0-393-03857-6.
- Steinberg, Michael, The Concerto (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).
- Steinberg, Michael, The Symphony (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).
- Taruskin, Richard, "Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Il'yich", The New Grove Dictionary of Opera (London and New York: Macmillan, 1992), 4 vols, ed. Sadie, Stanley. ISBN 978-0-333-48552-1.
- Volkov, Solomon, Romanov Riches: Russian Writers and Artists Under the Tsars (New York: Alfred A. Knopf House, 2011), tr. Bouis, Antonina W.ISBN 978-0-307-27063-4.
- Warrack, John, Tchaikovsky Symphonies and Concertos (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1969). LCCN 78-105437.
- Warrack, John, Tchaikovsky (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973). ISBN 978-0-684-13558-8.
- Wiley, Roland John, "Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich". In The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Second Edition (London: Macmillan, 2001), 29 vols., ed. Sadie, Stanley. ISBN 978-1-56159-239-5.
- Wiley, Roland John, The Master Musicians: Tchaikovsky (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009). ISBN 978-0-19-536892-5.
- Zhitomirsky, Daniel, "Symphonies". In Russian Symphony: Thoughts About Tchaikovsky (New York: Philosophical Library, 1947). OCLC 385806.
- Zajaczkowski, Henry, Tchaikovsky's Musical Style (Ann Arbor and London: UMI Research Press, 1987). ISBN 978-0-8357-1806-6.
дальнейшее чтение
- Bergamini, John, The Tragic Dynasty: A History of the Romanovs (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1969). LCCN 68-15498.
- Bullock, Philip Ross (2016). Pyotr Tchaikovsky. London, U.K.: Reaktion Books. ISBN 978-1-78023-654-4. OCLC 932385370.
- Hanson, Lawrence and Hanson, Elisabeth, Tchaikovsky: The Man Behind the Music (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company). LCCN 66-13606.
Внешние ссылки
- Tchaikovsky Research
- "Discovering Tchaikovsky". BBC Radio 3.
- Tchaikovsky cylinder recordings, from the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara Library.
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky at the Internet Broadway Database
- Works by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky at Internet Archive
- Piotr Ilitch Tchaïkovski – Musique Classique – medici.tv
- Mutopia Project Tchaikovsky Sheet Music at Mutopia
- Free scores by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)
- Tchaikovsky Arias and Piano works performed live in Brussels