THE MUSIC OF TCHAIKOVSKY

BY:

MR. EMERLINDO C. MATIENZO

Music playing: Piano Concerto No. 1 in B flat minor

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) was the king of composers for the ballet during the Romantic period. Ballet is an art form in which the music and visual aspect of body movements, costumes and scenery are combined for the psychological and artistic satisfaction the provide.

Some single movement works are heard more frequently as concert pieces than as accompaniment to the dances for which they were written.

Tchaikovsky wrote the 3 greatest ballet scores of all time. First is the “Swan Lake” which is a full length ballet with the extent of a symphony. Within this vast score is a short piece like the “Dance of the little Swan”. This shows his capacity of working within small forms as well as large.

The second and considered by many as probably the best for it’s finely structured main theme is “The Sleeping Beauty”. The music is light and perfectly matching the dreamy ambience of the scene.

The “Nutcracker”, a charming light fairytale story, was his final ballet. It has enchanted young and old for almost 100 years.

During the Romantic period, the waltz became so popular that it almost replaced all other types of ballroom dancing. Tchaikovsky wrote many waltzes for ballets such as the “Waltz for Sleeping Beauty”, “Waltz from Swan Lake”, and “Waltz of the Flowers”.

Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilich, pronounced chy KAWF skee, PYAW tuhr IHL yihch (1840-1893), was the first Russian composer whose music became part of the standard concert program in western Europe. Tchaikovsky had a gift for creating memorable lyric melodies and for contrasting instrumental sounds, particularly those of wind instruments, in his orchestrations.

Tchaikovsky was born in Votkinsk, Russia, on May 7, 1840. From 1862 through 1865, he studied music at the St. Petersburg Conservatory with Anton Rubinstein, a Russian pianist and composer. At the conservatory Tchaikovsky became the first Russian composer to receive systematic Western-style academic training in the fundamentals of music.

In 1866, Tchaikovsky began teaching at the Moscow Conservatory of Music. During the next several years, his early emotional sensitivity developed into long periods of depression. But he wrote some of his most optimistic music during this time. Tchaikovsky was married briefly in 1877. However, he and his wife separated after a few weeks, and he left Russia to travel in Switzerland and Italy.

Tchaikovsky is remembered today outside Russia primarily for his orchestra works. However, he devoted equal attention throughout his career to opera. Of his nine completed operas, only Eugene Onegin (1879) and The Queen of Spades (1890) have gained popularity in the West. Both are based on works by Alexander Pushkin, a Russian writer who died in 1837.

Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor (1875) and his Violin Concerto in D major (1881) are fine examples of the late romantic concerto. He also wrote Variations on a Rococo Theme (1877) for violoncello and orchestra. Tchaikovsky's many piano works and songs are seldom performed outside Russia. More popular in the West are three string quartets (1872, 1876, and 1877), the Piano Trio in A minor (1882), and a string sextet Souvenir de Florence (written 1890, revised 1892). He died on Nov. 6, 1893.