Favourite work of the composer...

My favourite work from Tchaikovsky is the Nutcracker Suite.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi_efzYcXGI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3CjBLrazE8


One of my favourite section in the piece is the Dance of the Merlitons.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulPYzhdpStQ


Why I liked the piece?
I like this piece "Dance of the Merlitons" as this piece sounds cheerful, cheeky and playful. The melody is flowing, constantly moving from the major key to the minor key, and later back to major key again. This short segment of the Nutcracker Suite is in the ternary form. Hence it is in A-B-A. I like the main melody in A, where the melody of the flutes is playful and cheeky. There are use of syncopations and the accents played be the flutes also brings out the melody more. While the flutes plays the main melody at A, the strings plays the harmony. Bowing technique was used in the upper strings whereas plucking technique, also known as pizzicato, is used in the lower strings. There is also a short part where the basoon plays a solo, it sounded like a countermelody to me. At B, the brasses are introduced. The continuous crecendos and decrecendos carried out helps build the effect of rising and falling. The piece reverts back to A and ends of in the major key. Overall, the piece was smooth-flowing and the melody attracted me. Hence, I like this piece composed by Tchaikovsky.

His Last Years...

Last Years

The death of his sister in 1891 overshadowed an otherwise triumphant visit to USA, and by the end of 1892 Tchaikovsky was beset by morbid fears. His last syphony, dubbed the Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Pathétique, Op. 74 by his brother Modest, represents his final confrontation with the Fate that had dogged him.

Excerpt from the 4th movement of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Pathétique, Op. 74

Some scholars believed that he might have committed suicide, either by drinking contaminated water deliberately or by taking arsenic as he died of chloera after drinking a cup of unboiled water.

Fatalism...

Fatalism

In the immediate aftermath of his disastrous marriage, Tchaikovsky composed his 4th symphony, dedicated to Madame von Meck. He told her,"There is a programme to our symphony... the introduction is the seed of the whole work... this is Fate, the fatal force which prevents the realization of our hopes of happiness."

From then onwards, his work became increasingly dominated by the idea of Fate. It pervades his opera Eugene Onegin, based on Pushkin's verse novel, a powerful emotional drama set against the colourful background of Russian country life. The opera had uncanny parallels with Tchaikovsky's own situation, particularly in the ardent letter written by the herione, Tatyana, to the insensitive Onegin, who fails to appreciate her true worth until many years later.

The same sense of predestination dominates the 5th symphony (1888), whose famous opening theme represents "complete resignation before Fate", while the second movement, with its exquisite opening horn solo, is a radiant love-song. Both Fate and Pushkin provided the scenario for tchaikovsky's last successful opera Pikovaya dama (The Queen of Spades), a chilling supernatural tale of the death and destruction wought by a gambler's obsession.

In 1878 Tchaikovsky resigned his teaching job at Moscow Conservatory. From then onwards he spent much time abroad, in Switzerland, where he completed the Violin Concerto (another work strongly influenced by Russian folk themes), and in Italy(the inspiraton of the Capriccio italien and the Souvenir de Florence). In 1880 he commemorated the historic defeat of Napoleon's army with the brash but ever-popular 1812 Overture, which he described as "loud and noisy... and probably artistically worthless".

The retreat of Moscow inspired by Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture

By 1884 Tchaikovsky felt the need to settle down, and found himself a country house near Klin, outside Moscow. He renewed one acquaintance, with Balakirev(who prompted him to compose the Byronic Manfred Symphony), but lost another when, in October 1890, his substitute mother-figure Madame von Meck abruptly discontinued their 14-year relationship.

Tchaikovsky's Marriage Life...

Marriage

Around the same time, he began his long association with the multi-millionairness Nadezhda von Meck, the widow of a railway tycoon, who befriended the composer, commissioned his works and supported him financially, on conditions they should never meet. Her patronage enabled Tchaikovsky to concentrate on composition, and rescued him from the emotional chaos by his hasty and imprudent marriage in 1877 to a mentally unbalanced music student, Antonina Milyukova, who had pestered him with love letters.

Tchaikovsky and his wife Antonina Milyukova

Tchaikovsky had evidently hoped that marriage would bring "normality" to his life, but found himself unacle to reconcile his wife's physical demands with his homosexuality. A n attempt at reconciliation brought him to the brink of suicide, and within weeks of the wedding he fled to the safety of his brother's house in St Peterburg. Tchaikovsky never saw his wife again, although they were never divorced. In 1896, 3 years after his death, she was declared insane and spent the rest of her life in an asylum.

Nadezhda von Meck

Music of the stage...

Music of the stage

Meanwhile Tchaikovsky was working on his 1st opera, Voyevoda, which was performed at the Bolshoy Theatre in Moscow in Febuary 1869. Shortly afterwards Tchaikovsky met Balakirev, who was recognized a major talent and encouraged Tchaikovsky to tackle the tone-poem Romeo and Juliet, Its subject-matter, dealing with the favourite Russian themes of love and death, fired the composer's imagination, and it quickly became one of his most popular works.

In May 1872, while staying at the country estate of his beloved sister Alexandra and her faamily, Tchaikovsky wrote his 2nd symphony, known as Little Russian, which incorporates geniune Ukrainian folk tunes into its music fabric. It was also well recieved, but he still wanted to achieve operatic success. This eluded him until after his first venture into the world of ballet, with lebedino ozero (Swan Lake), written for the Imperial Ballet in Moscow. Though its first production in 1877 was a disaster, it was the first of his 3 great ballet scores- the others are Spyashchaya krasavitsa (The Sleeping Beauty) and Shchelkunchik (The Nutcracker)- which are still the cornerstones of the classical ballet repertoire.

In 1874 Tchaikovsky's confidence recieved another severe dent when Nikolay Rubinstein contemptuously rejected his First Piano Concerto as "worthless and unplayable". Tchaikovsky rightly ignored the criticism, and refused to alter the score. After Hans von Bulow gave its premiere in Boston, USA, the following year with great success, Rubinstein was forced to admit his mistake. Meanwhile, Tchaikovsky- who spent as much time as possible travellin outside Russia- saw Bizet's Carmen in Paris, and Wagner's Ring at the opening of the Bayreuth Festival Opera, Under these tewin influeances he composed his tone-poem Francesca da Rimini (1876), based on the famous episode in Dante's Inferno, and, in complete contrast, the classically poised Rocco Variations for cello and orchestra.

Above: The Swan Princess by M.A. Vrubel(1867-1910), inspired by the herione of Swan Lake

Above: Romeo and Juliet

Above: The Nutcracker

The Early Life of Tchaikovsky...

The Early Life of Tchaikovsky
Extreme left: Pyotr Tchaikovsky. Seated left to right are: composer's mother Alexandra Andreyevna, his sister Alexandra, brother Ippolit, and father Ilya Petrovich; standing are: sister Zinaida and brother Nikolai. From the collection of the Tchaikovsky House-Museum at Klin.

Tchaikovsky was the son of a mining engineer, and was born near the Urals. From his delicate, epileptic, French mother he inherited his hypersensitive nature and a tendancy to hypochondria. When he was 8, the family moved to St Petersburg, where Tchaikovsky enrolled in the junior department of the School of Jurisprudence, a training-ground for civil service. By this time, he had aquired twin younger brothers, Anatoly and Modest. He was exceptionally close to his mother, and her shocking death in cholera epidemic when Tchaikovsky was 14 was a trauma from which he never really recovered.

Nikolay Rubinstein(1835-81)

Tchaikovsky graduated from School of Jurisprudence in 1859, but found life in civil service uncongenial. When a new music conservatory opened in St Petersburg in 1862, he enrolled as a student. He graduated in 1866, and found a job as a harmony teacher at the Moscow Conservatory, which had just been established by his mentor, the pianist and the composer Nikolay Rubinstein(1835-81). The successful performance of an early overture in March 1866 encouraged him to start work on a symphony, entitled Winter Daydreams, which was performed under Rubinstein's baton in 1868. Modelled on Mendelssohn's Italian and Scottish Symphonies, it uses melodies influenced by Russian folk tunes.

About "The Mighty Handful"...

"The Mighty Handful"

From left to right: A female singer, Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky, Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, Mily Balakirev, Cesar Cui and Alexander Borodin

This curious crowd of drinkers, who were largely amatuer composers, was given its nickname("moguchaya kuchka") by the critic Vladimir Stasov in 1867. Thier self-styled leader was Balakirev, while Borodin worked as a chemist, Rimsky-Korsakov was a naval officer and Cesar Cui was a military engineer, and the most gifted, Mussorgsky, was a civil servant whom the rest regarded with a certain contempt. Nevertheless, their influence on Russian music in the late 19th century was immerse.