Pjotr Iljitsch Tchaikovsky

Pjotr Iljitsch Tchaikovsky

born on 7/5/1840 in Wotkinsk, Udmurtia, Russian Federation

died on 6/11/1893 in St. Petersburg, Russian Federation

Links www.tchaikovsky-research.net (English)
www.musicologie.org (French)
www.klassika.info (German)
www.coski.com (Italian)

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Portrait of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky ( /pjtr lit tkfski/; Russian: ;[a 1] tr. Pyotr Ilyich Chaykovsky; 7 May 1840  6 November 1893),[a 2] often anglicised as Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky /pitr [unsupported input]/, was a Russian composer whose works included symphonies, concertos, operas, ballets, chamber music, and a choral setting of the Russian Orthodox Divine Liturgy. Some of these are among the most popular theatrical music in the classical repertoire. He was the first Russian composer whose music made a lasting impression internationally, which he bolstered with appearances as a guest conductor later in his career in Europe and the United States. One of these appearances was at the inaugural concert of Carnegie Hall in New York City in 1891. Tchaikovsky was honored in 1884 by Emperor Alexander III, and awarded a lifetime pension in the late 1880s.






Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born in Votkinsk, a small town in Vyatka Governorate (present-day Udmurtia) in the Russian Empire. His family had a long line of military service. His father, Ilya Petrovich Tchaikovsky, was an engineer who served as a lieutenant colonel in the Department of Mines. He was mostly of Russian ethnicity, though his ancestors were Ukrainian Cossacks[1] and manager of the Kamsko-Votkinsk Ironworks. His grandfather, Petro Fedorovych Chaika, received medical training in Saint Petersburg and served as a physician's assistant in the army before becoming city governor of Glazov in Viatka. His great-grandfather, a Cossack named Fyodor Chaika, distinguished himself under Peter the Great at the Battle of Poltava in 1709.[2] His mother, Alexandra Andreyevna née d'Assier, the second of Ilya's three wives, was 18 years her husband's junior and of French ancestry on her father's side.[3] Both of Tchaikovsky's parents were trained in the arts, including music. This was considered a necessity as a posting to a remote area of Russia was always possible, bringing with it a need for entertainment, both private and at social gatherings.[4]

Tchaikovsky had four brothers (Nikolai, Ippolit, and twins Anatoly and Modest), a sister, Alexandra and a half-sister Zinaida from his father's first marriage.[5] He was particularly close to Alexandra and the twins. Anatoly later had a prominent legal career, while Modest became a dramatist, librettist, and translator.[6] Alexandra married Lev Davydov[7] and had seven children, one of whom, Vladimir Davydov, became very close to the composer, who nicknamed him 'Bob'.[8] The Davydovs provided the only real family life Tchaikovsky knew as an adult,[9] and their estate in Kamenka (now Kamianka, Cherkasy Oblast, part of Ukraine) became a welcome refuge for him during his years of wandering.[9]

In 1843 the family hired Fanny Dürbach, a 22-year-old French governess, to look after the children and teach Tchaikovsky's elder brother Nikolai and a niece of the family.[10] While Tchaikovsky, at four and a half, was initially considered too young to begin studies, his insistence convinced Dürbach otherwise.[11] Dürbach proved an excellent teacher, teaching Pyotr Tchaikovsky to be fluent in French and German by the age of six.[4] Tchaikovsky became attached to the young woman and her affection for him is said to have provided a counter to Tchaikovsky's mother, who has been described as a cold, unhappy, distant parent,[12] although others assert that the mother doted on her son.[13] Dürbach saved much of Tchaikovsky's work from this period, which includes his earliest known compositions. She was also the source of several anecdotes about his childhood.[14]

Tchaikovsky took piano lessons from the age of five. A precocious pupil, he could read music as adeptly as his teacher within three years. His parents were initially supportive, hiring a tutor, buying an orchestrion (a form of barrel organ that could imitate elaborate orchestral effects), and encouraging his study of the piano for both aesthetic and practical reasons. Nevertheless, the family decided in 1850 to send Tchaikovsky to the Imperial School of Jurisprudence in Saint Petersburg. This decision may have been rooted in practicality. It is not certain whether Tchaikovsky's parents had grown insensitive toward his musical gift.[4] However, regardless of talent, the only avenues for a musical career in Russia at that time  except for the affluent aristocracy  were as a teacher in an academy or an instrumentalist in one of the Imperial Theaters. Both were considered on the lowest rung of the social ladder, with no more rights than peasants.[15] Also, because of the growing uncertainty of his father's income, both parents may have wanted Tchaikovsky to become independent as soon as possible.[16]

Since both parents had graduated from institutes in Saint Petersburg, they decided to educate him as they had themselves been educated.[17] The School of Jurisprudence mainly served the lesser nobility and would prepare Tchaikovsky for a career as a civil servant. As the minimum age for acceptance was 12 and Tchaikovsky was only 10 at the time, he was required to spend two years boarding at the Imperial School of Jurisprudence's preparatory school, 800 miles (1,287.4752 km) from his family.[18] Once those two years had passed, Tchaikovsky transferred to the Imperial School of Jurisprudence to begin a seven-year course of studies.[19]

Emerging composer

Childhood trauma and school years

Tchaikovsky's separation from his mother to attend boarding school caused an emotional trauma that tormented him throughout his life.[20] Her death from cholera in 1854 further devastated him, affecting him so much that he could not inform Fanny Dürbach until two years later.[21] He mourned his mother's loss for the rest of his life[22] and called it "the crucial event" that ultimately shaped it.[23] 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."[22] The loss also prompted Tchaikovsky to make his first serious attempt at composition, a waltz in her memory.

Tchaikovsky's father, who also contracted cholera at this time but fully recovered, immediately sent him back to school, hoping that classwork would occupy the boy's mind.[24] In partial compensation for his isolation and loss, Tchaikovsky made lifelong friendships with fellow students, including Aleksey Apukhtin and Vladimir Gerard.[25] Music became a unifier. While it was not an official priority at the School of Jurisprudence, Tchaikovsky maintained an extracurricular connection by regularly attending the opera with other students.[26] Fond of works by Rossini, Bellini, Verdi and Mozart, he would improvise for his friends at the school's harmonium on themes they had sung during choir practice. "We were amused," Vladimir Gerard later remembered, "but not imbued with any expectations of his future glory."[27] Tchaikovsky also continued his piano studies through Franz Becker, an instrument manufacturer who made occasional visits to the school; however, the results, according to musicologist David Brown, were "negligible".[28]

In 1855, Tchaikovsky's father funded private lessons for his son with the teacher Rudolph Kündinger. He also questioned Kündinger about a musical career for the boy. Kündinger replied that, while impressed, nothing suggested to him a future as a composer or performer.[29] Kündinger later admitted that his assessment was also based on his own negative experiences as a musician in Russia and his unwillingness for Tchaikovsky to be treated likewise.[30] Tchaikovsky was told to finish his course and then try for a post in the Ministry of Justice.[31] Even though he gave this practical advice, his father remained receptive about a career in music for Tchaikovsky. He simply did not know what Tchaikovsky could accomplish, nor whether he could make a living at it. No public education system in music existed at the time in Russia and private education, especially in composition, was erratic.[32]

Civil service; pursuing music


In 1861, Tchaikovsky attended classes in music theory taught by Nikolai Zaremba at the Mikhailovsky Palace (now the Russian Museum) in Saint Petersburg.[34] These classes were organized by the Russian Musical Society (RMS), founded in 1859 by the Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna (a German-born aunt of Tsar Alexander II) and her protégé, pianist and composer Anton Rubinstein. The aim of the RMS was to foster native talent, in accordance with Alexander II's stated intent.[35] Previous tsars and the aristocracy had focused almost exclusively on importing European talent.[36] The RMS fulfilled Alexander II's wish by promoting a regular season of public concerts (previously held only during the six weeks of Lent when the Imperial Theaters were closed)[37] and providing basic professional training in music.[38] The classes held at the Mikhailovsky Palace were a precursor to the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, which opened in 1862. Tchaikovsky enrolled at the Conservatory as part of its premiere class but held on to his Ministry post until the following year, wanting to make sure his course lay in music.[39] From 1862 to 1865 he studied harmony and counterpoint with Zaremba. Rubinstein, director and founder of the Conservatory, taught instrumentation and composition.[40]

Tchaikovsky benefited from his Conservatory studies in two ways. First, it transformed him into a musical professional and gave him tools that helped him thrive as a composer. Second, his in-depth exposure to European principles and forms for organizing musical material gave Tchaikovsky the sense that his art belonged to world culture and was not exclusively Russian or Western.[41] This mindset became important in his reconciling Russian and European influences in his compositional style and showed that both these aspects of Russian culture were actually "intertwined and mutually dependent".[42] It also became a starting point for other Russian composers to build their own individual styles.[43]

While Rubinstein was impressed by Tchaikovsky's musical talent on the whole[44] (citing him as "a composer of genius" in his autobiography[45]), he was less pleased with the more progressive tendencies of some of Tchaikovsky's student work.[46] Nor did he change his opinion as Tchaikovsky's reputation grew in the years following his graduation.[a 3][a 4] He and Zaremba clashed with Tchaikovsky when he submitted his First Symphony for performance by the RMS in Saint Petersburg. Rubinstein and Zaremba refused to consider the work unless substantial changes were made. Tchaikovsky complied but they still refused to perform the symphony.[47] Tchaikovsky, distressed that he had been treated as though he were still their student, withdrew the symphony. It was given its first complete performance, minus the changes Rubinstein and Zaremba had requested, in Moscow in February 1868.[48]


From 1867 to 1878, Tchaikovsky combined his professorial duties with music criticism while continuing to compose.[50] This exposed him to a range of contemporary music and afforded him the opportunity to travel abroad.[51] In his reviews, he praised Beethoven, considered Brahms overrated and despite his admiration took Schumann to task for poor orchestration.[52][a 5] He appreciated the staging of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen at its inaugural performance in Bayreuth, Germany, but not the music, calling Das Rheingold "unlikely nonsense, through which, from time to time, sparkle unusually beautiful and astonishing details."[53] A recurring theme he addressed was the poor state of Russian opera.[54]

Relationship with The Five

See also: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and The Five


Balakirev and Stassov's efforts fueled a debate, begun by Russian intelligentsia in the 1830s, over whether artists negated their Russianness when they borrowed from European culture or took vital steps toward renewing and developing their culture.[58] Rubinstein's criticism of amateur efforts in musical composition (he insisted that creativity without discipline was a waste of talent) and his pro-Western outlook and training fanned the flames further. His founding a professional institute where predominantly foreign professors taught alien musical practices heated the controversy to boiling point.[59] Balakirev attacked Rubinstein for his musical conservatism and his belief in professional music training.[60] Mussorgsky jumped on the bandwagon, calling the Conservatory a place where professors, dressed "in professional, antimusical togas, first pollute their students' minds, then seal them with various abominations."[61] Tchaikovsky and his fellow conservatory students were caught in the middle, well-aware of the argument but directed by Rubinstein to remain silent and focus on their own artistry.[62] Nevertheless, as Rubinstein's pupil, Tchaikovsky became a target for The Five's scrutiny and was criticized for not following their precepts.[63] Cui, who championed the nationalist cause as a music critic for the next half-century, wrote a blistering review of a cantata Tchaikovsky had composed as his graduation thesis. The review devastated the composer.[64]

In 1867, Rubinstein resigned as conductor of the RMS orchestra and was replaced by Balakirev. Tchaikovsky, now Professor of Music Theory at the Moscow Conservatory,[65] had already promised his Characteristic Dances to that ensemble but felt ambivalent. He wanted to fulfil his commitment, but had concerns over sending his composition to someone whose musical aims ran counter to his own and could thus be considered hostile.[66] Compounding the issue was Balakirev's mentoring of composers whose work Tchaikovsky did not admire.[67] He eventually sent the Dances but enclosed a request for encouragement should they not be performed.[66] Balakirev, whose influence over the other composers in The Five had meanwhile waned, may have sensed the potential for a new disciple in Tchaikovsky.[68] He replied "with complete frankness" that he considered Tchaikovsky "a fully fledged artist".[69] These letters set the tone for their relationship over the next two years. In 1869, they worked together on what became Tchaikovsky's first recognized masterpiece, the fantasy-overture Romeo and Juliet, a work which The Five wholeheartedly embraced.[70] The group also welcomed his Second Symphony, subtitled the Little Russian.[71] In its original form, Tchaikovsky allowed the unique characteristics of Russian folk song to dictate the symphonic form of its outer movements, rather than Western rules of composition. This was a primary aim of The Five.[72] (However, Tchaikovsky became dissatisfied with this approach, choosing to make a large cut in the finale and rewrite the opening movement along Western lines when he revised the symphony seven years later.)[73]

While ambivalent about much of The Five's music, Tchaikovsky remained on friendly terms with most of its members.[74] Despite his collaboration with Balakirev, Tchaikovsky made considerable efforts to ensure his musical independence from the group as well as from the conservative faction at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory.[75]

Growing fame; budding opera composer

Tchaikovsky's successes during his first years as a composer were infrequent, won with tremendous effort. The disappointments in between exacerbated a lifelong sensitivity to criticism. Also, while Nikolai Rubinstein expended considerable effort in spreading Tchaikovsky's music, he was also given to fits of rage in private with the composer in critiquing it.[76] One of these rages, later documented by Tchaikovsky, involved Rubinstein's rejection of the First Piano Concerto. The work was subsequently premiered by Hans von Bülow, whose pianism had impressed the composer during an appearance in Moscow. Eventually, Rubinstein reconsidered and took up the work.[77] Bülow championed many other Tchaikovsky works both as pianist and conductor.[78]






Emotional 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.[84] 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 armchair analysis by Western biographers. A current tendency is to discuss Tchaikovsky's personal life candidly.[85]

Tchaikovsky lived as a bachelor most of his life. In 1877, at the age of 37, he wed a former student, Antonina Miliukova.[86] The marriage was a disaster. Mismatched psychologically and sexually,[87] the couple lived together for only two and a half months before Tchaikovsky left, overwrought emotionally and suffering from an acute writer's block.[88] Tchaikovsky's family remained supportive of him during this crisis and throughout his life.[89] 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,[90] she also became his patroness for the next 13 years, which allowed him to focus exclusively on composition.[91]


See also: LGBT history in Russia

Tchaikovsky had clear homosexual tendencies and some of the composer's closest relationships were with men.[92] He sought out the company of other same-sex attracted men in his circle for extended periods, "associating openly and establishing professional connections with them."[76] Relevant portions of his brother Modest's autobiography, where he tells of the composer's sexual orientation, have been published, as have letters previously suppressed by Soviet censors in which Tchaikovsky openly writes of it.[93]

More debatable is how comfortable the composer felt with his sexual nature. There are currently two schools of thought. Musicologists such as David Brown have maintained that Tchaikovsky "felt tainted within himself, defiled by something from which he finally realized he could never escape."[94] Another group of scholars, which includes Alexander Poznansky and Roland John Wiley, have more recently suggested that the composer experienced "no unbearable guilt" over his sexual nature[76] and "eventually came to see his sexual peculiarities as an insurmountable and even natural part of his personality ... without experiencing any serious psychological damage."[95]

Both groups agree that Tchaikovsky remained aware of the negative consequences should knowledge of his orientation become public, especially of the ramifications for his family. While his father continued to hope Tchaikovsky would marry (and may have been unaware of his son's orientation), other members of his loving and supportive family remained more open-minded. Modest shared his sexual orientation and became his literary collaborator, biographer and closest confidant. Tchaikovsky was eventually surrounded by an adoring group of male relatives and friends, which may have aided him in achieving some sort of psychological balance and inner acceptance of his sexual nature.[96]


In any case, Tchaikovsky chose not to neglect social convention and stayed conservative by nature.[100] His love life remained complicated. A combination of upbringing, timidity and deep commitment to relatives precluded his living openly with a male lover.[101] A similar blend of personal inclination and period decorum kept him from having sexual relations with those in his social circle.[102] He regularly sought out anonymous encounters, many of which he reported to Modest; at times, these brought feelings of remorse.[103] He also attempted to be discreet and adjust his tastes to the conventions of Russian society.[104] Nevertheless, many of his colleagues, especially those closest to him, may have either known or guessed his true sexual nature.[105] Tchaikovsky's decision to enter into a heterosexual union and try to lead a double life was prompted by several factorsthe possibility of exposure, the willingness to please his father, his own desire for a permanent home and his love of children and family. There is no reason however to suppose that these personal travails impacted negatively on the quality of his musical inspiration or capacity.[76] An upcoming Russian film, Tchaikovsky,[106] has attracted controversy due to the fact that Tchaikovsky's sexuality, mentioned in early drafts, has been written out of the film in order to secure funding from the Russian government.[107]

Unsuccessful marriage

See also: Désirée Artôt and Antonina Miliukova

In 1868, Tchaikovsky met Belgian soprano Désirée Artôt, then touring Russia with an Italian opera company and causing a sensation with her performances in Moscow.[108] Artôt, according to Tchaikovsky biographer Anthony Holden, was "one of the most lustrous opera stars of her day," with a "beguiling voice".[109] The composer's friend, music critic Hermann Laroche, called her "dramatic singing personified, an opera goddess fusing numerous gifts which would normally be shared among several different artists."[110] Tchaikovsky and Artôt became infatuated and engaged to be married.[111] Even so, Artôt told Tchaikovsky that she would not give up the stage or settle in Russia.[112] Nikolai Rubinstein, fearful that living in a famous singer's shadow would stifle Tchaikovsky's creativity, warned against the union.[113] Undeterred, and while still privately preferring a homosexual lifestyle, the composer discussed wedding plans at length with his father.[100] However, on September 15, 1869, without any communication with Tchaikovsky, Artôt married a Spanish baritone in her company, Mariano Padilla y Ramos.[a 6] Although it is generally thought that Tchaikovsky swiftly got over the affair, it has been suggested that he coded Désirée's name into the Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor and the tone-poem Fatum.[114] They met on a handful of later occasions and, in October 1888, he wrote Six French Songs, Op. 65, for her, in response to her request for a single song. Tchaikovsky later claimed she was the only woman he ever loved,[115] although Holden and other biographers have surmised that it may have been "the glamorous yet talented diva, rather than the real woman behind the top billing, with whom he had fallen in love."[116]

By the end of 1876, Tchaikovsky had fallen in love with Iosif Kotek, a former student from the Moscow Conservatory. Though he wrote to Modest that Kotek reciprocated his feelings, the composer distanced himself a few months later when Kotek proved to be unfaithful.[117] At roughly the same time another friend, Vladimir Shilovsky, suddenly married. Tchaikovsky did not take the news well. He and Shilovsky, who may have also been homosexual, had shared a mutual bond of affection for just over a decade.[118] Tchaikovsky had previously mentioned the possibility of marriage to Modest, out of concern that public knowledge of his sexuality might scandalize his family.[119] Modest and their sister Sasha, in turn, had warned against such a step.[120] However, Shilovsky's wedding may have spurred him to action.[121] In doing so, he did not consider several factors. One was that his feelings on the matter may have been conflicted. While he wrote to his brother Anatoly about using marriage as a means of securing sexual freedom through leading a "double life," in the same letter he disparaged his homosexual acquaintances who had actually done so.[122] Another factor was that, at 37, Tchaikovsky might have been more set in his bachelor's ways than he would have admitted. Age alone would make that lifestyle much harder to discard or ignore than if he had married much earlier.[123]

Tchaikovsky on his marriage


Letter to Tchaikovsky's brother Anatoly, written in Florence, February 18, 1878.[124]

In July 1877, Tchaikovsky married another former student, Antonina Miliukova, after receiving a series of impassioned letters from her.[86] To ensure there would be no interference, he told only Anatoly and his father of his engagement. He did not inform Modest or Sasha until the day before his wedding or Vladimir Shilovsky until the day of the wedding. He invited only Anatoly to the ceremony.[125] Almost as soon as the wedding ended, Tchaikovsky felt he had made a mistake and soon afterwards found that he and Antonina were incompatible psychologically and sexually.[87] If Tchaikovsky attempted to explain his sexual mores to his wife, she did not understand.[126][a 7]

As time passed, Tchaikovsky may have realized that marriage itself, not simply Antonina, may have been wrong for him.[127] He wrote to Sasha that he had "become too used to bachelor life and I cannot recall my loss of freedom without regret."[128] He concluded that, instead of strengthening his personal and social standing, his marriage had actually imperiled it because of the grief and scandal that could result from its failure. Money matters and an inability to compose compounded the situation and drove Tchaikovsky to deeper levels of despair.[129] The couple lived together for only two and a half months before the mounting emotional crisis forced him to leave.[88] He traveled to Clarens, Switzerland for rest and recovery.[130] He and Antonina remained legally married but never lived together again nor had any children,[a 8] though Antonina later gave birth to three children by another man.[131]

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[132] and he apparently never again considered matrimony or considered himself capable of loving women in the same manner as other men. He admitted to his brother Anatoly that there was "nothing more futile than wanting to be anything other than what I am by nature."[133] Also, though Tchaikovsky would confess it only in periods of deep depression, the episode left him with a deep sense of shame and guilt and an apprehension that Antonina might fully realize and publicize his sexual orientation. Those factors made each of her occasional letters "a great misfortune" which would leave him shaken for days. They also made any news of her, regardless of how minor or innocent, to cause Tchaikovsky lost sleep and appetite, an inability to work and to fixate on imminent death.[134]

Nadezhda von Meck

See also: Nadezhda von Meck



Von Meck eventually paid Tchaikovsky an annual subsidy of 6,000 rubles, which enabled him to concentrate on composition.[91] With this patronage came a relationship that, while remaining epistolary, grew extremely intimate.[90] She suddenly ceased her financial subsidy in 1890 as a result of her own financial difficulties. While there is no evidence she intended to also discontinue her friendship and communication, this was nevertheless brought about through the machinations of her son-in-law, Tchaikovsky's erstwhile student Wadysaw Pachulski, who had an exalted opinion of his own compositional abilities and was resentful that Tchaikovsky did not share his view. While Tchaikovsky was not in as urgent a need of her money as he had been, her friendship and encouragement had remained an integral part of his emotional life. He remained bewildered and resentful about her absence for the remaining three years of his life, and she was just as distressed about his apparent dropping of her friendship, which she was led to believe was because he had never cared for her personally and he had no further use for her once her subsidy had stopped. This was completely untrue.[138]

Years of wandering

Tchaikovsky remained abroad for a year after the disintegration of his marriage, during which he completed Eugene Onegin, orchestrated the Fourth Symphony and composed the Violin Concerto.[139] He returned to the Moscow Conservatory in the autumn of 1879 but only as a temporary move; he informed Nikolai Rubinstein on the day of his arrival that he would stay no longer than December.[140][a 9] Once his professorship had ended officially, he traveled incessantly throughout Europe and rural Russia. Assured of a regular income from von Meck, he lived mainly alone, did not stay long anywhere and avoided social contact whenever possible.[141] His troubles with Antonina continued. She agreed to divorce him, then refused. While he was on an extended visit to Moscow, she moved into an apartment directly above where he was staying.[142] Tchaikovsky listed her accusations in detail to Modest: "I am a deceiver who married her in order to hide my true nature ... I insulted her every day, her sufferings at my hands were great ... she is appalled by my shameful vice, etc., etc." He may have lived the rest of his life in dread of Antonina's power to expose him publicly.[143] This could be why his best work from this period, except for the piano trio which he wrote upon the death of Nikolai Rubinstein, is found in genres which did not require deep personal expression.[142]

Tchaikovsky's foreign reputation grew rapidly. In Russia, though, it was "considered obligatory [in progressive musical circles in Russia] to treat Tchaikovsky as a renegade, a master overly dependent on the West."[144] In 1880 this assessment changed. During commemoration ceremonies for the Pushkin Monument in Moscow, novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky charged that poet and playwright Alexander Pushkin had given a prophetic call to Russia for "universal unity" with the West.[144] An unprecedented acclaim for Dostoyevsky's message spread throughout Russia, and with it disdain for Tchaikovsky's music evaporated. He even drew a cult following among the young intelligentsia of Saint Petersburg, including Alexandre Benois, Léon Bakst and Sergei Diaghilev.[145]


On 23 March 1881, Nikolai Rubinstein died in Paris. Tchaikovsky, holidaying in Rome, went immediately to attend the funeral. He arrived in Paris too late for the ceremony but was in the cortege which accompanied Rubinstein's coffin by train to Russia.[148] In December, he started work on his Piano Trio in A minor, "dedicated to the memory of a great artist."[149] The trio was first performed privately at the Moscow Conservatory on the first anniversary of Rubinstein's death.[150][a 11] The piece became extremely popular during the composer's lifetime and became Tchaikovsky's own elegy when played at memorial concerts in Moscow and St. Petersburg in November 1893.[151]

Return to Russia

Now 44 years old, in 1884 Tchaikovsky began to shed his unsociability and restlessness. In March of that year, Tsar Alexander III conferred upon him the Order of St. Vladimir (fourth class), which carried with it hereditary nobility[152] and won Tchaikovsky a personal audience with the Tsar.[153] This was a visible seal of official approval which advanced Tchaikovsky's social standing.[152] This advance may have been cemented in the composer's mind by the great success of his Orchestral Suite No. 3 at its January 1885 premiere in Saint Petersburg, under von Bülow's direction,[154] at which the press was unanimously favorable. Tchaikovsky wrote to von Meck: "I have never seen such a triumph. I saw the whole audience was moved, and grateful to me. These moments are the finest adornments of an artist's life. Thanks to these it is worth living and laboring.".[154]



Tchaikovsky also promoted Russian music as a conductor,[153] as which he had sought to establish himself for at least a decade, believing that it would reinforce his success.[156] In January 1887 he substituted at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow at short notice for performances of his opera Cherevichki.[157] Within a year of the Cherevichki performances, Tchaikovsky was in considerable demand throughout Europe and Russia, which helped him overcome life-long stage fright and boosted his self-assurance.[158] Conducting brought him to America in 1891, where he led the New York Music Society's orchestra in his Festival Coronation March at the inaugural concert of Carnegie Hall.[159]


Belyayev circle and growing reputation

See also: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and the Belyayev circle

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.[161] 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.[162] 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.[163] This relationship lasted until Tchaikovsky's death.[164][165]

In 1892, Tchaikovsky was voted a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in France, only the second Russian subject to be honored so (the first was sculptor Mark Antokolski).[166] The following year, the University of Cambridge in England awarded Tchaikovsky an honorary Doctor of Music degree.[167]


See also: Death of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Symphony No. 6 (Tchaikovsky)

On 28 October 1893 Tchaikovsky conducted the premiere of his Sixth Symphony,[168] 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, Rimsky-Korsakov and Balakirev were also buried nearby.[169]

While Tchaikovsky's death has traditionally been attributed to cholera, most probably contracted through drinking contaminated water several days earlier,[170] some have theorized that his death was a suicide.[171] Opinion has been summarized as follows: "The polemics over [Tchaikovsky's] death have reached an impasse ... Rumor 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 ....."[172]


See also: List of compositions by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Music of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and Symphonies by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky


Creative range


Compositional style



While the kind of melody Brown mentions is the composer's most typical, Tchaikovsky's complete range of melodic styles is 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.[174] British musicologist John Warrack wrote, "the obsessive thirds of Russian folk-song permeate Tchaikovsky's tunes; and he must also at some time been haunted by the interval of the falling fourth, so strongly does it [color] the invention in the early symphonies, always prominently placed in the melodies and acting as emotional [coloration] rather than implying a harmonic progression."[178] Brown observed another practice derived from Russian folk song, which was "to think in terms of foreground projection of a background outline."[179] One example is Tchaikovsky's use of the center of an oboe melody in the slow movement of the First Symphony as the starting point for another theme.[180] Another is when the love theme that dominates the central portion of the symphonic poem Francesca da Rimini turns back on itself, unfolding in "a new pattern against an old shape."[181]





These principles were part of Tchaikovsky's studies at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. How he put them into practice without sacrificing his individuality, Brown states, was a potentially great challenge.[188] A factor that may have helped was "a flair for harmony" that "astonished" Rudolph Kündinger, Tchaikovsky's music tutor during his time at the School of Jurisprudence.[189] That flair, added to his Conservatory studies, may have aided Tchaikovsky in employing 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.[174]

Tchaikovsky often follows European practice of harmonic progression, according to Brown, such as using the circle of fifths to undergird the love theme of Romeo and Juliet.[174] Occasionally, though, he falls back on Russian practice, in Romeo oscillating at times "between passages of almost static harmony and others where the fundamental bass movement is solidly, sometimes swiftly, in fifths."[188] In the development section of Romeo, he lets the harmony rock between two chords with only one held note in common. This was a practice taken from Glinka's opera Ruslan and Lyudmila, Brown says, and became "a minor fingerprint of Russian harmony."[190] Other Russian features include the liberal use of pedal points and the employment of chromaticism for decorative counterpoint and as an abrasive counterfoil to a melody.[174]


Rhythmically, Tchaikovsky sometimes experiments with unusual meters. More often, he uses a firm, regular meter, a practice that serves him well in dance music. At times, his rhythms become pronounced enough to become the main expressive agent of the music. They also become a means, found typically in Russian folk music, of simulating movement or progression in large-scale symphonic movementsa "synthetic propulsion," as Brown phrases it, which substitutes 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.[191] (For more on this, please see Repetition below.)



According to Brown and musicologists Hans Keller and Daniel Zhitomirsky, Tchaikovsky found his solution to large-scale structure, while composing the Fourth Symphony, by sidestepping thematic interaction and keep sonata form only as an "outline," as Zhitomirsky phrases it, containing two contrasting themes.[193] Within this outline, the focus now centered on periodic alternation and juxtaposition. Instead of offering what Brown calls "a rich and well-ordered argument," Tchaikovsky integrates what Keller calls "new and violent contrasts" between musical themes, keys and harmonies by placing blocks of dissimilar tonal and thematic material alongside one another.[194] The block containing the main theme, Zhitomirsky writes, alternates with the one containing the second theme, with the former "steadily enlivened in reiteration with the result that the very contrast of the two blocks is consistently sharpened."[193] These themes, he explains, are demarcated by their distinct contrast in musical material and "by the fact that each theme usually constitutes an independent and structurally complete episode."[195]


This process, according to Brown and Keller, builds momentum[198] and adds intense drama.[199] 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,[200] 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.[198]


Repetition is commonly cited as an integral part of Russian musicmany of its folk songs are essentially a series of variations on one basic shape or pattern of a few notes, "using similar intervals and phrases with an almost ritual insistence," according to Warrack.[201] It is also a natural part of Tchaikovsky's music. His use of sequences within melodies (repeating a tune at a higher or lower pitch in the same voice)[202] could go on for extreme length.[174] 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. Beneath that surface, nothing really moves or goes anywhere; the effect of that rhythm is decorative, not organic, because no true progress has taken place.[203] Sonata form, on the other hand, operates by progression. Two contrasting themes interact like people in a conversation or an argument. They discuss an issue, agree, disagree, but the conversation goes somewhere; it grows and builds toward some conclusion. If a conversation, and by extension a musical work in sonata form, becomes static, everything stalls.[204]

Tchaikovsky kept the musical conversation flowing while essentially repeating himself by integrating melody, tonality, rhythm and sound color as an indivisible whole, rather than as separate elements, and manipulating different parts of it as needed.[205] 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.[206] 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.[207] (For more on this practice, see the next section.)

Variation (changing backgrounds)

Tchaikovsky seldom used the European form of theme and variations in his compositions. (The second movement of his Piano Trio and the finale of his Third Orchestral Suite are two exceptions.) However, Brown states that the principle of variation was very much a part of Russian musical thought and creativity.[208] Folk songs were extended by a continual series of variations which played behind the melody as it was repeated. This practice is called "changing backgrounds" by Brown, Francis Maes and other musicologists.[209] On a slightly larger scale but in what Brown calls a "brilliantly sophisticated form," Glinka uses this principle in his orchestral scherzo Kamarinskaya to establish how the two seemingly dissimilar folk melodies he used were actually related.[210] This process did not catalyze the music into saying something new; it did not combine or develop these themes toward a final point of argument as in European compositions. What it did do was consolidate the experience of hearing the music and keep listener interest from flagging.[211]

Tchaikovsky was highly familiar with Kamarinskaya. He wrote to von Meck in 1880, "What a stunningly original piece is Kamarinskaya, from which all Russian composers up to the present day (and I, of course, among them) draw, in the most obvious fashion, contrapuntal and harmonic combinations as soon as they have to develop a Russian dance tune."[212] To him, Russian orchestral music began with that piece, "just as the whole oak is in the acorn."[213] Tchaikovsky uses "changing backgrounds" in a number of his pieces, varying accompaniments in rhythm, harmonization, counterpoint and timbre as he repeats the melody. In the First Piano Concerto, Brown explains, this occurs in the development section of the opening movement, immediately before and after the reentry of the soloist, when Tchaikovsky subtly changes the backgrounds for both principal themes but not the themes themselves.[214] On a larger scale, Tchaikovsky uses Kamarinskaya's structural conceits to build the finale of his Second Symphony.[215]


Like other late Romantic composers, Tchaikovsky relied heavily on orchestration for musical effects.[216] Tchaikovsky, however, became noted for the "sensual opulence" and "voluptuous timbrel virtuosity" of his scoring.[217] Like Glinka, Tchaikovsky tended toward bright primary colors and sharply delineated contrasts of texture.[218] However, beginning with the Third Symphony, Tchaikovsky experimented with an increased range of timbres[219] He continued further along this path with the Fourth Symphony and the orchestral suites, especially the Second. By the time he scored the scherzo of the Manfred symphony, Tchaikovsky was able to conjure what Brown calls "a kaleidoscopic web of delicate sound of remarkable virtuosity." Tchaikovsky tends to balance timbral extremes, matching high, delicate tones with darker, sometimes gloomier ones. The most familiar example of his extreme range of sound is in The Nutcracker.[174]


Intense interaction

Maes writes that self-expression "was not as central to [Tchaikovsky's] aesthetic as is generally believed."[222] Nevertheless, partly due to the composer's nature and partly due to the melodic and structural intricacies of his compositional style, expressive intensity came as a direct product of his music making.[223] This intensity was entirely new to Russian music and prompted some Russians to place his name alongside that of Dostoyevsky.[224] Soviet musicologist Aleksandr Ossovsky writes of the two men, "With a hidden passion they both stop at moments of horror, total spiritual collapse, and finding acute sweetness in the cold trepidation of the heart before the abyss, they both force the reader to experience those feelings, too."[225]



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."[228] 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 listeners 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 ones own 'truly lived and felt experience' or ones search for intensity in a deeply personal sense."[229]

Pastiche (Passé-ism)

In works like the Serenade for Strings and the Variations on a Rococo Theme, Tchaikovsky shows himself highly gifted at writing in a style of 18th century European pastiche. As Soviet musicologist Daniel Zhitomirsky points out, the composer "was fond of delving into old music and had a great feeling and gift for conveying the spirit of distant historical periods."[230] In the ballet The Sleeping Beauty and the opera The Queen of Spades, Tchaikovsky graduates 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.[231] By infusing The Queen of Spades with Rococo elements (Tchaikovsky himself describes the ballroom scenes as a "slavish imitation" of 18th century style), he uses the story's layers of ghostly fantasy to conjure up a dream world of the pastthe Saint Petersburg of Catherine the Great, where the Russian capital was fully integrated with and played a major role in the culture of Europe.[232]


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.[234] As mentioned earlier, 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.[235] Leon Botstein claims the music of Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner also left their imprints on Tchaikovsky's orchestral style.[236][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.[237] His teacher Anton Rubinstein's opera The Demon became a model for the final tableau of Eugene Onegin.[238] So did Léo Delibes' ballets Coppélia and Sylvia for The Sleeping Beauty[a 14] and Georges Bizet's opera Carmen (a work he admired tremendously) for The Queen of Spades.[239] Otherwise, it was to composers of the past that Tchaikovsky turnedBeethoven, whose music he respected;[240] Mozart, whose music he loved;[240] Glinka, whose opera A Life for the Tsar made an indelible impression on him as a child and whose scoring he studied assiduously;[241] 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.[242] Beethoven's string quartets may have influenced Tchaikovsky's attempts in that medium.[243] Other composers whose work interested Tchaikovsky included Hector Berlioz, Felix Mendelssohn, Giacomo Meyerbeer and Henry Litolff.[244]

Aesthetic impact


Tchaikovsky saw no conflict in making his music accessible to his listeners or playing to their tastes.[247] He remained highly sensitive to their concerns and expectations and searched constantly for new ways to meet them.[248] His use of stylized 18th-century melodies and patriotic themes was geared toward the values of Russian aristocracy.[248] 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.[249][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.[250]


Dedicatees and collaborators

Tchaikovsky received a mixed reception from the people for whom he wrote. 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.[251] Wilhelm Fitzenhagen "intervened considerably in shaping what he considered 'his' piece," the Variations on a Rococo Theme, according to music critic Michael Steinberg. Fitzenhangen dropped one variation, reshuffled the order of the others (which necessitated further cuts and splices) and added notes to the solo part in the autograph copy of the score, all to increase the showiness of the piece.[252] Tchaikovsky did nothing, though he was angered by Fitzenhagen's license, and the Rococo Variations were published with the cellist's amendments.[253] The composer's original has since been published but most cellists still perform Fitzenhagen's version.[254]



Tchaikovsky's reception with critics has been mixed but has improved over time. Inside Russia, even after Dostoyevsky's Pushkin Memorial speech in 1880, some considered Tchaikovsky suspect for two reasonsthat his music was not Russian enough and that Western European critics appreciated it because it was more like theirs than that of the nationalists.[256] At least in the latter, according to Botstein, there may have been a grain of truth as critics, especially in the Germanic countries, lauded him for the "indeterminacy of his artistic character" and for "being truly at home in the non-Russian."[257] Tchaikovsky was "painfully aware" of this skepticism at home, Botstein writes, but also realized that critics abroad recognized "the apparent synthesis of a genuine national element with the presumed compositional norms of Western music" and saw his compositions as offering music more substantive than the base exoticism of works by his nationalist countrymen.[258] 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"[259] and William Forster Abtrop wrote of the Fifth Symphony, "The furious peroration sounds like nothing so much as a hoard of demons struggling in a torrent of brandy, the music growing drunker and drunker. Pandemonium, delerium tremens, raving, and above all, noise worse confounded![260]

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 audiencesits strong emotions, directness and eloquence and colorful orchestrationadded up to compositional shallowness.[261] While Russian critics and musicologists such as Asafyev considered it musical snobbery,[262] comments such as British musicologist Edward Lockspeiser's on "the garish exteriorisation of a composer who can never refrain from wearing his heart on his sleeve" remained typical in the West for this time.[263] The music's use in popular and film music, Brown says, lowered its esteem in their eyes still further.[174] 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 listeners 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 appreciationthe cultured reception of art as an act of formalist discernmentand the polite engagement of art as an act of amusement."[229]

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.[205] Even with what Schonberg termed "a professional reevaluaton" of Tchaikovsky's work,[173] 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 musicentertaining and widely beloved though it isthat 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."[264]

In the 21st century, however, critics are reacting more positively to Tchaikovsky's tunefulness and craftsmanship.[173] "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.[265] Important in this reevaluation is a shift in attitude away from the disdain for overt emotionalism that marked half of the 20th century.[266] "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."[265]


See also: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in popular media

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."[265] 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."[267] Tchaikovsky's melodies, stated with eloquence and matched by his inventive use of harmony and orchestration, have always ensured audience appeal.[268] His popularity is considered secure, with his following in many countries, including Great Britain and the United States, second only to that of Beethoven.[172] His music has also been used frequently in the realms of popular music and film.[269]




Tchaikovsky also encouraged himself to reach beyond Russia with his music, according to Maes and Taruskin.[275] His exposure to Western music, they write, encouraged him to think it belonged not just to Russia but to the world at large.[41] Volkov adds that this mindset made him think seriously about Russia's place in European musical culturethe first Russian composer to do so.[144] It steeled him to became the first Russian composer to personally acquaint foreign audiences with his own works, Warrack writes, as well as those of other Russian composers.[276] 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."[277]

Tchaikovsky's voice




  1. Holden, 4.
  2. Brown, Early, 19; Poznansky, Eyes, 1.
  3. Poznansky, Eyes, 1; Holden, 5.
  4. 4.0 4.1 4.2 Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 6.
  5. Holden, 6, 13; Warrack, Tchaikovsky, 18.
  6. Poznansky, Eyes, 2.
  7. Holden, 31.
  8. Holden, 202.
  9. 9.0 9.1 Holden, 43.
  10. Brown, Early, 22; Holden, 7.
  11. Holden, 7.
  12. Brown, Early, 27; Holden, 68
  13. Poznansky, Quest, 5.
  14. Brown, Early, 2526; Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 7.
  15. Maes, 33.
  16. Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 8.
  17. Brown, Early, 31; Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 8.
  18. Holden, 14; Warrack, Tchaikovsky, 26.
  19. Holden, 20.
  20. Holden, 15; Poznansky, Quest, 1112.
  21. Brown, Early, 47; Holden, 23.; Warrack, 29.
  22. 22.0 22.1 As quoted in Holden, 23.
  23. Brown, Early Years, 46.
  24. Holden, 23.
  25. Holden, 2324, 26; Poznansky, Quest, 3237; Warrack, Tchaikovsky, 30.
  26. Holden, 24; Poznansky, Quest, 26
  27. As quoted in Holden, 25.
  28. Brown, Early, 43.
  29. Holden, 2425; Warrack, Tchaikovsky, 31.
  30. Poznansky, Eyes, 17.
  31. Holden, 25; Warrack, Tchaikovsky, 31.
  32. Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 23.
  33. Brown, Man and Music, 14.
  34. Brown, Early, 60
  35. Maes, 35.
  36. Maes, 31.
  37. Volkov, 71.
  38. Maes, 35; Warrack, Tchaikovsky, 36.
  39. Holden, 3839.
  40. Brown, Man and Music, 20; Warrack, Tchaikovsky, 3638.
  41. 41.0 41.1 Taruskin, Grove Opera, 4:6634.
  42. Figes, xxxii; Volkov, 11112.
  43. Hosking, 347.
  44. Poznansky, Eyes, 478.
  45. Rubinstein, 110.
  46. Brown, Early, 76; Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 35.
  47. Brown, Early, 100101.
  48. Brown, New Grove, 18:608.
  49. Brown, Early, 823.
  50. Holden, 83; Warrack, Tchaikovsky, 61.
  51. Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 87.
  52. Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 79.
  53. As quoted in Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 95.
  54. Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 77.
  55. Figes, 17881.
  56. Maes, 89; Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 27.
  57. Garden, New Grove (2001), 8:913.
  58. Bergamini, 31819; Hosking, 2749.
  59. Maes, 36; Wiley, 30.
  60. Maes, 39.
  61. Ridenour, Nartionalism, Modernism and Personal Rivalry, 81. As quoted in Maes, 39.
  62. Maes, 42.
  63. Holden, 52.
  64. Brown, Early Years, 84, 956.
  65. Holden, 64.
  66. 66.0 66.1 Holden, 62.
  67. Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 49.
  68. Maes, 44.
  69. Brown, Early, 128; Holden, 63.
  70. Brown, Man and Music, 49.
  71. Brown, Early, 255.
  72. Brown, Early, 265; Poznansky, Quest, 156.
  73. Brown, Early, 259.
  74. Maes, 49.
  75. Holden, 5152.
  76. 76.0 76.1 76.2 76.3 Wiley, New Grove (2001), 25:147.
  77. Steinberg, Concerto, 4746.
  78. Wiley, New Grove (2001), 25:161.
  79. Wiley, New Grove (2001), 25:1534.
  80. 80.0 80.1 Taruskin, 665.
  81. Holden, 756; Warrack, Tchaikovsky, 589.
  82. Brown, Viking, 1086.
  83. Maes, 171.
  84. Wiley, Tchaikovsky, xvi.
  85. Maes, 1334; Wiley, Tchaikovsky, xvii.
  86. 86.0 86.1 Brown, Crisis, 13747; Polayansky, Quest, 2078, 21920; Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 14750.
  87. 87.0 87.1 Brown, Crisis, 1468; Poznansky, Quest, 234; Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 152.
  88. 88.0 88.1 Brown, Crisis, 157; Poznansky, Quest, 234; Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 155.
  89. Wiley, New Grove (2001), 25:147.
  90. 90.0 90.1 Holden, 159, 2312.
  91. 91.0 91.1 Brown, Man and Music, 1712.
  92. Poznansky, Quest, all.
  93. Poznansky, Eyes, 8, 24, 77, 82, 1035, 1658. Also see P.I. Chaikovskii. Al'manakh, vypusk 1, (Moscow, 1995).
  94. Brown, Early, 50.
  95. Poznansky, as quoted in Holden, 394.
  97. Brown, Early, 50; Hanson, 123; Karlinsky, 350.
  98. Volkov, Tsars, 1845.
  99. Maes, 134; Poznansky, Eyes, 77.
  100. 100.0 100.1 Poznansky, Eyes, 78.
  101. Poznansky, Quest, 362.
  102. Poznansky, Quest, 466.
  103. Hanson and Hanson, 1656; Poznansky, Eyes, 1858, Quest, 362, 4212, 46970; Warrack, Tchaikovsky, 88.
  104. Poznansky, Eyes, 165.
  105. Poznansky, Quest, 176.
  107. {{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}
  108. Brown, Early, 156; Poznansky, Eyes, 88.
  109. Holden, 66.
  110. As quoted in Holden, 667 and Poznansky, Quest, 110.
  111. Brown, Early Years, 1567; Warrack, Tchaikovsky, 53.
  112. Brown, Early, 158.
  113. Brown, Early, 158; Poznansky, Eyes, 78.
  114. Brown, Early, 197200.
  115. {{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}
  116. Holden, 67; Warrack, Tchaikovsky, 54.
  117. Poznansky, Eyes, 103, 105; Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 1023.
  118. Brown, Crisis, 138; Poznansky, Eyes, 767, Quest, 95, 126, 204.
  119. Holden, 113; Poznansky, Quest, 186; Warrack, Tchaikovsky, 88.
  120. Poznansky, Quest, 184; Warrack, Tchaikovsky, 889.
  121. Poznansky, Quest, 204.
  122. Poznansky, Quest, 185.
  123. Poznansky,Quest, 204; Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 151.
  124. As quoted in Brown, Crisis, 254.
  125. Poznansky, Quest, 216218, 220; Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 149.
  126. Holden, 126; Poznansky, Quest, 222; Warrack, Tchaikovsky, 112.
  127. Holden, 126; Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 152.
  128. As quoted in Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 152.
  129. Poznansky, Quest, 234.
  130. Holden, 126, 145, 148, 150.
  131. Brown, Man and Music, 230, 232; Holden, 209.
  132. Warrack, Tchaikovsky, 120.
  133. Letter to Anatoly Tchaikovsky, 25 February 1878. As quoted in Holden, 172
  134. Poznansky, Quest, 235, 2456.
  135. Figes, 195197; Maes, 173174, 196197.
  136. Brown, Crisis Years, 129130.
  137. Brown, Man and Music, 134; Warrack, Tchaikovsky, 108, 1303.
  138. Brown, Final, 2879; Holden, 293; Poznansky, Quest, 521, 526; Warrack, Tchaikovsky, 242.
  139. Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 159, 170, 193.
  140. Brown, Crisis, 297.
  141. Brown, Man and Music, 219.
  142. 142.0 142.1 Brown, New Grove, 18:619.
  143. Holden, 155
  144. 144.0 144.1 144.2 Volkov, 126.
  145. Volkov, 1223.
  146. 146.0 146.1 As quoted in Brown, Wandering, 119.
  147. Brown, Man and Music, 224.
  148. Warrack, Tchaikovsky, 172
  149. As quoted in Brown, Wandering, 151.
  150. Brown, Wandering, 151.
  151. Brown, Wandering, 152.
  152. 152.0 152.1 Brown, New Grove, 18:621; Holden, 233.
  153. 153.0 153.1 153.2 Wiley, New Grove (2001), 25:162.
  154. 154.0 154.1 Brown, Man and Music, 275.
  155. Maes, 140; Taruskin, Grove Opera, 4:664.
  156. Brown, Crisis, 133.
  157. Holden, 261; Warrack, Tchaikovsky, 197.
  158. Holden, 266; Warrack, Tchaikovsky, 232.
  159. Brown, Final, 319320
  160. Holden, 2723.
  161. Brown, Final Years, 901
  162. Maes, 173
  163. Brown, Final, 92.
  164. Poznansky, Quest, 564.
  165. Rimsky-Korsakov, 308.
  166. Poznansky, Quest, 548549.
  167. Warrack, Tchaikovsky, 264.
  168. [1]
  169. Brown, Final, 487.
  170. Brown, Man and Music, 4302; Holden, 371; Warrack, Tchaikovsky, 26970.
  171. Brown, Man and Music, 4315; Holden, 373400.
  172. 172.0 172.1 Wiley, New Grove (2001), 25:169.
  173. 173.0 173.1 173.2 Schonberg, 367.
  174. 174.0 174.1 174.2 174.3 174.4 174.5 174.6 174.7 Brown, New Grove (1980), 18:628.
  175. Brown, New Grove, 18:606.
  176. Schonberg, 366.
  177. Brown, Final, 427.
  178. Warrack, Symphonies, 9.
  179. Brown, Final, 4301.
  180. Brown, Final, 431.
  181. Brown, Final, 431. Also see Brown, Crisis, 11416 and Ex. 124.
  182. 182.0 182.1 Brown, Final, 424.
  183. Cooper, 26.
  184. Warrack, Symphonies, 89.
  185. Cooper, 24.
  186. Brown, Final, 422, 4324.
  187. Roberts, New Grove (1980), 12:454.
  188. 188.0 188.1 Brown, Final, 434.
  189. As quoted in Polyansky, Eyes, 18.
  190. Brown, New Grove (1980), 7:442.
  191. Brown, New Grove (1980), 18:628; Final, 424.
  192. Warrack, Tchaikovsky, 133.
  193. 193.0 193.1 Zhitomirsky, 102.
  194. Brown, Final, 426; Keller, 347.
  195. Zhitomirsky, 98.
  196. Keller, 3478.
  197. Keller, 348
  198. 198.0 198.1 Brown, Final, 426.
  199. Keller, 3467.
  200. Warrack, Symphonies, 11.
  201. Warrack, Symphonies, 9. Also see Brown, Final, 4223.
  202. Benward and Saker, 11112.
  203. Brown, Final, 4234; Warrack, Symphonies, 9.
  204. Brown, Final, 424; Warrack, Symphonies, 9.
  205. 205.0 205.1 Maes, 161.
  206. Brown, New Grove (1980), 18:628. Also see Bostrick, 105.
  207. Cooper, 32.
  208. Brown, Early, 18990.
  209. Brown, Early, 190; Maes, 28.
  210. Brown, Early, 190.
  211. Brown, Final, 4234; Maes, 28.
  212. As quoted in Brown, Early, 267.
  213. As quoted in Brown, Early, 265, 267.
  214. Brown, Crisis, 26.
  215. Brown, Early, 267.
  216. Holoman, New Grove (2001), 12:413.
  217. Maes, 73; Taruskin, Grove Opera, 4:669.
  219. Maes, 78.
  220. As quoted in Taruskin, Stravinsky, 206.
  221. Taruskin, Stravinsky, 206
  222. Maes, 139.
  223. Brown, New Grove (1980), 18:628; Keller, 3467; Maes, 161.
  224. Volkov, 115
  225. As quoted in Volkov, 116.
  226. Asafyev, 1011
  227. Asafyev, 14.
  228. As quoted in Botstein, 101.
  229. 229.0 229.1 Botstein, 101.
  230. Zhitomersky, 126.
  231. Volkov, 124.
  232. Figes, 274.
  233. Brown, New Grove (1980), 18:613, 615.
  235. Asafyev, 1314.
  236. Bostein, 103.
  237. Fuller, New Grove (2001), 24:6812; Maes, 155.
  238. Taruskin, Grove Opera, 4:664.
  239. Brown, Final, 1899; Maes, 131, 138, 152.
  240. 240.0 240.1 Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 2934.
  241. Brown, Early, 34, 97.
  242. Brown, Early, 39, 52, Final, 187.
  243. Wiley, New Grove (2001), 25:149.
  244. Brown, Early, 72.
  245. Maes, 138.
  246. Figes, 274; Maes, 13941.
  247. Maes, 137; Taruskin, Grove Opera, 4:663.
  248. 248.0 248.1 Maes, 137.
  249. Maes, 146, 152.
  250. Figes, 274; Maes, 789, 137.
  251. Steinberg
  252. Brown, 120; Steinberg, 489.
  253. Brown, Crisis, 122.
  254. Campbell, 77.
  255. Maes, 1458.
  256. Botstein, 99.
  257. As quoted in Botstein, 100.
  258. Botstein, 99100
  259. Hanslick, Eduard, Music Criticisms 1850-1900, ed. and trans. Henry Pleasants (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1963). As quoted in Steinberg, Concerto, 487.
  260. Boston Evening Transcript, October 23, 1892. As quoted in Steinberg, Symphony, 631
  262. Assafyev, 7.
  263. Lockspeiser, 20.
  264. {{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}
  265. 265.0 265.1 265.2 {{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}
  266. Wiley, New Grove (2001), 25:169.
  267. Botstein, 100.
  268. Brown, New Grove, 18:6067, 628.
  269. Steinberg, The Symphony, 611.
  270. Wiley, New Grove (2001), 25:144.
  271. Holden, xxi; Wiley, New Grove (2001), 25:144.
  272. Maes, 73; Taruskin, Grove Opera, 4:663.
  273. Maes, 73.
  274. As quoted in Maes, 166.
  275. Maes, 73; Taruskin, Grove Opera, 664.
  276. Warrack, 209.
  277. Holden, xxi.
  278. Tchaikovsky Research website
  279. As quoted in Poznansky, Eyes, 216.



  • Benward, Bruce and Marilyn Saker, Music: In Theory and Practice, Vol. 1 (New York: Mc Graw-Hill, 2003), Seventh Edition. ISBN 978-0-07-294262-0.
  • Brown, David, Tchaikovsky: The Years of Wandering, 1878-1885, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1986). ISBN 0-393-02311-7.
  • Brown, David, Tchaikovsky: The Final Years, 1885-1893, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1991). ISBN 0-393-03099-7.
  • Holomon, D. Kern, "Instrumentation and orchestration, 4: 19th century." In The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Second Edition (London: Macmillian, 2001), 29 vols., ed. Sadie, Stanley. ISBN 1-56159-239-0.
  • Rubinstein, Anton, tr. Aline Delano, Autobiography of Anton Rubinstein: 1829-1889 (New York: Little, Brown & Co., 1890). Library of Congress Control Number 06004844.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Public domain sheet music

Cite error: <ref> tags exist for a group named "a", but no corresponding <references group="a"/> tag was found
This page was last modified 13.05.2014 00:45:51

This article uses material from the article Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky from the free encyclopedia Wikipedia and it is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.