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TSCHAIKOVSKY, PETER ILICH (1840-1893)

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Originally appearing in Volume V27, Page 349 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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TSCHAIKOVSKY, See also:PETER ILICH (1840-1893) , See also:Russian composer, See also:born at See also:Votkinsk, in the See also:province of See also:Vyatka, on the 7th of May 184o, was the son of a See also:mining engineer, who shortly after the boy's See also:birth removed to St See also:Petersburg to assume the duties of director of the Technological Institue there. While studying in the school of See also:jurisprudence, and later, while holding See also:office in the See also:ministry of See also:justice, Tschaikovsky picked up a smattering of musical knowledge sufficient to qualify him as an See also:adept See also:amateur performer. But the seriousness of his musical aspiration led him to enter the newly founded Conservatorium of St Petersburg under Zaremba, and he was induced by Anton See also:Rubinstein, its See also:principal, to take up See also:music as a profession. He therefore resigned his See also:post in the ministry of justice. On quitting the Conservatorium he was awarded a See also:silver See also:medal for his thesis, a See also:cantata on See also:Schiller's " See also:Ode to Joy." In 1866 Tschaikovsky became practically the first See also:chief of the recently founded See also:Moscow Conservatorium, since Serov, whom he succeeded, never took up his See also:appointment. In Moscow Tschaikovsky met See also:Ostrovskiy, who wrote for him his first operatic libretto, The Vojevoda. After the Russian Musical Society had rejected a See also:concert See also:overture written at Rubinstein's See also:suggestion, Tschaikovsky in 1866 was much occupied on his See also:Winter See also:Day Dreams, a symphonic poem, which proved a failure in St Petersburg but a success at Moscow. In 1867 he made an unsuccessful debut as conductor. Failure still dogged his steps, for in See also:January 1869 his Vojevoda disappeared off the boards after ten performances, and subsequently Tschaikovsky destroyed the See also:score. The Romeo and Juliet overture has been much altered since its See also:production by the Russian Musical Society in 1870, in which See also:year the composer once more attempted unsuccessfully an operatic production, St Petersburg rejecting his Undine. In 187r Tschaikovsky was busy on his cantata for the opening of the See also:exhibition in celebration of the bicentenary of Peter the See also:Great, his See also:opera The Oprischnik, and a textbook of See also:harmony, which latter was adopted by the Moscow Conservatorium authorities. At Moscow in 1873 his incidental music to the See also:Snow See also:Queen failed, but some success came next year with the beautiful quartet in F.

During these years Tschaikovsky was musical critic for two See also:

journals, the Sovremennaya Lietopis and the Russky Vestnik. On the See also:death of Serov he competed for the best setting of Polovsky's Wakula the See also:Smith, and won the first two prizes. Yet on its production at St Petersburg in See also:November 1876 this See also:work gained only a succes d'estime. Since then it has been much revised, and is now known as The Little Shoes. Meanwhile the Second See also:Symphony and the See also:Tempest See also:fantasia had been heard, and the See also:pianoforte See also:concerto in B See also:flat See also:minor completed. This was first played by von Billow in See also:Boston, See also:Massachusetts, some See also:time later, and was entirely revised and republished in 1889. At last something like success came to Tschaikovsky with the production of The Oprischnik, in which he had incorporated much of the best of The Vojevoda. The Third—or See also:Polish—Symphony, four sets of songs, the E-flat quartet (dedicated to the memory of See also:Lamb), the See also:ballet " The See also:Swan See also:Lake," and the " Francesca da See also:Rimini " fantasia, all belong to the See also:period of the See also:late 'seventies—the last being made up of operatic fragments. Tschaikovsky in 1877 first began to work on the opera of Eugen Onegin. With the production of this work at the Moscow Conservatorium in See also:March 1879 real success first came to him. The See also:story, by See also:Pushkin, was a See also:familiar one, and the music of Tschaikovsky was not so extravagant in its demands as had been the music of his earlier operas. Meanwhile the more See also:personal See also:side of the composer's career had been given a romantic See also:touch by his acquaintance with his lifelong benefactress, Mme von Meck, and his deplorable fiasco of a See also:marriage.

In 1876 he had aroused the See also:

interest of Nadezhda Filaretovna von Meck (1831-1894), the wife (See also:left a widow in 1876) of a wealthy railway engineer and contractor. She had a large See also:fortune and she began by helping the composer financially in the shape of commissions for work, but in 1877 this took the more substantial shape of an See also:annual See also:allowance of £600. The See also:romance of their association consisted in the fact that they never met, though they corresponded with one another continually. In 1890 Mme von Meck .(who died two months after the composer, of progressive See also:nervous decline), imagining herself—apparently a pure delusion—to be ruined, discontinued the allowance; and though Tschaikovsky was then no longer really in need of it, he failed to appreciate the pathological See also:reason underlying Mme von Meck's See also:condition of mind, and was deeply hurt. The See also:wound remained unhealed, and the See also:correspondence broken, though on his death-See also:bed her name was on his lips. Her connexion with his See also:life was one of its dominating features. His marriage was only a brief and misguided incident. Tschaikovsky married Antonina Ivanovna Milyukova on the 6th of See also:July 1877, but the marriage rapidly See also:developed into a See also:catastrophe, through no See also:fault of hers but simply through his own abnormality of temperament; and it resulted in separation in See also:October. He had become taciturn to moroseness, and -finally quitted Moscow and his See also:friends for St Petersburg. There he See also:fell See also:ill, and an See also:attempt to commit See also:suicide by See also:standing See also:chin-high in the See also:river in a See also:frost (whereby he hoped to catch his death from exposure) was only frustrated by his See also:brother's See also:tender care. With his brother, Tschaikovsky went to Clarens to recuperate. He remained abroad for many months, moving restlessly from one See also:place to another.

In 1878 he accepted (but later resigned) the post of director of the Russian . musical See also:

department at the See also:Paris Exhibition, completed his See also:Fourth Symphony and the See also:Italian See also:Capriccio, and worked hard at his " 181s " overture, more songs, the second pianoforte concerto, and his " See also:Liturgy of St See also:Chrysostom," an interesting contribution to the music of the Eastern See also:Church. The work was confiscated for some time by the See also:intendant of the imperial See also:chapel, on the ground that ithad not received the imprimatur of his predecessor Bortniansky in due accordance with a See also:ukaz of See also:Alexander I. Bortniansky was dead, but his successor was obstinate. Finally the work was saved from destruction by an See also:official See also:order: Tschaikovsky returned only for a See also:short time to Moscow. Thence he went to Paris. In 1879 he wrote his Maid of See also:Orleans (produced in 188o) and his first See also:suite for See also:orchestra. In 1881 died Nickolas Rubinstein—to whose memory Tschaikovsky dedicated the trio in A minor. During the next five years Tschaikovsky travelled, and worked at See also:Manfred and See also:Hamlet, the operas Mazeppa and Charodaika, the Mozartian suite and the See also:fine Fifth Symphony. During a great See also:part of the time he lived in retirement at Klin, where his generosity to the poor made him beloved. His operas The Queen of Spades and the one-See also:act lolanthe were feeble by comparison with his earlier See also:works; more effective, however, were the ballets Sleeping Beauty and Casse-noisette. In 1893 Tschaikovsky sketched his See also:Sixth Symphony, now known as the Pathetic, a work that has done more for his fame in See also:foreign lands than all the See also:rest of his works. This was the year in which the composer conducted a work of his own at See also:Cambridge on the occasion of his receiving the honorary degree of See also:Doctor of Music.

In the same year, on the 6th of November, he died from an attack of See also:

cholera at St Petersburg. Tschaikovsky's work is unequal. In dramatic compositions he lacked point precisely as Anton Rubinstein lacked point. But in the invention of broad, sweeping See also:melody Tschaikovsky was far ahead of his compatriot. Among his songs and smaller pianoforte works, as in his symphonies and quartets, are passages of exquisite beauty. The best of Tschaikovsky's work is more distinctly Russian than that of most of his compatriots; it is not See also:German music in disguise, as is so much of the music by Rubinstein and Glazounow, and it is not incoherently ferocious, like so much of the music by See also:Balakirev. See Mrs See also:Rosa See also:Newmarch's Tchaikovsky (1900) supplemented in 1906 by her condensed See also:English edition of the Life and Letters, which appeared in Russian in 1901 in three volumes, edited by Modeste Tschaikovsky, the composer's brother.

End of Article: TSCHAIKOVSKY, PETER ILICH (1840-1893)

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