Peter Ilych

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Peter Ilych
Tchaikovsky

• Born 1840 in Russia

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Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky
Acknowledged as the greatest composer in Russia
and one of the great composers in the world,
Tchaikovsky was truly a composer for the people.
His music reflected not only his own powerful
emotions and his Russian patriotism, but also his
feelings that were (and are) common to all of
humanity.
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Tchaikovsky
In this story, we get a glimpse of his patriotism
and his over-sensitive heart.
As a boy growing up in Russia, he was seen by his
nanny kissing the map of Russia, while spitting
on the other countries in Europe. When she
reminded him that she was French, he replied in a
sweet voice, I covered France with my hand.
Here is the house where Tchaikovsky lived as a
child in the city of Votkinsk.
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A Picture of the Tchaikovsky Family in 1848. The
composer is the boy standing on the far left.
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Tchaikovsky
Tchaikovskys life was full of contrasts. He
seemed to alternate between being a shy, modest
person and a do-it-now and ask-questions-later
kind of attitude.
He often had trouble dealing with this
double-sidedness, and as a result was very
self-conscious. He tore up many compositions he
even wrote on one of them Dreadful Muck.
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Tchaikovsky
Peter as a child
Peter Ilych was always a sensitive little boy.
The slightest word of disapproval from his nanny
would send him scurrying off to the corner for a
long sulk. She called him a porcelain child,
because she thought he was so emotionally
fragile. As he grew older, Tchaikovsky developed
this into an art. He became a master pouter. His
music can be pretty weepy, too.
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Why do you think Tchaikovsky developed such low
self-esteem?
Listen to this portion of his Symphony 6. His
brother nicknamed the symphony Pathetique.
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Tchaikovsky

• Tchaikovsky studied law and for a while was
  employed as a legal clerk for the government.
  There, he perfected the art of looking busy while
  doing very little. He didnt begin to study music
  seriously until he was 21.
• He was a late bloomer, but he made up for it. He
  once confessed that before he began studying at
  the St. Petersburg Conservatory, he didnt even
  know how many symphonies Beethoven had composed.

But you do, right?
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Romeo and Juliet
More info
Listen to two selections from Tchaikovskys Romeo
and Juliet fantasy. Common in the Romantic Period
was Program Music. Write the definition in the
space provided.

• What do you think is happening in the first
  selection?

(Click to start each)

• What does the second represent?

1. Fighting

2. Love
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Tchaikovsky
Peter accepted criticism with a positive attitude
toward his improvement. Once he took a
composition he had worked very hard on to his
teacher Anton Rubenstein.
Tchaikovsky wrote of Rubensteins reaction, He
said, it was not for the development of
imbeciles that he took the trouble to teach
composition. I left the Conservatory full of
gratitude for my professor."
Anton Rubenstein
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Although he gained fame as a composer, he never
had what it takes to be a good conductor, even of
his own music.
He was always very nervous and had a morbid fear
that his head might fall off in the middle of the
piece. So he propped it up with his left hand
and conducted only with his right. True Story!
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We dont know how he turned the pages.
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• Tchaikovskys love life was, to put it bluntly,
  depressing.

As a young man he was deeply in love with an
operatic soprano named Desiree Artot. They got
engaged, but then she married someone else
without any warning or communication whatsoever.
Desiree Artot
Later, one of his students, Antonina Miliukova,
declared her love for Peter, and he agreed to
marry her out of pity.
He shouldnt have bothered. The marriage was a
disaster from start to finish and lasted all of
nine weeks.
Peter and Antonina
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Tchaikovsky
In a fit of depression, Tchaikovsky attempted
suicide by jumping into the River Neva, hoping to
catch pneumonia.
Wouldnt you know it, all he got was a terrible
cold.
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A wealthyadmirer
That same year, 1877, was a good year in another
respect though.

• Tchaikovsky got a fan letter from a woman named
  Nadezhda von Meck, a 46 year-old widow with 11
  children and more money than she knew what to do
  with. She thought it would be fun to have a
  composer that she could call her own.

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Tchaikovsky
She agreed to send Tchaikovsky a regular
allowance so that he could be free to spend his
time composing.
Her only rather eccentric stipulation was that
they should never meet.
They wrote letters back and forth all the time
for 14 years, but never once met each other.
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Assured of income from von Meck, Tchaikovsky
wandered around Europe composing. Since his
music appealed to other Europeans, he was often
considered a traitor by other Russian composers
and many Russian listeners. He lived mainly
alone, avoiding social contact whenever possible.
However, once Tsar Alexander III of Russia
conferred nobility and a lifelong pension to
Tchaikovsky, all of that changed.
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Tchaikovsky became a Russian hero for his
attempts at universal unity with the West. He
was able to move into this mansion, not far from
Moscow.
His success earned him an honorary Doctor of
Music degree in England.
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His success also carried him all the way to the
United States, where he conducted his Slavonic
March at New Yorks Carnegie Hall on its OPENING
NIGHT on May 5, 1891. Here is a crude sketch of
Carnegie Hall on opening night, illustrating how
simply packed it was.
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Tchaikovsky died in 1893, a famous and successful
man. He was said to have contracted Cholera from
an unclean water glass. Authorities claim that
Tchaikovsky took poison rather than be implicated
in a political scandal.
Tchaikovsky
Died 1893 in St. Petersburg, Russia
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On to the Listening Examples.
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The Nutcracker
Tchaikovsky
Although today the Nutcracker Ballet is one of
Tchaikovskys most popular compositions, in his
lifetime it was a complete failure!
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You may know this piece from seeing it at
Christmas time, or from the movie Fantasia.
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Now we will listen to the Chinese Dance from the
Nutcracker. Please complete the top area on your
listening sheet.
Click to start the music
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1812 Overture
Tchaikovskys 1812 Overture is one of his most
famous pieces. We often hear it performed in the
United States for Independence Day, which leads
some people to believe that it was written for
the American War of 1812, but it wasnt. It
celebrated Russias defeat of Napoleon in 1812.
This war happened 28 years before Tchaikovsky was
born.
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We will now complete the lower portion of the
listening sheet. In this example from the 1812
Overture, you will hear a lot of bells
Tchaikovsky used these to represent the Church
Bells all over St. Petersburg after the Russians
had won a great battle against Napoleon and his
troops.
Then youll hear cannon fire, representing the
fireworks and the victory celebration of the
troops coming home.
(click to start music)
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Tchaikovsky
The End
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Romeo and Juliet William Shakespeare
Return to presentation
Romeo and Juliet is a story about two young
people who fall in love. Unfortunately, they
belong to opposing families that hate each other,
the Montagues and the Capulets. The families are
always fighting and disturbing the peace of
Verona. Romeo and Juliet secretly get
married and decide to run away together. In
order for this plan to succeed, Juliet fakes her
own death. She explains this all in a letter to
Romeo, which he never receives. Upon seeing her
dead, Romeo takes poison. When Juliet sees
Romeo dead, she stabs herself.