2 Ballets

Tchaikovsky is perhaps most well known for his ballets, although it was only in his last years, with his two last ballets, that his contemporaries came to really appreciate his qualities as ballet music composer.

Tchaikovsky's first ballet, Swan Lake, Op. 20, was composed during 1875 and 1876, and first performed (with some omissions) at the Bolshoi in Moscow in 1877.

The work which Tchaikovsky considered to be one of his best was the ballet Sleeping Beauty, Op. 66. It was written some 13 years later in 1888 and 1889, with its first performance in 1890 at the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg.

Tchaikovsky himself was less satisfied with his last ballet, The Nutcracker, Op. 71, which was composed in 1891 and 1892.

3 Operas

Tchaikovsky wrote ten operas, including Eugene Onegin (1877–1888) and The Queen of Spades , Op. 68 (1890).

4 Symphonies

Tchaikovsky's earlier symphonies are generally happy works of nationalistic character, while the later symphonies dwell on fate, turmoil and, particularly in the Sixth, despair.

• No. 1 in G minor, op. 13, Winter Daydreams (1866)
• No. 2 in C minor, op. 17, Little Russian (1872)
• No. 3 in D major, op. 29, Polish (1875)
• No. 4 in F minor, op. 36 (1877–1878)
• Manfred Symphony, B minor, op. 58 (1885)
• No. 5 in E minor, op. 64 (1888)
• No. 6 in B minor, op. 74, Pathétique (1893)

He also wrote four orchestral suites between the 4th and 5th symphonies. He originally intended to call one or more of these 'symphony' but was persuaded to alter the title. The four suites are nonetheless symphonic in character, and often neglected masterpieces of orchestral writing.

5 Concertos

Of his three concertos for piano, it is No.1 in B flat minor, Op. 23 (1874–75) which is best known and most highly regarded. It was initially rejected by its dedicatee, the pianist Nikolay Rubinstein, as poorly composed and unplayable, and subsequently premiered by Hans von Bülow in Boston in 1875.

The so-called "Third Piano Concerto in E flat major" has a curious history. It was commenced after the 5th symphony, and was intended to be his next symphony, ie. his 6th. However he abandoned work on this score and instead directed his efforts towards what we now know as the Sixth Symphony, which is a completely different work. After Tchaikovsky's death, the composer Taneyev re-worked the abandoned symphony, added a piano part, and published it as "Third Piano Concerto by Tchaikovsky". However, a more accurate title would be "An unfinished symphony by Tchaikovsky, realised for piano and orchestra by Taneyev". Interestingly, the unfinished symphony has also been completed—as a symphony—by a Soviet composer. This was published as "Symphony No. 7 in E flat major", and recorded by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy.

His Violin Concerto in D major (op. 35) was composed in less than a month during March and April 1878, but its first performance was delayed until 1881 because Leopold Auer, the violinist to whom Tchaikovsky had intended to dedicate the work, refused to perform it.

6 Other works

Among Tchaikovsky's other works for orchestra are the immensely popular 1812 Overture, Op. 49 (1880), Capriccio Italien, Op. 45 (1880) and Marche Slave, Op. 31 (1876) and the Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture (1881).

Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture:

In 1869 Tchaikovsky was just 28 years old and was an up-and-coming lecturer at the Moscow Conservatory. Having written his first symphony and an opera, he then wrote an orchestral work titled Fate and dedicated it to Balakirev, who conducted the first St. Petersburg performance. Balakirev was one of the “Mighty Five” amateur Russian composers in the mid-1800’s. [The others were Mussorgsky, Borodin, Cui, & Rimsky-Korsakov. The group was not entirely sympathetic to Tchaikovsky’s musical outlook, which was too international for their liking]. Despite the fact that Balakirev had many problems in his own musical life, he had a head full of ideas, and almost a compulsion to persistently give detailed help to all the musicians he met. The Fate piece received only a lukewarm reception, and the older composer wrote a detailed letter to Tchaikovsky explaining the defects. Tchaikovsky accepted the criticism, and the two continued to correspond. Balakirev then pressed Tschaikowsky to write a piece based on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. In suggesting this, Balakirev knew that Tchaikovsky had just emerged from what would be his only real infatuation with a member of the opposite sex, a Belgian soprano named Désirée Artôt. (Tschaikowsky had indeed proposed to her, but she had walked out on him to marry a Spanish baritone). Balakirev wrote suggestions about the structure of Romeo and Juliet, giving details of the type of music required in each section, and even opinions on which keys to use. Tchaikovsky largely followed this advice and forwarded his first draft to Balakirev. Balakirev responded by praising the love theme: "I play it often, and I want very much to hug you for it", but then went on to grind away at him to make changes in the first section. Tchaikovsky accepted some, but not all, of Balakirev’s nagging, and completed the work. He dedicated it to Balakirev. His friend Nikolai Rubinstein was due to conduct it on March 16, 1870. Sadly, the first performance in 1870 was hindered by a sensational court case surrounding Rubenstein and a female student. The court had found against the eminent musician the previous day, and this incited a noisy demonstration in his favour when he appeared on the concert platform, which proved much more interesting to the audience than the new overture. The result was not encouraging as a premiere for Romeo and Juliet. It induced Tchaikovsky to rework the piece, now fully accepting Balakirev's criticisms. The new version was published in 1870 and the perfectionist Balakirev still quibbled that the ending was not powerful enough. In 1880, ten years after his first reworking of the piece, Tchaikovsky rewrote the ending, finally giving the piece a conclusion that Balakirev could endorse. The structure of the work. Although styled a 'Fantasy-Overture', the overall design is a symphonic poem in sonata-form with an introduction and an epilogue. The work is based on three main strands of the Shakespeare story. The first strand, following Balakirev’s suggestion, is the introduction representing the saintly Friar Lawrence. Here there is a flavour of Russian Orthodoxy, but also a foreboding of doom from the lower strings. Eventually a single chord passed back and forth between strings and woodwinds grows into the second strand, the agitated theme of the warring Capulets and Montagues, including a reference to the sword fight. The forceful irregular rhythms of the street music point ahead to Stravinsky and beyond. The action suddenly slows, the key dropping from B-minor to D-flat (as suggested by Balakirev) and we hear the opening bars of the love theme, the third strand, passionate and yearning in character but always with an underlying current of anxiety. The strings enter with a lush, hovering melody over which the flute and oboe eventually soar with the love theme once again, signalling the development section. The recapitulation proceeds with the themes brought back with more intensity, and then the love theme breaks into fragments and is overwhelmed by the feuding subject leading to a climax. A muted death knell sounds and the love theme is heard a last time over dark, chromatic bass before ending in four bars of abrupt chords, fiercely proclaiming the tragedy of the lovers' deaths.

His many other compositions include works for choir as well as many sets of songs, chamber music and music for solo piano. Some of the better-known of these other works are:

• String Quartet No. 1 in D major, Op. 11
• Piano trio in a minor, Op. 50
• Piano suite The Seasons, Op. 37a
• Dumka, Russian rustic scene in C minor for piano, Op. 59
• String sextet Souvenir de Florence, Op. 70
• 'Variations on a Rococo theme' for cello and orchestra, which Tchaikovsky believed to be one of his best works.

7 See also

• Tchaikovsky compositions

8 References

• A complete list of works by Brett Langston
• Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
• Tchaikovsky
• Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Page

Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich

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