Russian composers and Russian music
are eagerly studied by those who would keep abreast
of the time. This music is so saturated with
strong, vigorous life that it is inspiring to listen
to. Its rugged strength, its fascinating rhythms,
bring a new message. It is different from the
music of other countries and at once attracts by its
unusual melodies and its richness of harmony.
Among the numerous composers of modern
Russia, the name of Peter Ilyitch Tschaikowsky
stands out most prominently. This distinctive
composer was born on April 28, 1840, in Votinsk, where
his father, who was a mining engineer, had been appointed
inspector of the mines at Kamsko-Votinsk. The
position of manager of such important mines carried
with it much luxury, a fine house, plenty of servants
and an ample salary. Thus the future young musician’s
home life was not one of poverty and privation, as
has been the lot of so many gifted ones, who became
creators in the beautiful art of music.
Peter Ilyitch was less than five years
old when a new governess came into the family, to
teach his elder brother Nicholas and his cousin Lydia.
As a little boy he was apt to be untidy, with buttons
missing and rumpled hair. But his nature was
so affectionate and sympathetic that he charmed every
one with his pretty, loving ways. This natural
gift he always retained. The governess was a very
superior person and her influence over her young charges
was healthful and beneficial. The child Peter
was most industrious at his lessons; but for recreation
often preferred playing the piano, reading, or writing
poetry, to playing with other children.
When Peter was eight, the family moved
to St. Petersburg, and the two younger boys were sent
to boarding school. The parting from his home
but especially from his mother-though he
saw her once a week-nearly broke his heart.
Such a school was no place for a sensitive, high-strung
boy like Peter, who needed the most tender fostering
care. The work of the school was very heavy,
the hours long. The boys often sat over their
books till far into the night. Besides the school
work, Peter had music lessons of the pianist Philipov,
and made rapid progress. At this time music in
general excited the boy abnormally; a hand organ in
the street would enchant him, an orchestra strangely
agitated him. He seemed to live at a high strung,
nervous tension, and had frequent ailments, which
kept him out of school.
In 1849 the father secured another
appointment, this time at Alapaiev, a little town,
where, though there was not so much luxury, the family
tried to revive the home life of Votinsk.
No one at Alapaiev seemed to take
any interest in the boy Peter’s music.
He was really making great progress, for he had learned
much in the lessons he had taken in St. Petersburg.
He studied many pieces by himself, and often improvised
at the piano. His parents did nothing to further
his musical education; this may have been because they
were afraid of a return of the nervous disorders that
the quiet of the present home surroundings had seemed
to cure.
From the fact that the father had
held government appointments, his sons were eligible
for education at the School of Jurisprudence.
Peter was accordingly entered there as a scholar,
and completed his course at the age of nineteen.
In those nine years the child Peter developed into
maturity. During this period he suffered the loss
of his mother, a handsome and very estimable woman,
whom he adored with passionate devotion, and from
whom he could never bear to be separated.
While attending the Law School, music
had to be left in the background. His family
and companions only considered it as a pastime at
best, and without serious significance; he therefore
kept his aspirations to himself. The old boyish
discontent and irritability, which were the result
of his former nervous condition, had now given place
to his natural frankness of character and charm of
manner, which attracted all who came in contact with
him.
In 1859, when Peter had finished his
studies at the School of Jurisprudence, he received
an appointment in the Ministry of Justice, as clerk
of the first class. This would have meant much
to some young men, but did not greatly impress Peter,
as he did not seem to take his work very seriously.
During the three years in which he held the post,
he followed the fashion of the day, attended the opera
and theater, meanwhile receiving many impressions
which molded his character and tastes. The opera
“Don Giovanni,” Mozart’s masterpiece,
made a deep impression upon him, also the acting of
Adelaide Ristori and the singing of Lagrona.
The new Conservatoire of Music was
founded at St. Petersburg in 1862, with Anton Rubinstein
as director, and Tschaikowsky lost no time in
entering as a pupil, studying composition and kindred
subjects with Professor Zaremba. His progress
was so rapid in the several branches he took up-piano,
organ and flute-that Rubinstein advised
him to make music his profession, and throw his law
studies to the winds. Thanks to Rubinstein, he
secured some pupils and also engagements as accompanist.
Meanwhile he worked industriously at composition, and
one of his pieces was a Concert Overture in F, scored
for small orchestra. In 1865 he took his diploma
as a musician and also secured a silver medal for
a cantata. One year after this the Moscow Conservatoire
was founded, with Nicholas Rubinstein at its head.
The position of Professor of Composition and Musical
History was offered to Tschaikowsky, then only
twenty-six. It was a flattering offer for so
young a man, when many older heads would have liked
to secure such an honor. He moved to Moscow,
and retained his position in the Conservatoire for
at least twelve years, in the meantime making many
friends for himself and his art, as his fame as a composer
grew. One of these friends was the publisher
Jurgenson, who was to play rather an important part
in the composer’s life, through accepting and
putting forth his compositions.
During those first years in Moscow,
Tschaikowsky made his home with Nicholas Rubinstein.
His life was of the simplest, his fare always so.
Later on when money was more abundant, and he had his
own house in the country, he lived with just the same
simplicity. One would think that all this care
and thought for expense would have taught him the value
of money. Not at all. He never could seem
to learn its value, never cared for it, and never
could keep it. He liked to toss his small change
among groups of street boys, and it is said he once
spent his last roubles in sending a cablegram to von
Buelow in America, to thank him for his admirable
performance of his first Piano Concerto. Often
his friends protested against this prodigality, but
it was no use to protest, and at last they gave up
in despair.
Soon after he began his professorship
in Moscow, he composed a Concert Overture in C minor.
To his surprise and disappointment, Rubinstein disapproved
of the work in every way. This was a shock, after
the lack of encouragement in St. Petersburg.
But he recovered his poise, though he made up his
mind to try his next work in St. Petersburg instead
of Moscow. He called the new piece a Symphonic
Poem, “Winter Daydreams,” but it is now
known as the First Symphony, O. About the
end of 1866, he started out with it, only to be again
rebuffed and cast down. The two men whose good
opinion he most desired, Anton Rubinstein and Professor
Zaremba, could find nothing good in his latest work,
and the young composer returned to Moscow to console
himself with renewed efforts in composition.
Two years later the “Winter Daydreams”
Symphony was produced in Moscow with great success,
and its author was much encouraged by this appreciation.
He was, like most composers, very sensitive to criticism
and had a perfect dread of controversy. Efforts
to engage him in arguments of this sort only made him
withdraw into himself.
Tschaikowsky held the operas
of Mozart before him as his ideal. He cared little
for Wagner, considering his music dramas to be built
on false principles. Thus his first opera, “Voivoda,”
composed in 1866, evidently had his ideal, Mozart,
clearly in mind. It is a somewhat curious fact
that Tschaikowsky, who was almost revolutionary
in other forms of music, should go back to the eighteenth
century for his ideal of opera. Soon after it
was completed “Voivoda” was accepted to
be produced at the Moscow Grand Theater. The
libretto was written by Ostrowsky, one of the celebrated
dramatists of the day. The first performance
took place on January 30, 1869. We are told it
had several performances and considerable popular
success. But the composer was dissatisfied with
its failure to win a great artistic success, and burnt
the score. He did the same with his next work,
an orchestral fantaisie, entitled “Fatum.”
Again he did the same with the score of a complete
opera, “Undine,” finished in 1870, and
refused at the St. Petersburg Opera, where he had
offered it.
“The Snow Queen,” a fairy
play with music, was the young Russian’s next
adventure; it was mounted and produced with great care,
yet it failed to make a favorable impression.
But these disappointments did not dampen the composer’s
ardor for work. Now it was in the realm of chamber
music. Up to this time he had not seemed to care
greatly for this branch of his art, for he had always
felt the lack of tone coloring and variety in the
strings. The first attempt at a String Quartet
resulted in the one in D major, O. To-day,
fifty years after, we enjoy the rich coloring, the
characteristic rhythms of this music; the Andante
indeed makes special appeal. A bit of history
about this same Andante shows how the composer prized
national themes and folk tunes, and strove to secure
them. It is said that morning after morning he
was awakened by the singing of a laborer, working on
the house below his window. The song had a haunting
lilt, and Tschaikowsky wrote it down. The
melody afterwards became that touching air which fills
the Andante of the First String Quartet. Another
String Quartet, in F major, was written in 1814, and
at once acclaimed by all who heard it, with the single
exception of Anton Rubinstein.
Tschaikowsky wrote six Symphonies
in all. The Second, in C minor was composed in
1873; in this he used themes in the first and last
movements, which were gathered in Little Russia.
The work was produced with great success in Moscow
in 1873. The next orchestral composition was
a Symphonic Poem, called “The Tempest,”
with a regular program, prepared by Stassow.
It was brought out in Paris at the same time it was
heard in Moscow. Both at home and in France it
made a deep impression. The next work was the
splendid piano Concerto in B flat minor, O, the
first of three works of this kind. At a trial
performance of it, his friend and former master, Nicholas
Rubinstein, to whom it was dedicated, and who had
promised to play the piano part, began to criticize
it unmercifully and ended by saying it was quite unplayable,
and unsuited to the piano.
No one could blame the composer for
being offended and hurt. He at once erased the
name of Nicholas Rubinstein from the title page and
dedicated the work to Hans von Billow, who not long
after performed it with tremendous success in America,
where he was on tour. When we think of all the
pianists who have won acclaim in this temperamental,
inspiring work, from Carreno to Percy Grainger, to
mention two who have aroused special enthusiasm by
their thrilling performance of it, we can but wonder
that his own countrymen were so short sighted at the
time it was composed. Later on Nicholas Rubinstein
gave a superb performance of the Concerto in Moscow,
thus making some tardy amends for his unkindness.
Tschaikowsky was now thirty-five.
Most of his time was given to the Conservatoire, where
he often worked nine hours a day. Besides, he
had written a book on harmony, and was contributing
articles on music to two journals. In composition
he had produced large works, including up to this
time, two Symphonies, two Operas, the Concerto, two
String Quartets and numerous smaller pieces.
To accomplish such an amount of work, he must have
possessed immense energy and devotion to his ideals.
One of the operas just mentioned was
entitled “Vakoula the Smith.” It
bears the date of 1874, and was first offered in competition
with others. The result was that it not only
was considered much the best work of them all but
it won both the first and second prizes. “Vakoula”
was splendidly mounted and performed in St. Petersburg,
at the Marinsky Theater at least seventeen times.
Ten years later, in January 1887, it appeared again.
The composer meanwhile had re-written a good part
of it and now called it “Two Little Shoes.”
This time Tschaikowsky was invited to conduct
his own work. The invitation filled him with
alarm, for he felt he had no gift in that direction,
as he had tried a couple of times in the early years
of his career and had utterly failed. However,
he now, through the cordial sympathy of friends, decided
to make the attempt. Contrary to his own fears,
he obtained a successful performance of the opera.
It proved an epoch-making occasion.
For this first success as conductor led him to undertake
a three months’ tour through western Europe
in 1888. On his return to St. Petersburg he conducted
a program of his own compositions for the Philharmonic
Society, which was also successful, in spite of the
intense nervousness which he always suffered.
As a result of his concert he received offers to conduct
concerts in Hamburg, Dresden, Leipsic, Vienna, Copenhagen
and London, many of which he accepted.
To go back a bit in our composer’s
life story, to an affair of the heart which he experienced
in 1868. He became engaged to the well-known
singer Desiree Artot; the affair never went further,
for what reason is not known. He was not yet
thirty, impressionable and intense. Later on,
in the year 1877, at the age of thirty-seven, he became
a married man. How this happened was doubtless
told in his diaries, which were written with great
regularity: but unfortunately he destroyed them
all a few years before his death. The few facts
that have been gleaned from his intimate friend, M.
Kashkin, are that he was engaged to the lady in the
spring of this year, and married her a month or so
afterward. It was evidently a hasty affair and
subsequently brought untold suffering to the composer.
When the professors of his Conservatoire re-assembled
in the autumn, Tschaikowsky appeared among them
a married man, but looking the picture of despair.
A few weeks later he fled from Moscow, and when next
heard of was lying dangerously ill in St. Petersburg.
One thing was evident, the ill-considered marriage
came very near ruining his life. The doctors
ordered rest and change of scene, and his brother
Modeste Ilyitch took him to Switzerland and afterward
to Italy. The peaceful life and change of scene
did much to restore his shattered nerves. Just
at this time a wealthy widow lady, Madame von Meek,
a great admirer of Tschaikowsky’s music, learning
of his sad condition, settled on him a generous yearly
allowance for life. He was now independent and
could give his time to composition.
The following year he returned to
Moscow and seemed quite his natural self. A fever
of energy for work took possession of him. He
began a new opera, “Eugen Onegin,” and
completed his Fourth Symphony, in F minor. The
score of the opera was finished in February, 1878,
and sent at once to Moscow, where the first performance
was given in March 1879. In the beginning the
opera had only a moderate success, but gradually grew
in favor till, after five years, it was performed
in St. Petersburg and had an excellent reception.
It is considered Tschaikowsky’s most successful
opera, sharing with Glinka’s “Life of
the Tsar” the popularity of Russian opera.
In 1881 he was invited to compose an orchestral work
for the consecration of the Temple of Christ in Moscow.
The “Solemn Overture 1812,” O, was
the outcome of this. Later in the year he completed
the Second Piano Concerto. The Piano Trio in
A minor, “To the memory of a great artist,”
O, refers to his friend and former master, Nicholas
Rubinstein, who passed away in Paris, in 1881.
Tschaikowsky’s opera, “Mazeppa,”
was his next important work. In the same year
the Second Orchestral Suite, O, and the Third,
O, followed. Two Symphonic Poems, “Manfred”
and “Hamlet” came next. The latter
of these was written at the composer’s country
house, whose purchase had been made possible by the
generosity of his benefactress, and to which he retired
at the age of forty-five, to lead a peaceful country
life. He had purchased the old manor house of
Frovolo, on the outskirts of the town of Klin, near
Moscow. Here his two beautiful ballets and two
greatest Symphonies, the Fifth and Sixth, were written.
The Fifth Symphony was composed in 1888 and published
the next year. On its first hearing it made little
impression and was scarcely heard again till Nikisch,
with unerring judgment, rescued it from neglect; then
the world discovered it to be one of the composer’s
greatest works.
Tschaikowsky’s two last operas,
the “Pique Dame” (Queen of Spades), O, and “King Rene’s Daughter” are
not considered in any way distinctive, although the
former was performed in New York, at the Metropolitan.
The Third Piano Concerto, O, occupied the master
during his last days at Frovolo; it was left unfinished
by him and was completed by the composer Taneiev.
The wonderful Sixth Symphony, O, is a superb
example of Tschaikowsky’s genius. It was
composed in 1893, and the title “Pathetic”
was given it by the composer after its first performance,
in St. Petersburg, shortly before his death, as the
reception of it by the public did not meet his anticipations.
In this work the passion and despair which fill so
many of the master’s finest compositions, rise
to the highest tragic significance. The last
movement, with its prophetic intimation of his coming
death, is heart-breaking. One cannot listen to
its poignant phrases without deep emotion. The
score is dated August 81, 1893. On October twelfth,
Tschaikowsky passed away in St. Petersburg, a
victim of cholera.
A couple of years before he passed
away, Tschiakowsky came to America. In May, 1891,
he conducted four concerts connected with the formal
opening of Carnegie Hall, New York. We well remember
his interesting personality, as he stood before the
orchestra, conducting many of his own works, with
Adele Aus der Ohé playing his famous
Concerto in B flat minor.
The music of this representative Russian
composer has made rapid headway in the world’s
appreciation, during the last few years. Once
heard it will always be remembered. For we can
never forget the deeply human and touching message
which is brought to us through the music of Peter
Ilyitch Tschaikowsky.