Composer who worked in the Ministry of Justice. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - biography, information, personal life

Origin

Youth

Musical activities

Sex life

Rumor of suicide

Dates of creative biography

Major works

Symphonies

Concerts

Piano works

Performances of Tchaikovsky's music

Filmography

Films about the composer's life

In numismatics

In popular music

On television

In philately

(April 25, 1840, Votkinsk plant, Vyatka province, Russian Empire - October 25, 1893, St. Petersburg) - Russian composer, conductor, teacher, musical and public figure, music journalist.

Considered one of the greatest composers in the history of music. Author of more than 80 works, including ten operas and three ballets. His concertos and other works for piano, seven symphonies (six numbered and the “Manfred” symphony), four suites, program symphonic music, ballets “Swan Lake”, “Sleeping Beauty”, “Nutcracker”, more than 100 romances represent an extremely valuable contribution to world musical culture.

Biography

Origin

Born on April 25, 1840 in the village of the Kama-Votkinsk plant in the Vyatka province (now the city of Votkinsk, Udmurtia). His father, Ilya Petrovich Tchaikovsky (1795-1880), an outstanding Russian engineer, was the son of Pyotr Fedorovich Chaika, who was born in 1745 in the village of Nikolaevka, Poltava regiment, near Poltava.

Tchaikovsky came from the Orthodox gentry of the Kremenchug district and was a descendant of the Cossack family of the Chaeks, famous in Ukraine.

Family legend claimed that his great-grandfather Fyodor Afanasyevich Chaika (1695-1767) participated in the Battle of Poltava, and died with the rank of centurion “from wounds,” although in fact he died in old age in Catherine’s time.

The composer's grandfather, Pyotr Fedorovich, was the second son of Fyodor Chaika and his wife Anna (1717-?). He studied at the Kiev-Mohyla Academy, from where in 1769 he was transferred to the St. Petersburg Military Land Hospital; in Kyiv, he “ennobled” his surname, starting to call himself Tchaikovsky. Since 1770, during the Russian-Turkish war (a doctor’s apprentice, a doctor’s assistant, then a doctor); in 1776 he was appointed city doctor in Kungur, Perm governorship; in 1782 he was transferred to Vyatka, two years later he was promoted to staff physician and then awarded the title of nobility. Subsequently, he retired, in 1795 he was appointed mayor to the city of Slobodskaya, and was soon transferred from there to Glazov, where he held the post until his death in 1818. In 1776, he married 25-year-old Anastasia Stepanovna Posokhova, who had recently lost her father (her father, a second lieutenant, died near Kungur in a skirmish with the Pugachevites; family legend called him the commandant of Kungur, allegedly hanged by Pugachev). They had 11 children.

Ilya Petrovich, the composer's father, was the tenth child. After graduating from the Mining Cadet Corps in St. Petersburg, he was enlisted in the Department of Mining and Salt Affairs. Widowed after a short marriage, in 1833 he married 20-year-old Alexandra Andreevna Assier (1813-1854), the granddaughter of the French sculptor Michel Victor Acier, a modeler for the porcelain manufactory in Meissen (Saxony), and the daughter of a major customs official Andrei Mikhailovich (Michael-Heinrich-Maximilian) Assier, who came to Russia as a teacher of French and German and in 1800 accepted Russian citizenship.

In 1837, Ilya Petrovich Tchaikovsky and his young wife moved to the Urals, where he was appointed to the post of head of the Kama-Votkinsk steel plant. Peter was the second child in the family: his older brother Nikolai was born in 1838, and his sister Alexandra (married Davydova) and Ippolit were born in 1842. Twin brothers Anatoly and Modest were born in 1850.

Pyotr Ilyich's parents loved music. His mother played the piano and sang; there was a mechanical organ in the house - an orchestra, in the performance of which little Peter first heard Mozart's Don Giovanni. While the family lived in Votkinsk, they often heard melodic folk songs of factory workers and peasants in the evenings. From a letter from governess Fanny Durbach to Pyotr Ilyich: “I especially loved the quiet, soft evenings at the end of summer... from the balcony we listened to tender and sad songs, only they alone broke the silence of these wonderful nights. You must remember them, none of you went to bed then. If you remember these melodies, put them to music. You will charm those who cannot hear them in your country.”

Youth

In 1849 the family moved to the city of Alapaevsk, and in 1850 to St. Petersburg. Feeling inferior in status due to his humble origins, in 1850 his parents sent Tchaikovsky to the Imperial School of Law, located near the street now named after the composer. Tchaikovsky spent 2 years abroad, 1300 km from his home, since the age for entering the school was 12 years old. For Tchaikovsky, separation from his mother was a very strong mental trauma. In 1852, having entered the school, he began to seriously study music, which was taught as an elective. Tchaikovsky was known as a good pianist and improvised well. From the age of 16 he began to pay more attention to music, studying with the famous teacher Luigi Piccioli; then Rudolf Kündinger became the mentor of the future composer.

After graduating from college in 1859, Tchaikovsky received the rank of titular councilor and began working in the Ministry of Justice. In his free time, he visited the opera house, where he was greatly impressed by productions of operas by Mozart and Glinka.

Musical activities

In 1861 he entered the Music classes of the Russian Musical Society (RMS), and after they were transformed into the St. Petersburg Conservatory in 1862, he became one of its first students in the composition class. His teachers at the conservatory were Nikolai Ivanovich Zaremba (music theory) and Anton Grigorievich Rubinstein (orchestration). At the latter's insistence, he quit his service and devoted himself entirely to music. In 1865 he graduated from the conservatory course with a large silver medal, having written a cantata based on Schiller’s ode “To Joy”; His other conservatory works are the overture to Ostrovsky's play "The Thunderstorm" and the dances of the hay girls, later included in the opera "The Voevoda".

After graduating from the conservatory, at the invitation of Nikolai Rubinstein, he moved to Moscow, where he received a position as professor of classes in free composition, harmony, theory and instrumentation at the newly founded conservatory.

In 1868, he first appeared in print as a music critic and met a group of St. Petersburg composers - members of the “Mighty Handful”. Despite the difference in creative views, friendly relations developed between him and the “kuchkists”. Tchaikovsky shows an interest in program music, and on the advice of the head of the “Mighty Handful” Mily Balakirev, he writes the overture-fantasy “Romeo and Juliet” based on Shakespeare’s tragedy of the same name (1869), and the critic V.V. Stasov suggested to him the idea of ​​​​a symphonic fantasy “The Tempest” (1873).

That same year he met Desiree Artaud. He dedicated Romance op. 5 and allegedly encoded her name in the lyrics of the Piano Concerto No. 1 and the symphonic poem Fatum. They planned to get married, but on September 15, 1869, Desiree unexpectedly married the Spanish baritone singer Mariano Padilla y Ramos. 19 years later, in October 1888, Tchaikovsky, at the request of Désirée, wrote Six Romances Op. 65.

The 1870s in Tchaikovsky’s work is a period of creative quest; he is attracted by the historical past of Russia, Russian folk life, and the theme of human destiny.

At this time, he wrote such works as the operas “The Oprichnik” and “Blacksmith Vakula”, music for Ostrovsky’s drama “The Snow Maiden”, the ballet “Swan Lake”, the Second and Third Symphonies, the fantasy “Francesca da Rimini”, the First Piano Concerto, Variations on a Rococo theme for cello and orchestra, three string quartets and others. The cantata “In memory of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Peter the Great,” written by order of the organizing committee of the Polytechnic Exhibition, to the words of Ya. P. Polonsky, dates back to the same period; it was first performed on May 31, 1872 on the Trinity Bridge in the Kremlin under a specially built canopy (conductor K. Yu. Davydov, soloist A. M. Dodonov).

From 1872 to 1876 he worked as a music critic for the newspaper Russkie Vedomosti, which had a reputation as a left-liberal press organ.

In July 1877, carried away by the composition of the opera Eugene Onegin, he impulsively married former conservatory student Antonina Milyukova, who was 8 years younger than him. He wrote to his brother that one of the goals of marriage is to get rid of accusations of homosexuality: “I would like, by marriage or generally a public relationship with a woman, to shut the mouths of any despicable creature, whose opinion I do not value at all, but which can cause grief to people close to me.” . However, the composer’s homosexuality was the reason that the marriage broke up a few weeks later; according to a number of art historians, this biographical fact was reflected in his work. Due to various circumstances, the couple were never able to divorce and lived separately.

In 1878, he left his post at the Moscow Conservatory and went abroad. Moral and material support for him during this period was provided by Nadezhda von Meck, with whom Tchaikovsky had extensive correspondence in 1876–1890, but never met. One of Tchaikovsky’s works of this period, the Fourth Symphony (1877), is dedicated to von Meck. In 1880, for the “1812” overture, Tchaikovsky received the Order of St. Vladimir, 1st degree.

In May 1881, he asked for the loan of three thousand rubles in silver from the treasury: “that is, so that my debt to the treasury would be gradually repaid with the performance fee due to me from the management of the Imperial Theaters.” The request was addressed to Emperor Alexander III, but the letter itself was sent to the Chief Prosecutor of the Holy Synod, K. P. Pobedonostsev, due to the fact that the latter was “the only dignitary close to the Sovereign to whom I have the honor of being personally known.” Tchaikovsky explained the reason for his appeal as follows: “This amount would free me from debts (made out of necessity both by myself and by some of my loved ones) and would return to me that spiritual peace that my soul longs for.” According to the chief prosecutor's report, the emperor sent Pobedonostsev 3 thousand rubles as a non-refundable allowance for Tchaikovsky. Tchaikovsky thanked the emperor and Pobedonostsev; to the latter, in particular, he wrote: “I am deeply touched by the form in which the Emperor’s attention to my request was expressed. It’s so difficult to express in words the feeling of tenderness and love that the Emperor arouses in me.”

In the mid-1880s, Tchaikovsky returned to active musical and social activities. In 1885 he was elected director of the Moscow branch of the Russian Medical Society. Tchaikovsky's music gains fame in Russia and abroad. The composer spent the last years of his life in Klin, Moscow region, where the State House-Museum of P. I. Tchaikovsky is now located.

Since the late 1880s he has performed as a conductor in Russia and abroad. Concert trips strengthened Tchaikovsky's creative and friendly ties with Western European musicians, including Hans von Bülow, Edvard Grieg, Antonin Dvorak, Gustav Mahler, Arthur Nikisch, Camille Saint-Saëns and others.

In the spring of 1891, P. I. Tchaikovsky made a trip to the USA. As a conductor of his works, he performed with sensational success in New York, Baltimore and Philadelphia (a detailed description of this trip is preserved in the composer's diaries). In New York, he conducted the New York Symphony Orchestra at the opening of Carnegie Hall.

For the last time in his life, Tchaikovsky stood at the conductor’s stand in St. Petersburg nine days before his death - October 16 (October 28, new style) 1893. In the second part of this concert his Sixth, “Pathetique” symphony was performed for the first time.

Sex life

Despite the fact of his (unsuccessful) marriage, Tchaikovsky was a pronounced homosexual (like his brother Modest). Tchaikovsky’s family believed that Tchaikovsky had his first homosexual experience at school, at the age of 13, with his classmate, the future poet A. N. Apukhtin (Apukhtin himself was already in a relationship with his class teacher at that time).

Tchaikovsky's homosexual and ephebophilic tendencies were well known to his contemporaries. Back in 1862, Tchaikovsky, in the company of legal friends, including Apukhtin, got into some kind of homosexual scandal in the St. Petersburg restaurant “Shotan”, as a result of which they, in the words of Modest Tchaikovsky, “were denounced throughout the city as mounds.”

In a letter to his brother Modest dated August 29, 1878, he notes a corresponding hint in a feuilleton about the morals of the Conservatory, which appeared in “New Time,” and writes with contrition: “My Bugrian reputation falls on the entire Conservatory, and that makes me even more ashamed, even harder.” .

Subsequently, A.V. Amphiteatrov, who tried to understand this issue by interviewing people close to Tchaikovsky, came to the conclusion that Tchaikovsky was characterized by “spiritual homosexuality, ideal, platonic ephebism. Forever surrounded by young friends, he always tenderly fussed with them, becoming attached to them and binding them to himself with a love more passionate than friendship or family. One of these platonic ephebes of Tchaikovsky in Tiflis even shot himself out of grief when his composer friend left the city. Under Tchaikovsky we can count many friends, young men and boys, but not a single lover.” Tchaikovsky's letters, primarily to Modest, contain frank confessions. Thus, in a letter to his brother (05/04/1877), he admits to burning jealousy towards his student, 22-year-old violinist Joseph (Eduard-Joseph) Kotek, due to the fact that the latter had an affair with singer Zinaida Eibozhenko. At the same time, in a letter to Modest dated January 19. 1877 Tchaikovsky, confessing his love for Kotek, at the same time emphasizes that he does not want to go beyond the boundaries of a purely platonic relationship.

The strong homosexual attachment of Tchaikovsky's last years is considered to be his nephew Vladimir (Bob) Davydov, to whom Tchaikovsky dedicated the Sixth Symphony, to whom he made a co-heir and to whom he transferred the right to royalties for stage performances of his works. In the last years of Tchaikovsky’s life, he, Modest, Bob and the young Vladimir Argutinsky-Dolgorukov (“Argo”) formed a close circle, jokingly calling themselves the “fourth suite.” However, Tchaikovsky was not limited to people in his circle: as is clear from the diary, throughout 1886 he was in a relationship with a cab driver named Ivan. A number of researchers also consider Tchaikovsky’s relationships with his servants, brothers Mikhail and Alexei (“Lenka”) Sofronov, to whom he also wrote tender letters, to be homosexual. In Tchaikovsky’s diaries during his stay in Klin one can find numerous erotic records about peasant children, whom he, in the words of Alexander Poznansky, “corrupted with gifts,” however, according to Poznansky, Tchaikovsky’s eroticism towards them was platonic, “aesthetically speculative.” character and was far from the desire for physical possession.

V. S. Sokolov, who studied Tchaikovsky’s letters, notes that in the 70s Tchaikovsky suffered from his sexual inclinations and tried to fight them (“If there is the slightest opportunity, try not to be a hillock. This is very sad,” he wrote, for example, to Modest in 1870 “Bugromanship and pedagogy cannot get along,” states in 1876); however, in the last decade of his life, as V.S. Sokolov notes, “a happy mental balance was found - after fruitless attempts to fight his nature.” “...after the story of my marriage, I am finally beginning to understand that there is nothing more fruitless than wanting to be something other than what I am by nature,” Tchaikovsky writes to his brother Anatoly on February 13/25, 1878.

N.N. Berberova notes that Tchaikovsky’s “secret” became widely known after 1923, when the composer’s diary of the late 80s was published, translated into European languages; this coincided with a revision of views on homosexuality in European society.

Death

On the evening of October 31, 1893, a completely healthy Tchaikovsky visited Leiner’s elite St. Petersburg restaurant on the corner of Nevsky Prospect and Moika embankment, where he stayed until approximately two in the morning. During one of the orders, he demanded to bring him cold water. Despite the unfavorable epidemiological situation in the city regarding cholera, Tchaikovsky was served unboiled water, which he drank.

On the morning of November 1, the composer felt unwell and called a doctor, who diagnosed cholera. The disease was severe, and Tchaikovsky died at 3 o’clock in the morning on October 25 (November 6), 1893, from cholera “unexpectedly and untimely” in the apartment of his brother Modest, at 13 on Malaya Morskaya Street. The funeral arrangements, with the Highest permission, were entrusted to the directorate of the Imperial Theaters, which was “a unique and quite exceptional example.”

The removal of the body and burial took place on October 28 (November 9), 1893; Emperor Alexander III ordered all funeral expenses to be covered “from His Majesty’s Own sums.” The funeral service in the Kazan Cathedral was performed by Bishop Nikandr (Molchanov) of Narva; the choir of singers of the Kazan Cathedral and the choir of the Imperial Russian Opera sang; “the walls of the cathedral could not accommodate everyone who wanted to pray for the repose of the soul of Pyotr Ilyich.” Two members of the imperial family took part in the funeral: Prince Alexander of Oldenburg (trustee of the School of Law) and Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich. He was buried in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra in the Necropolis of Masters of Arts.

Rumor of suicide

After Tchaikovsky's death, rumors arose about his "hidden suicide" supposedly out of fear of persecution for homosexuality. N.N. Berberova notes the spread of these rumors in emigration, and believes that they were spread by the descendants of N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov. She also cites the opinion of V.N. Argutinsky-Dolgoruky, who was present at the death of Tchaikovsky, who attributes this rumor to the revenge of the Purgold girls (i.e. N.N. Rimskaya-Korsakova and her sister singer A.N. Molas) for the failure of their matrimonial plans regarding Tchaikovsky. In the 1980s the legend was supported by the publications of the Soviet musicologist A.A. Orlova, who emigrated to the United States, citing information heard from people of the older generation. According to legend, Tchaikovsky allegedly drank arsenic (the symptoms of poisoning of which are similar to cholera) according to the verdict of the “court of honor” of his classmates at the School of Law, who were outraged by his harassment of the young nephew of Count Stenbock-Fermor, who was close to the tsar, which provoked a complaint to the tsar, and demanded that he him to commit suicide in the name of the honor of the School, in order to avoid a public scandal and criminal punishment. This legend was specially analyzed and refuted by Yale University employee Alexander Poznansky. He refutes the legend both with the well-known chronology of Tchaikovsky’s last days, and with the considerations that homosexuality in the Russian elite was looked at extremely condescendingly (especially since some members of the imperial family were homosexuals), and the School of Law, whose graduates were allegedly outraged by Tchaikovsky’s homosexuality , was widely known for its homosexual mores.

N.N. Berberova believes that the plot of the legend, according to which the scandal broke out because of Tchaikovsky’s acquaintance on a ship with the 13-year-old nephew of Count Stenbock-Fermor, reproduces the story of Tchaikovsky’s friendship (precisely on the ship) with 14-year-old Volodya Sklifosofsky, which really caused a stir. (son of a surgeon) in April 1889

Dates of creative biography

In 1866 he made his debut before the Moscow and St. Petersburg public with the overture in F major; began the First Symphony;

1867 - performance of Andante and Scherzo from the First Symphony at the Russian Musical Society in St. Petersburg.

1866-1867 - an overture to the Danish anthem and a number of piano pieces were written: “Memory of Gapsala.”

1867 - work began on the opera “The Voevoda”; in Moscow, in a symphony meeting, dances from it were performed.

1868 - The First Symphony was performed with great success at the symphony meeting in Moscow of the Russian Musical Society. Ch. was dissatisfied with his symphonic work: “Fatum” (1868), performed both in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

On January 30, 1869, the opera “The Voevoda” premiered at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow. Libretto by the composer and A. N. Ostrovsky based on his play (“Dream on the Volga”). Conductor - Merten. Cast: Nechai Shalygin - Finokki, Vlas Dyuzhoy - Radonezhsky, Nastasya - Annenskaya, Marya Vlasyevna - Menshikova, Praskovya Vlasyevna - Cronenberg, Stepan Bastryukov - Rapport, Dubrovin - Demidov, Olena - Ivanova, Rezvy - Bozhanovsky, Shut - Lavrov, Nedviga - Rozanova, new Voivode - Korin). In the 1870s, Tchaikovsky destroyed the opera, saving only a small part of the material.

In 1869, the opera Ondine was completed, but was not staged. It was destroyed by the author in 1873, with the exception of some numbers that were later included in other works. The fantasy overture “Romeo and Juliet” was written in the fall. Six romances were written, of which “No, only that one,” “Both it hurts and it’s sweet,” “A tear trembles,” “Why,” “Not a word, oh my friend.”

1871 - the first quartet in D major.

1870-1872 - the opera “The Oprichnik” was composed, his own libretto based on the story by I. I. Lazhechnikov.

May 31, 1872 - the premiere of the cantata “In memory of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Peter the Great” took place, written by order and specially for the opening of the Polytechnic Exhibition of 1872.

1873 - symphonic fantasy “The Tempest”. And also music for the spring fairy tale “The Snow Maiden” by A. N. Ostrovsky at the Bolshoi Theater.

On April 12, 1874, at the Mariinsky Theater, the premiere of the opera “The Oprichnik” (conductor Napravnik; Zhemchuzhny - Vasiliev 1st, Natalya - Raab, Mitkov - Sobolev, Morozova - Krutikova, Andrei - Orlov, Basmanov - Vasiliev 2nd, Vyazminsky - Melnikov, Zakharyevna - Schroeder).

On May 4, 1875, the Bolshoi Theater staged the opera “The Oprichnik” (conductor Merten; Zhemchuzhny - Demidov, Natalya - Smelskaya, Morozova - Kadmina, Andrei - Dodonov, Vyazminsky - Radonezhsky, Basmanov - Aristova).

1875 - at the competition of the Russian Musical Society, the opera “Blacksmith Vakula” was awarded first prize.

1876 ​​- production of the opera “Blacksmith Vakula” in St. Petersburg, later remade into “Cherevichki”.

February 20, 1877 - production of the ballet “Swan Lake” at the Bolshoi Theater based on the libretto by V. Begichev and V. Geltser. (Odette-Odile - Karpakova, Siegfried - Gillert, Rothbart - Sokolov; choreographer Reisinger, conductor Ryabov, artists Waltz, Shangin, Groppius).

1878 - at the World Exhibition in Paris, under the direction of N. G. Rubinstein, the Second Piano Concerto, “The Tempest”, a serenade and a waltz for violin were performed. Growing fame in Europe. Written "Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom."

"Children's Album" Op. 39 - a collection of pieces for piano, bearing the author’s subtitle “Twenty-four easy pieces for piano.” The collection was composed by Tchaikovsky in May-July 1878 and at the first publication, which followed in December of the same year in the Jurgenson publishing house, was dedicated to the composer’s nephew Volodya Davydov.

March 17, 1879 - the first performance of the opera “Eugene Onegin”, by students of the Moscow Conservatory on the stage of the Moscow Maly Theater.

1879 - the opera “The Maid of Orleans” was written with a libretto by the composer himself based on the drama by F. Schiller translated by V. A. Zhukovsky, the drama by J. Barbier “Joan of Arc” and based on the libretto of the opera “The Maid of Orleans” by O. Merme.

On January 13, 1880, the production of the ballet “Swan Lake” was resumed at the Bolshoi Theater by choreographer Hansen, conductor Ryabov, designer Waltz, Shangin, Groppius. Starring Odette-Odile - Kalmykova and Gaten, Siegfried - Bekefi.

November 7, 1880 - the Solemn Overture “1812”, commissioned by N. G. Rubintstein, was completed in Kamenka. On the title page of the score it is written: 1812. Solemn overture for large orchestra. Composed on the occasion of the consecration of the Cathedral of the Savior by Pyotr Tchaikovsky. For this overture, Tchaikovsky became a Knight of the Order of St. Vladimir and began to receive a personalized imperial pension: 3,000 silver rubles per year.

February 13, 1881 - premiere of the opera “The Maid of Orleans” at the Mariinsky Theater (conductor Napravnik; Charles VII - Vasiliev 3rd, Cardinal - Mayboroda, Dunois - Stravinsky, Lionel - Pryanishnikov, Thibault - Koryakin, Raymond - Sokolov, Joan of Arc - Kamenskaya, Agnes - Raab).

A year before the consecration of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, during the All-Russian Industrial and Art Exhibition on August 8 (August 20), 1882, the Solemn Overture “1812”, written by the composer to commemorate the victory of Russia in the war with Napoleon, was performed for the first time (conductor I. K. Altani ).

On October 28, 1882, the production of the ballet “Swan Lake” was resumed at the Bolshoi Theater by choreographer Hansen, conductor Ryabov, designer Waltz, Shangin, Groppius. Starring Odette-Odile - Kalmykova and Gaten, Siegfried - Bekefi.

April 1883 - the opera “Eugene Onegin” was performed in St. Petersburg in a music and drama group under the direction of K. K. Zike. Opera "Mazeppa".

February 3, 1884 - at the Bolshoi Theater (Moscow) the premiere of the opera “Mazepa”, libretto by V. P. Burenin based on Pushkin’s poem “Poltava”. (conductor Altani, director Bartsal, artists Shishkov and Bocharov, choreographer Ivanov; Mazepa - Korsov, Kochubey - Borisov, Maria - Pavlovskaya, Lyubov - Krutikova, Andrei - Usatov, Orlik - Fuhrer, Iskra - Grigoriev, Drunken Cossack - Dodonov).

1885 - the opera “Mazeppa” was staged in Tiflis. A new edition of the opera “Blacksmith Vakula” called “Cherevichki” has been prepared.

On October 20, 1887, in St. Petersburg at the Mariinsky Theater, the premiere of the opera “The Enchantress” (libr. by I. V. Shpazhinsky based on his tragedy of the same name) premiered. Conductor Tchaikovsky, artist. Bocharov; Prince Kurlyatev - Melnikov, Princess - Slavina, Yuri - Vasiliev 3rd, Mamyrov - Stravinsky, Nastasya - Pavlovskaya).

1887 - the opera was staged in Tiflis (conductor Ippolitov-Ivanov; Nastasya - Zarudnaya),

On January 19, 1887, in Moscow, the Bolshoi Theater staged the opera “Cherevichki”, a reworking of the opera “Blacksmith Vakula”, libretto by Y. P. Polonsky based on the story “The Night Before Christmas” by N. V. Gogol, with additions by the composer. (conductor Tchaikovsky, artist Waltz; Vakula - Usatov, Oksana - Klimentova, Solokha - Svetlovskaya, Chub - Matchinsky, Pan Head - Streletsky, Bes - Korsov, School Teacher - Dodonov, His Serene Highness - Khokhlov, Panas - Grigoriev).

1888 - Emperor Alexander III awarded Tchaikovsky a pension of 3 thousand rubles.

January 3, 1890 - premiere at the Mariinsky Theater of the ballet “The Sleeping Beauty” based on the libretto by I. A. Vsevolozhsky. (Aurora - Brianza, Desiree - P. Gerdt, Lilac Fairy - M. M. Petipa, Carabosse - Cecchetti; choreographer M. I. Petipa, conductor Drigo, designer Bocharov, Levot, Andreev and Shishkov, costumes by Vsevolozhsky).

1890 - the opera “The Enchantress” was staged at the Bolshoi Theater (Moscow).

On December 7, 1890, the opera “The Queen of Spades” was staged at the Mariinsky Theater (libretto by the composer’s brother Modest with the participation of the composer, based on Pushkin’s story, using poems by K. N. Batyushkov, G. R. Derzhavin, V. A. Zhukovsky, P. M Karabanova and K.F. Ryleeva), (conductor Napravnik, production by Palechek, director Kondratiev, artists Vasiliev, Yanov, Levot, Ivanov and Andreev, choreographer Petipa; German - N. Figner, Tomsky - Melnikov, Eletsky - Yakovlev, Chekalinsky - Vasiliev 2nd, Surin - Frey, Chaplitsky - Kondaraki, Narumov - Sobolev, Manager - Efimov, Lisa - M. Figner, Countess - Slavina, Polina - Dolina, Governess - Pilz, Maid - Yunosova, Prilepa - Olgina, Milovzor - Friede , Zlatogor - Klimov 2nd).

December 19, 1890 - the opera “The Queen of Spades” was staged in Kiev by artists of the opera company I. P. Pryanishnikov (conductor Pribik; German - Medvedev, Tomsky - Dementyev, Eletsky - Tartakov, Countess - Smirnova, Liza - Matsulevich).

1891 - the opera “Iolanta” was written (libretto by M. I. Tchaikovsky based on the drama “King René’s Daughter” by H. Hertz). The opera “The Queen of Spades” was staged at the Bolshoi Theater (conductor Altani, artists Waltz and Lebedev, choreographers Petipa and Ivanov; German - Medvedev; Tomsky - Korsov, Eletsky - Khokhlov, Lisa - Deisha-Sionitskaya, Polina - Gnucheva, Countess - Krutikova); music for Hamlet, staged at the Mikhailovsky Theater (St. Petersburg).

December 6, 1892 - premiere at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg of the opera “Iolanta” (conductor Napravnik, scenery Bocharov; King Rene - Serebryakov, Robert - Yakovlev, Vaudemont - Figner, Ebn-Hakiya - Chernov, Almeric - Karelin, Bertrand - Frey, Iolanta - M. Figner, Marta - Kamenskaya, Brigitte - Runge, Laura - Dolina) together with the ballet: “The Nutcracker”. (libretto by M. I. Petipa based on the fairy tale by E. T. Hoffman; adapted by A. Dumas the son). (Clara - Belinskaya, Fritz - V. Stukolkin, Nutcracker - S. Legate, Sugar Plum Fairy - Del-Era, Prince Whooping Cough - P. Gerdt, Drosselmeyer - T. Stukolkin; choreographer Ivanov, conductor Drigo, artists Bocharov and K. Ivanov, costumes - Vsevolozhsky and Ponomarev).

Major works

Operas

• Voivode (1868)
• Ondine (1869)
• Oprichnik (1872)
• Evgeny Onegin (1878)
• The Maid of Orleans (1879)
• Mazepa (1883)
• Cherevichki (1885)
• The Enchantress (1887)
• Queen of Spades (1890)
• Iolanta (1891)

Ballets

• Swan Lake (1877)
• Sleeping Beauty (1889)
• The Nutcracker (1892)

Symphonies

• Symphony No. 1 “Winter Dreams” op. 13 (1866)
• Symphony No. 2 op.17 (1872)
• Symphony No. 3 op. 29 (1875)
• Symphony No. 4 op. 36 (1878)
• "Manfred" - symphony (1885)
• Symphony No. 5 (1888)
• Symphony No. 6 op. 74 (1893)

Suites

• Suite No. 1 op. 43 (1879)
• Suite No. 2 op. 53 (1883)
• Suite No. 3 op. 55 (1884)
• Suite No. 4 Mozartiana op. 61 (1887)
• The Nutcracker, suite for ballet op. 71a (1892)

Selected orchestral works

Concerts

• Concerto for piano and orchestra No. 1 op. 23 (1875)
• Melancholic Serenade op. 26 (1875)
• Variations on a Rococo Theme for cello and orchestra op. 33 (1878)
• Waltz-scherzo for violin and orchestra op. 34 (1877)
• Concerto for violin and orchestra op. 35 (1878)
• Concerto for piano and orchestra No. 2 op. 44 (1880)
• Concert Fantasy for piano and orchestra op. 56 (1884)
• Pezzo capriccioso for cello and orchestra op. 62 (1887)
• Piano Concerto No. 3 (1893)

Piano works

Chamber music

• String Quartet No. 1 op. 11 (1871)
• String Quartet No. 2 op. 22 (1874)
• String Quartet No. 3 op. 30 (1876)
• “Memories of a Dear Place”, three pieces for violin and piano op. 42 (1878)
• Piano trio op. 50 (1882)
• "Memory of Florence", string sextet op. 70 (1890)

Tchaikovsky's voice

In 1890, the German inventor Julius Block made a short recording using a phonautograph.

According to musicologist Leonid Sabaneev, Tchaikovsky was not satisfied with the recording device and tried to evade it. Before recording, Blok asked the composer to play the piano or at least say something. He refused, saying: “I'm a bad pianist and my voice is squeaky. Why perpetuate this?”

Performances of Tchaikovsky's music

The complete cycle of Tchaikovsky's symphonies (including or excluding "Manfred") was recorded by conductors Antal Dorati (also a recording of all ballets and all orchestral suites), Herbert von Karajan, Eugene Ormandy, Mikhail Pletnev, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Evgeny Svetlanov, Maris Jansons and others. Recordings of individual Tchaikovsky's symphonies were performed by Alexander Gauk, Valery Gergiev (No. 4-6), Carlo Maria Giulini (No. 6), Kirill Kondrashin (No. 1, 4-6), Evgeny Mravinsky (No. 4-6), Roger Norrington (No. 5, 6 ), Seiji Ozawa (No. 6), David Oistrakh (No. 5, 6), Yuri Temirkanov, Ferenc Fryczai (No. 4, 5), etc.

Filmography

Films about the composer's life

• “The Third Youth”, 1965
• “Tchaikovsky”, 1969, director Igor Talankin - biographical film
• “The Music Lovers”, 1971, directed by Ken Russell - a free retelling of the composer’s biography
• “Apocrypha: Music for Peter and Paul”, 2004 “Golden Nymph” Prize 2006
• "Tchaikovsky", director Philip Degtyarev

Film adaptations of the composer's works

• Evgeny Onegin, 1958
• Queen of Spades, 1960
• The Nutcracker (cartoon, 1973)
• The Nutcracker and the Mouse King (cartoon), 1999
• The Nutcracker (cartoon, 2004)
• The Nutcracker and the Rat King (2010 film)

Films featuring the composer's music

• Chapaev with us, 1941 - part III is used ( Allegro molto vivace) The Sixth Symphony as a musical background for cutting documentary newsreels of the pre-war maneuvers of the Red Army
• Captive of the Caucasus, or New Adventures of Shurik - as music from the television broadcast of the ballet “Swan Lake”
• Anna Karenina (film, 1997)
• The Talented Mr. Ripley, 1999, directed by Anthony Minghella
• V for Vendetta, 2006 - 1812 Overture used
• Sensation, 2006, directed by Woody Allen
• The Ugly Duckling, directed by Harry Bardeen
• Black Swan
• Fantasy
• Swan Lake

Perpetuating the memory of the composer

In numismatics

• In 1990, the USSR issued a commemorative coin with a denomination of one ruble, dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of P. I. Tchaikovsky

In popular music

• American musician Chuck Berry wrote the song Roll Over Beethoven in 1956, which was included in the list of the 500 greatest songs of all time according to Rolling Stone magazine. In addition to Tchaikovsky, the song mentions Beethoven.
• The song was performed by The Beatles in 1963. Later (in 1973) this song was performed by the Electric Light Orchestra in the album “ELO-2”.
• Tchaikovsky's music is widely used in jazz and is readily sampled by electronic engineers, and is also used in advertising
• The famous American singer Michael Jackson claimed that Tchaikovsky had the greatest influence on him. He said: “If you take The Nutcracker, you will see that every tune in there is a hit, every single one. And I thought: “Why can’t pop music have an album where every song is a hit?”

On television

• In episode 18 of season 1 of the TV series Scrubs, an excerpt from Tchaikovsky’s composition “Dance of the Sugar - Plum Fairy” is heard in one of the scenes.
• In episode 8 of season 1 of the TV series Interns, in the scene of preparing a solution for plaster, Tchaikovsky’s composition “The Nutcracker - Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” is heard.
• The TV series "Brigade" features a waltz from the ballet "Swan Lake"

Tchaikovsky's childhood and youth

Already at the age of 5, Peter began to show his first sensitivity to musical activity. At this age, he had already learned to play musical instruments and knew how to read music. The composer especially loved to record his feelings that he experienced from listening to musical works. When Peter was 10 years old, the Tchaikovsky family moved to the city of Alapaevsk. Having not lived there for even six months, the Tchaikovskys went to St. Petersburg. Peter's mother and father sent him to study at a prestigious educational institution - the School of Law. Peter had to spend about two years abroad, since he was allowed to study only from the age of 12. He was very upset by parting with his mother, but endured it and came to St. Petersburg to study.

Immediately after being admitted to the school, Tchaikovsky began to show great interest in music. The academy regularly held electives, which he did not miss. The teachers knew him as a good improviser and a guy who had good piano playing skills. At the age of 15, Peter took up music seriously, began studying with the famous teacher L. Piccioli, then Tchaikovsky got another teacher - Rudolf Kündiger. In 1859, Peter graduated from the College and got a job at the Ministry of Justice. Whenever he has a free moment, the composer attends operas and productions; he was especially interested in the plays of Glinka and Mozart.

Career in music

At first, Tchaikovsky combined work and music, but then his teachers insisted that he give up his career as an official and devote himself entirely to culture. Four years later, Pyotr Tchaikovsky graduated from the conservatory as a good student. Around the same time, he completed his first works: an introduction to the theatrical performance “The Thunderstorm” by Ostrovsky, a poem based on the ode “To Joy” and several other small introductions.
In 1866, the famous composer was offered the position of professor at one of the Moscow conservatories. The institution was just opening, its director was N. G. Rubenstein, the brother of one of the teachers at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. For 12 years he successfully taught theory and harmony classes. Meanwhile, the composer wrote A Guide to the Study of Harmony.

Creativity and personal life

From 1872 to 1877, Tchaikovsky had a period of creative exploration. This period of life was quite beneficial in terms of music. At this moment he wrote several works: “Oprichnik”, “Blacksmith Vakula”. One of his most famous works was also created at that time - the ballet “Swan Lake”. Finally, in 1875, the piano cycle “The Seasons” was completed, which today is considered one of the composer’s greatest achievements. Work on it took 3 years, and the initiator and ideological inspirer of “Times” was the journalist of “Nuvellista” N. Bernard.

In 1877, the composer decided to marry a student at a musical institution, Antonina Milyukova. Peter himself said that he got married only so that they would stop talking about his homosexuality. But the truth is that it was because of this “hobby” of his that the marriage broke up. They did not live together for long, but for certain reasons they did not officially divorce until the end of their lives.

A year later, the composer left the conservatory and moved abroad. At that very time, Nadezhda Von Meck greatly helped the composer morally and financially. He had been corresponding with her for several years at that time. He dedicated one of his works to Nadezhda - “The Fourth Symphony”.

In the spring of 1881, the composer turned to Alexander III with a favor for a loan in the amount of three thousand rubles. However, he sent the letter not to the sovereign himself, but to one of his closest subordinates, Pobedonostsev, explaining this by the fact that he was one of the few whom Peter knew personally. Tchaikovsky wrote that this amount would allow him to pay off all his debts and gain peace of mind. The emperor decided to give the composer three thousand rubles, for which Tchaikovsky was very grateful to him and wrote more than once about the nobleness of the sovereign.

In 1885, Pyotr Ilyich gained popularity and fame not only in Russia, but also abroad. At this very time, he began to position himself not only as a composer, but also as a conductor. While playing as a conductor, he met many famous people, including Edvard Grieg, Arthur Nikisch, Gustav Mahler and others.

In 1891 he performed in the USA. The performance took place in New York and Philadelphia, and everything turned out at the highest level. Pyotr Ilyich even performed with his musicians at the opening ceremony of the famous Carnegie Hall. The last time Pyotr Ilyich performed as a conductor was in St. Petersburg a few weeks before he died.

Death of a great composer

The funeral was entrusted to the management of the Imperial Theaters, which is the only case in history. This once again proves the greatness of the composer. The funeral took place on November 9, 1893. All expenses for the removal and burial of Tchaikovsky were borne by Emperor Alexander III himself. Many famous people attended the funeral. The greatest composer and conductor was buried in the Necropolis of Masters of Arts in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born on May 7, 1840 in the village of Votkinsk, located on the territory of modern Udmurtia. His father was Ilya Petrovich Tchaikovsky, an engineer descended from the Cossack family of Chaeks, famous in Ukraine. The mother of the future famous composer was Alexandra Andreevna Assier, who studied at the School for Women's Orphans shortly before her father's death. Alexandra Andreevna was trained in literature, geography, arithmetic, rhetoric and foreign languages.

The family ended up in the Urals because Ilya Petrovich was offered the position of head of the Kama-Votkinsk steel plant, which at that time was a very large enterprise. In Votkinsk, Tchaikovsky Sr. received a large house with servants and even his own army, consisting of a hundred Cossacks. Nobles, young people from the capital, English engineers and other respectable personalities often visited this house.

Pyotr Tchaikovsky in his youth

Peter was the second child in his family. He also had an older brother, Nikolai, a younger brother, Ippolit, and a younger sister, Alexandra. In the large house of the Tchaikovskys lived not only the couple themselves with their children, but also numerous relatives of Ilya Petrovich. A French governess, Fanny Durbach, was summoned from St. Petersburg to teach the children, who later became practically a member of the Tchaikovsky family.

Music has always been a welcome guest in the parental home of Pyotr Ilyich. His father could play the flute, his mother could play the piano and harp, and she also performed romances very skillfully. The governess was deprived of a musical education, but she also had a passion for music. In the Tchaikovskys' house there was an orchestrion (mechanical organ) and a piano. The young musician took piano lessons from the serf Marya Palchikova, who was musically literate.

Another hobby of the young Tchaikovsky, in addition to learning the basics of playing the piano, was poetry. Peter enthusiastically composed numerous poems in French. In addition, he tried to learn everything he could from the biography of Louis XVII. He carried his reverence for this historical figure throughout his entire life.

In 1848, the Tchaikovskys moved to Moscow, as Ilya Petrovich retired and intended to find private employment. Just a couple of months later, the family moved again, this time to St. Petersburg. There the eldest sons were sent to the Schmelling boarding school.

In St. Petersburg, Pyotr Ilyich continued to study music, and also became more familiar with ballet, opera and the symphony orchestra. There, the young man contracted measles, which subsequently caused him to periodically have seizures.

In 1849, Nikolai Tchaikovsky, Peter’s older brother, was assigned to the Institute of the Corps of Mining Engineers, and the rest of the children and their parents returned to the Urals, to the city of Alapaevsk. There, the head of the family took the post of head of the plant of Yakovlev’s heirs. Fanny Durbach had left the Tchaikovsky family by that time, and another governess, Anastasia Petrova, was hired to prepare the grown-up Pyotr Ilyich for further education.

In the same year, the young musician had two more younger brothers: twins Modest and Anatoly.

Education and civil service

Although young Pyotr Tchaikovsky had been demonstrating an increased interest in music for several years, was delighted with famous operas and loved going to ballet, his parents did not at all consider music as a worthy profession for their son. At first they wanted to send him to the Institute of the Corps of Mining Engineers, like his eldest son Nicholas, but then they gave preference to the Imperial School of Law, located in St. Petersburg. Pyotr Ilyich entered it in 1850.

The musician studied at the school until 1859. The first years of study were the most difficult for Tchaikovsky: he had a hard time parting with his family, who could not visit him often. And the guardianship of family friend Modest Vakar was overshadowed by the fact that ten-year-old Tchaikovsky accidentally brought scarlet fever into his house, which is why Modest’s little son died suddenly.

In 1852, when Ilya Petrovich left the service, the whole family moved to St. Petersburg. During these years, Pyotr Ilyich actively became acquainted with Russian opera and ballet, and also became friends with a classmate, the poet Alexei Apukhtin, who had a great influence on his views and beliefs.

In 1854, Tchaikovsky's mother died after a long battle with cholera. Ilya Petrovich sent his older children to closed educational institutions, and with his four-year-old twins he temporarily settled with his brother.

In the period from 1855 to 1858, Pyotr Ilyich took piano lessons from the famous German pianist Rudolf Kündinger. His father hired him for the young Tchaikovsky, but in the spring of 1858 the lessons had to be stopped: due to an unsuccessful scam, Ilya Petrovich lost almost all his money, and there was nothing to pay the foreign musician. Fortunately, soon Tchaikovsky Sr. was offered to head the management of the Technological Institute and was offered a large government apartment, where he moved with the children.

Pyotr Ilyich completed his studies at the School of Law in 1859. Interestingly, he enjoyed great sympathy both from teachers and from other students of the school. Unlike many other talented creative figures, who were distinguished by unsociability and poor socialization, Pyotr Tchaikovsky felt comfortable in society and fit perfectly into any company.

Upon completion of his studies, the young man got a job at the Ministry of Justice. There he was most often involved in managing various affairs of the peasants. In his free time, he continued to go to the opera house and study music. In 1861, Pyotr Ilyich traveled abroad for the first time, visiting Hamburg, Berlin, Antwerp, Brussels, Paris, Ostend and even London. By that time, he was fluent in Italian and French, and therefore was able to accompany engineer V.V. Pisarev. (his father's friend) as a translator.

Creation

Surprisingly, even at the age of 21, Pyotr Ilyich, who had received an education and entered the public service, had not yet really thought about a musical career. He, like his parents once, did not take his hobby seriously. But, fortunately, the father of the future composer Ilya Petrovich still felt that his son was destined to become a great musician.

Tchaikovsky Sr. even went to Rudolf Kündinger to find out his opinion regarding his son’s talent. The German pianist categorically stated that Tchaikovsky Jr. has no special musical abilities, and 21 years old is not the age to start a creative career. And Pyotr Ilyich himself initially took his father’s offer to combine work with receiving a music education as a joke.

But when he learned that a new conservatory was opening in St. Petersburg, which would be headed by the famous Anton Rubinstein, everything changed radically. Tchaikovsky decided to enter the St. Petersburg Conservatory at any cost, which he did, becoming one of the first students of this educational institution in the composition class. And soon after that, he completely abandoned jurisprudence, deciding, despite the problems with money that arose, to devote himself entirely to music.

As his graduation work, Pyotr Ilyich wrote the cantata “To Joy.” It was created for the Russian translation of Friedrich Schiller's ode with the same name. The cantata made a bad impression on the musicians of St. Petersburg. The critic Cesar Cui was especially harsh, saying that Tchaikovsky was extremely weak as a composer, and also accusing him of conservatism. And this despite the fact that for Pyotr Ilyich music was freedom, and his idols were Borodin, Mussorgsky, Balakirev - composers who did not recognize authorities and rules.

But such a reaction did not bother the young composer at all. Having received his well-deserved silver medal for the successful completion of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, which was then the highest award, he set to work with even greater zeal and passion. In 1866, the composer moved to Moscow at the invitation of his mentor's brother. Nikolai Rubinstein offered him a job as a professor at the Moscow Conservatory.

Career blossoming

At the Moscow Conservatory, Tchaikovsky showed himself to be an excellent teacher. In addition, he put a lot of effort into the quality organization of the educational process. Since there were few worthy textbooks for his students at that time, the composer began translating foreign literature and even creating his own teaching materials.

However, in 1878, Pyotr Ilyich, tired of being torn between teaching and his own creativity, left his position. His place was taken by Sergei Taneyev, who became Tchaikovsky’s most beloved student. A wealthy patron, Nadezhda von Meck, helped Tchaikovsky make ends meet. Being a wealthy widow, she idolized the composer and annually provided him with subsidies in the amount of 6,000 rubles.

It was after moving to Moscow that the real rise of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s creative career began and his significant growth as a composer occurred. At this time, he met the composers participating in the creative community “The Mighty Handful”. On the advice of Mily Balakirev, the head of the commonwealth, Tchaikovsky in 1869 created a fantasy overture based on the work “Romeo and Juliet”.

In 1873, Pyotr Ilyich wrote another of his famous works - the symphonic fantasy “The Tempest”, the idea for which was suggested to him by the then authoritative music critic Vladimir Stasov. Around the same time, Tchaikovsky began to travel again, gaining inspiration abroad and using the images imprinted in his memory to form the basis of his subsequent creations.

In the 1870s, the composer wrote such works as the ballet “Swan Lake”, the opera “The Oprichnik”, the Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, the Second and Third Symphonies, the fantasy “Francesca da Rimini”, the opera “Eugene Onegin”, the piano cycle “The Times” of the year" and many others. In the 1880-1890s, Pyotr Tchaikovsky traveled abroad even more often than before, and in the vast majority of cases, as part of concert trips.

During such trips, the musician met and became friends with many musicians from Western Europe: Gustav Mahler, Arthur Nikisch, Edvard Grieg, Antonin Dvorak and others. The composer himself acted as a conductor during the concerts. In the early 1890s, Tchaikovsky even managed to visit the USA. There, stunning success awaited him during a concert where Pyotr Ilyich conducted his own works. Written at the time of creative maturity, they no longer raised any doubts about the composer’s talent.

Tchaikovsky spent his last years before his death in the vicinity of the town of Klin near Moscow. There, he agreed to open a school, dissatisfied with the quality of life of local peasants, and donated money for its maintenance. In 1885, he helped Klinov residents fight a fire that burned several dozen houses in the city.

During this period of his life, the composer wrote the ballet “The Nutcracker”, the opera “The Queen of Spades”, the overture “Hamlet”, the opera “Iolanta”, and the Fifth Symphony. At the same time, the international recognition of Pyotr Ilyich’s talent was confirmed: in 1892 he was elected a corresponding member of the Academy of Fine Arts in Paris, and in 1893 an honorary doctor of the University of Cambridge.

Tchaikovsky died on November 6, 1893 from cholera. He was buried in the Kazan Cathedral and buried in the Necropolis of Masters of Arts.

Personal life

There are many photographs preserved where Pyotr Tchaikovsky is captured in a more than decent manner with his male friends. Even during his lifetime, the composer's orientation became the subject of speculation: some accused the musician of being a homosexual. It was assumed that his men (men for whom he had platonic affection) were Joseph Kotek, Vladimir Davydov and even brothers Alexey and Mikhail Safronov.

It is difficult to judge whether there is reliable evidence that the composer loved men. His connections with the individuals mentioned above could well have been simply friendly. Be that as it may, there were also women in Tchaikovsky’s life, although some researchers claim that this was the composer’s way of trying to hide the fact that he was gay.

Thus, the failed wife of Pyotr Ilyich was the young French prima donna Artaud Desiree, who preferred the Spaniard Marian Padilla to him. And in 1877, Antonina Milyukova, who was eight years younger than her newly-made husband, became his official wife. However, this marriage lasted only a few weeks, although Antonina and Peter never officially divorced.

It is worth recalling his connection with Nadezhda von Meck, who admired the composer’s talent and supported him financially for many years.

From century to century, from generation to generation, our love for Tchaikovsky and his beautiful music passes on, and this is its immortality.
D. Shostakovich

“I would like with all the strength of my soul for my music to spread, so that the number of people who love it, who find consolation and support in it, increases.” These words of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky precisely define the task of his art, which he saw in serving music and people, in “truthfully, sincerely and simply” talking to them about the most important, serious and exciting things. The solution to such a problem was possible by mastering the rich experience of Russian and world musical culture, by mastering the highest professional composing skills. The constant tension of creative forces, everyday and inspired work on the creation of numerous musical works constituted the content and meaning of the entire life of the great artist.

Tchaikovsky was born into the family of a mining engineer. From early childhood, he showed a keen sensitivity to music and practiced the piano quite regularly, which he mastered well by the time he graduated from the School of Law in St. Petersburg (1859). Already serving in the department of the Ministry of Justice (until 1863), he entered in 1861 the classes of the Russian Musical Society, transformed into the St. Petersburg Conservatory (1862), where he studied composition with N. Zaremba and A. Rubinstein. After graduating from the conservatory (1865), Tchaikovsky was invited by N. Rubinstein to teach at the Moscow Conservatory, which opened in 1866. Tchaikovsky’s activities (he taught classes in compulsory and special theoretical disciplines) laid the foundations of the pedagogical tradition of the Moscow Conservatory, this was facilitated by his creation of a harmony textbook, translations of various textbooks, etc. In 1868, Tchaikovsky first appeared in print with articles in support of N. Rimsky- Korsakov and M. Balakirev (friendly creative relations arose with him), and in 1871-76. was a music chronicler for the newspapers “Modern Chronicle” and “Russian Vedomosti”.

The articles, as well as extensive correspondence, reflected the aesthetic ideals of the composer, who had especially deep sympathy for the art of W. A. ​​Mozart, M. Glinka, and R. Schumann. Rapprochement with the Moscow Artistic Circle, which was headed by A. N. Ostrovsky (based on his play, Tchaikovsky’s first opera “The Voevoda” was written - 1868; even during the years of study - the overture “The Thunderstorm”, in 1873 - the music for the play “The Snow Maiden”), trips to Kamenka to visit sister A. Davydova contributed to the love for folk tunes that arose in childhood - Russian, and then Ukrainian, which Tchaikovsky often quotes in the works of his Moscow period of creativity.

In Moscow, the authority of Tchaikovsky as a composer is quickly strengthening, and his works are being published and performed. Tchaikovsky creates the first classical examples of various genres in Russian music - symphonies (1866, 1872, 1875, 1877), string quartet (, ,), piano concerto (, ,), ballet (“Swan Lake”, 1875-76), concert instrumental plays (“Melancholy Serenade” for violin and orchestra - 1875; “” for cello and orchestra - 1876), writes romances, piano works (“Seasons”, 1875-76, etc.).

A significant place in the composer’s work was occupied by program symphonic works - the overture-fantasy “Romeo and Juliet” (1869), the fantasy “The Tempest” (1873, both after W. Shakespeare), the fantasy “Francesca da Rimini” (after Dante, 1876), in which the lyrical-psychological and dramatic orientation of Tchaikovsky’s work, also evident in other genres, is especially noticeable.

In opera, searches following the same path lead him from everyday drama to a historical plot (“The Oprichnik” based on the tragedy by I. Lazhechnikov, 1870-72) through an appeal to the lyric-comedy and fantastic story of N. Gogol (“The Blacksmith Vakula” - 1874, 2nd ed. - “” - 1885) to Pushkin’s “Eugene Onegin” - lyrical scenes, as the composer (1877-78) called his opera.

“Eugene Onegin” and the Fourth Symphony, where the deep drama of human feelings is inseparable from the real signs of Russian life, became the result of the Moscow period of Tchaikovsky’s work. Their completion marked the end of a severe crisis caused by overexertion of creative forces, as well as an unsuccessful marriage. The material support provided to Tchaikovsky by N. von Meck (correspondence with her, which lasted from 1876 to 1890, provides invaluable material for studying the composer’s artistic views), gave him the opportunity to leave his work at the conservatory, which was weighing him down by that time, and go abroad to improve health.

Works from the late 70s - early 80s. marked by greater objectivity of statements, the continuing expansion of the range of genres in instrumental music (Concerto for violin and orchestra - 1878; orchestral suites - , , ; Serenade for string orchestra - 1880; “Trio in Memory of the Great Artist" (N. Rubinstein) for piano, violin and cellos - 1882, etc.), the scale of operatic ideas (“The Maid of Orleans” by F. Schiller, 1879; “Mazeppa” by A. Pushkin, 1881-83), further improvement in the field of orchestral writing (“Italian Capriccio” - 1880, suite), musical form, etc.

Since 1885, Tchaikovsky settled in the vicinity of Klin near Moscow (since 1891 - in Klin, where the composer’s House-Museum was opened in 1895). The desire for solitude for creativity did not exclude deep and lasting contacts with Russian musical life, which developed intensively not only in Moscow and St. Petersburg, but also in Kiev, Kharkov, Odessa, Tiflis, etc. Conducting performances that began in 1887 contributed to the widespread dissemination of music Tchaikovsky. Concert trips to Germany, the Czech Republic, France, England, and America brought the composer worldwide fame; creative and friendly ties with European musicians are strengthened (G. Bülow, A. Brodsky, A. Nikisch, A. Dvorak, E. Grieg, C. Saint-Saens, G. Mahler, etc.). In 1893, Tchaikovsky was awarded the degree of Doctor of Music from the University of Cambridge in England.

In the works of the last period, opening with the program symphony “Manfred” (after J. Byron, 1885), the opera “The Enchantress” (after I. Shpazhinsky, 1885-87), the Fifth Symphony (1888), there is a noticeable strengthening of the tragic beginning, culminating in absolute the peaks of the composer’s work - the opera “The Queen of Spades” (1890) and the Sixth Symphony (1893), where he rises to the highest philosophical generalization of the images of love, life and death. Along with these works, the ballets “The Sleeping Beauty” (1889) and “The Nutcracker” (1892) and the opera “Iolanta” (after G. Hertz, 1891) appear, ending with the triumph of light and goodness. A few days after the premiere of the Sixth Symphony in St. Petersburg, Tchaikovsky suddenly died.

Tchaikovsky's work covered almost all musical genres, among which the leading ones are the largest - opera and symphony. They most fully reflected the composer's artistic concept, at the center of which are the deep processes of a person's inner world, complex movements of the soul, revealed in sharp and intense dramatic clashes. However, even in these genres, the main intonation of Tchaikovsky’s music is always heard - melodious, lyrical, born of the direct expression of human feeling and finding an equally direct response from the listener. On the other hand, other genres - from romance or piano miniature to ballet, instrumental concert or chamber ensemble - can be endowed with the same qualities of symphonic scale, complex dramatic development and deep lyrical penetration.

Tchaikovsky also worked in the field of choral (including sacred) music, writing vocal ensembles and music for dramatic performances. Tchaikovsky's traditions in various genres found their continuation in the works of S. Taneyev, A. Glazunov, S. Rachmaninov, A. Scriabin, and Soviet composers. Tchaikovsky’s music, which received recognition even during his lifetime, became, according to B. Asafiev, a “vital necessity” for people, captured a huge era of Russian life and culture of the 19th century, went beyond their boundaries and became the property of all mankind. Its content is universal: it covers images of life and death, love, nature, childhood, everyday life, it generalizes and reveals in a new way the images of Russian and world literature - Pushkin and Gogol, Shakespeare and Dante, Russian lyric poetry of the second half of the 19th century.

Tchaikovsky's music, embodying the precious qualities of Russian culture - love and compassion for man, extraordinary sensitivity to the restless quests of the human soul, irreconcilability towards evil and a passionate thirst for good, beauty, moral perfection - reveals deep connections with the work of L. Tolstoy and F. Dostoevsky, I. Turgenev and A. Chekhov.

Nowadays, Tchaikovsky’s dream is coming true that the number of people who love his music will increase. One of the evidence of the world fame of the great Russian composer was the International Competition named after him, which attracts hundreds of musicians from different countries to Moscow.

E. Tsareva

Musical position. Worldview. Milestones of the creative path

1

Unlike the composers of the “new Russian musical school” - Balakirev, Mussorgsky, Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov, who, despite all the dissimilarity of their individual creative paths, acted as representatives of a certain direction, united by a commonality of main goals, objectives and aesthetic principles, Tchaikovsky did not belong to any what groups and circles. In the complex interweaving and struggle of various trends that characterized Russian musical life in the second half of the 19th century, he maintained an independent position. Many things brought him closer to the “kuchkists” and caused mutual attraction, but there were also disagreements between them, as a result of which a certain distance was always maintained in their relations.

One of the constant reproaches to Tchaikovsky heard from the “Mighty Handful” camp was that the national character of his music was not clearly expressed. “Tchaikovsky does not always succeed in the national element,” Stasov cautiously notes in his large review article “Our Music over the Last 25 Years.” Another time, combining Tchaikovsky with A. Rubinstein, he directly states that both composers “are far from being able to serve as full representatives of the new Russian musicians and their aspirations: both of them are not independent enough, and not strong and national enough.”

The opinion that Tchaikovsky was alien to national Russian elements and that his work was overly “Europeanized” and even “cosmopolitan” was widespread at the time and was expressed not only by critics speaking on behalf of the “new Russian school.” It is expressed in a particularly sharp and straightforward form by M. M. Ivanov. “Of all Russian authors,” the critic wrote almost twenty years after the composer’s death, “he [Tchaikovsky] remained forever the most cosmopolitan, even when he tried to think in Russian, to get closer to the well-known features of the emerging Russian musical structure.” “He has no trace of the Russian manner of expression, the Russian style, which we see, for example, in Rimsky-Korsakov.”

For us, who perceive Tchaikovsky’s music as an integral part of Russian culture, the entire Russian spiritual heritage, such judgments sound wild and absurd. The author of “Eugene Onegin” himself, who constantly emphasized his inextricable connection with the roots of Russian life and passionate love for everything Russian, never ceased to consider himself a representative of his native and vitally close Russian art, the fate of which deeply touched and worried him.

Like the “Kuchkists,” Tchaikovsky was a convinced Glinkanist and admired the greatness of the feat accomplished by the creator of “A Life for the Tsar” and “Ruslan and Lyudmila.” “An unprecedented phenomenon in the field of art”, “a real creative genius” - in these terms he spoke about Glinka. “Something overwhelming, gigantic,” the likes of which “neither Mozart, nor Gluck, nor any of the masters” had, was heard by Tchaikovsky in the final chorus of “A Life for the Tsar,” which placed its author “alongside (Yes! Alongside!) Mozart , with Beethoven and with anyone." “No less a manifestation of extraordinary genius” was found by Tchaikovsky in “Kamarinskaya”. His words that the entire Russian symphony school “in Kamarinskaya is like an entire oak tree in an acorn” became popular. “And for a long time,” he asserted, “Russian authors will draw from this rich source, for it takes a lot of time and a lot of effort to exhaust all its wealth.”

But being as much a national artist as any of the “kuchkists,” Tchaikovsky solved the problem of the folk and national in his work differently and reflected other aspects of national reality. Most of the composers of the “Mighty Handful,” in search of answers to the questions raised by modernity, turned to the origins of Russian life, be it significant events of the historical past, epics, legends, or ancient folk customs and ideas about the world. It cannot be said that Tchaikovsky was not at all interested in all this. “...I have not yet met a person more in love with Mother Rus' in general than I am,” he once wrote, “and its Great Russian parts in particular.”<...>I passionately love Russian people, Russian speech, Russian mentality, Russian beauty of faces, Russian customs. Lermontov directly says that cherished legends from dark antiquity his souls do not move. And I even love that.”

But the main subject of Tchaikovsky’s creative interest was not broad historical movements or the collective foundations of people’s life, but the internal psychological collisions of the spiritual world of the human person. Therefore, the individual prevails over the universal, the lyric over the epic. With enormous strength, depth and sincerity, he reflected in his music that rise of personal self-awareness, that thirst for liberation of the individual from everything that fetters the possibility of its complete, unhindered disclosure and self-affirmation, which were characteristic of Russian society in the post-reform period. The element of personal, subjective is always present in Tchaikovsky, no matter what topics he addresses. Hence the special lyrical warmth and insight that permeate his works with pictures of folk life or his beloved Russian nature, and, on the other hand, the sharpness and intensity of the dramatic conflicts that arose from the contradiction between the natural desire of man to fully enjoy life and the harsh, merciless reality, about which it breaks.

The differences in the general direction of the work of Tchaikovsky and the composers of the “new Russian musical school” also determined some features of their musical language and style, in particular, their approach to the implementation of folk song themes. For all of them, folk song served as a rich source of new, nationally unique means of musical expression. But if the “kuchkists” sought to discover in folk melodies the ancient features that were originally inherent in them and to find methods of harmonic processing that corresponded to them, then Tchaikovsky perceived folk song as a direct element of the living surrounding reality. Therefore, he did not try to separate the true basis in it from what was introduced later, in the process of migration and transition to a different social environment, he did not separate the traditional peasant song from the urban one, which had undergone transformation under the influence of romance intonations, dance rhythms, etc. that had become part of everyday life. melody, he processed it freely, subordinating it to his personal individual perception.

A certain bias on the part of the “Mighty Handful” manifested itself towards Tchaikovsky as a graduate of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, which they considered a stronghold of conservatism and academic routine in music. Tchaikovsky is the only Russian composer of the “sixties” generation who received systematic professional education within the walls of a special music educational institution. Rimsky-Korsakov later had to fill in the gaps in his professional training when, having started teaching music theoretical disciplines at the conservatory, in his own words, “he became one of its best students.” And it is quite natural that it was Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov who were the creators of the two largest schools of composition in Russia in the second half of the 19th century, conventionally called “Moscow” and “St. Petersburg”.

The Conservatory not only armed Tchaikovsky with the necessary knowledge, but also instilled in him that strict work discipline, thanks to which he could create, in a not very long period of active creative activity, many works of the most diverse genre and character, enriching various areas of Russian musical art. Tchaikovsky considered constant, systematic composing work to be the obligatory duty of every true artist who takes his calling seriously and responsibly. Only that music, he notes, can touch, shock and hurt, which poured out from the depths of an artistic soul excited by inspiration<...>Meanwhile, you always need to work, and a real honest artist cannot sit idly by under the pretext that he is not in the mood.”

Conservative education also contributed to the development in Tchaikovsky of a respectful attitude towards tradition, towards the heritage of the great classical masters, which, however, was in no way associated with prejudice against the new. Laroche recalled the “silent protest” with which the young Tchaikovsky reacted to the desire of some teachers to “protect” their students from the “dangerous” influences of Berlioz, Liszt, Wagner, keeping them within the framework of classical norms. Later, the same Laroche wrote as a strange misunderstanding about the attempts of some critics to classify Tchaikovsky as a composer of the conservative traditionalist movement and argued that “Mr. Tchaikovsky is incomparably closer to the extreme left of the musical parliament than to the moderate right.” The difference between him and the “kuchkists,” in his opinion, is more “quantitative” than “qualitative.”

Laroche's judgments, despite their polemical sharpness, are largely fair. Whatever sharp form the disagreements and disputes between Tchaikovsky and the “Mighty Handful” sometimes took, they reflected the complexity and diversity of paths within the fundamentally united advanced democratic camp of Russian musicians of the second half of the 19th century.

Close ties connected Tchaikovsky with the entire Russian artistic culture during its high classical heyday. A passionate reader, he knew Russian literature very well and carefully followed everything new that appeared in it, often expressing very interesting and thoughtful judgments about individual works. Admiring the genius of Pushkin, whose poetry played a huge role in his own work, Tchaikovsky loved much of Turgenev, subtly felt and understood Fet’s lyrics, which did not prevent him from admiring the richness of descriptions of life and nature from such an objective writer as Aksakov.

But he gave a very special place to L.N. Tolstoy, whom he called “the greatest of all artistic geniuses” that humanity has ever known. What was especially attractive about the works of the great novelist Tchaikovsky was “some kind of highest love for a person, the highest a pity to his helplessness, finitude and insignificance.” “A writer who has been gifted with the power, not given to anyone before him, to force us, meager in mind, to comprehend the most impenetrable nooks and crannies of the recesses of our moral existence,” “the deepest expert of the heart,” - in such expressions he wrote about what, in his opinion, constituted , the strength and greatness of Tolstoy as an artist. “He alone is enough,” according to Tchaikovsky, “so that the Russian person does not bow his head in shame when all the great things that Europe has created are counted before him.”

More complex was his attitude towards Dostoevsky. Recognizing his genius, the composer did not feel the same inner closeness to him as he did to Tolstoy. If, while reading Tolstoy, he could shed tears of blessed admiration because “through his mediation touched with the world of the ideal, absolute goodness and humanity,” then the “cruel talent” of the author of “The Brothers Karamazov” suppressed and even frightened him.

Among the writers of the younger generation, Tchaikovsky had a special sympathy for Chekhov, in whose stories and tales he was attracted by the combination of merciless realism with lyrical warmth and poetry. This sympathy was, as we know, mutual. Chekhov’s attitude towards Tchaikovsky is eloquently evidenced by his letter to the composer’s brother, where he admitted that “he is ready to stand as an honor guard day and night at the porch of the house where Pyotr Ilyich lives,” so great was his admiration for the musician to whom he assigned second place in Russian art, immediately after Leo Tolstoy. This assessment of Tchaikovsky by one of the greatest Russian masters of words testifies to what the composer's music was for the best progressive Russian people of his time.

2

Tchaikovsky belonged to the type of artists for whom the personal and the creative, the human and the artistic are so closely connected and intertwined that it is almost impossible to separate one from the other. Everything that worried him in life, caused pain or joy, indignation or sympathy, he sought to express in his compositions in the language of musical sounds close to him. Subjective and objective, personal and impersonal are inseparable from Tchaikovsky’s work. This allows us to talk about lyricism as the main form of his artistic thinking, but in the broad meaning that Belinsky gave to this concept. "All general“Everything substantial, every idea, every thought - the main engines of the world and life,” he wrote, “can make up the content of a lyrical work, but on the condition, however, that the general is transformed into the blood property of the subject, enters into his feeling, is not connected with any one side of him, but with the whole integrity of his being. Everything that occupies, excites, pleases, saddens, delights, calms, worries, in a word, everything that constitutes the content of the spiritual life of the subject, everything that enters into him, arises in him - all this is accepted by lyric poetry as its legitimate property.” .

Lyricism as a form of artistic comprehension of the world, Belinsky further explains, is not only a special, independent kind of art, the sphere of its manifestation is wider: “lyricism, existing in itself, as a separate kind of poetry, enters into all others, like an element, lives them , how the fire of Prometheans lives all the creations of Zeus... The preponderance of the lyrical element also occurs in epic and drama.”

The breath of sincere and immediate lyrical feeling pervades all of Tchaikovsky’s works, from intimate vocal or piano miniatures to symphonies and operas, which by no means excludes either depth of thought or strong and vivid drama. The creativity of a lyricist artist is broader in content, the richer his personality and the more diverse the range of his interests, the more responsive his nature is to the impressions of the surrounding reality. Tchaikovsky was interested in many things and reacted sharply to everything that happened around him. It can be argued that there was not a single major and significant event in his contemporary life that would have left him indifferent and did not cause one response or another on his part.

By nature and way of thinking, he was a typical Russian intellectual of his time - a time of deep transformative processes, great hopes and expectations and equally bitter disappointments and losses. One of the main features of Tchaikovsky as a person is the insatiable restlessness of spirit, characteristic of many leading figures of Russian culture in that era. The composer himself defined this trait as “longing for the ideal.” All his life he intensely, sometimes painfully, searched for solid spiritual support, turning now to philosophy, now to religion, but he was never able to bring his views on the world, on the place and purpose of man in it, into a single holistic system. “...I don’t find the strength in my soul to develop any strong convictions, because I’m like a weather vane spinning between traditional religion and the arguments of critical reason,” admitted thirty-seven-year-old Tchaikovsky. The same motive is heard in a diary entry made ten years later: “Life passes, it comes to an end, but I haven’t thought of anything, I even disperse, if fatal questions arise, I walk away from them.”

Feeding an insurmountable antipathy towards all doctrinaireism and dry rationalistic abstractions, Tchaikovsky had relatively little interest in various philosophical systems, but knew the works of some philosophers and expressed his attitude towards them. He categorically condemned the then fashionable philosophy of Schopenhauer in Russia. “In Schopenhauer’s final conclusions,” he finds, “there is something offensive to human dignity, something dry and selfish, not warmed by love for humanity.” The harshness of this review is understandable. The artist, who described himself as “a person who passionately loves life (despite all its hardships) and equally passionately hates death,” could not accept and share the philosophical teaching that asserted that only the transition to non-existence, self-destruction serves as a deliverance from world evil.

On the contrary, Spinoza’s philosophy aroused sympathy in Tchaikovsky and attracted him with its humanity, attention and love for man, which allowed the composer to compare the Dutch thinker with Leo Tolstoy. The atheistic essence of Spinoza’s views did not go unnoticed by him. “I forgot then,” notes Tchaikovsky, recalling his recent dispute with von Meck, “that there could be people like Spinoza, Goethe, Kant, who managed to do without religion? I forgot then that, not to mention these colossi, there is an abyss of people who managed to create for themselves a harmonious system of ideas that replaced religion for them.”

These lines were written in 1877, when Tchaikovsky considered himself an atheist. A year later, he declared even more decisively that the dogmatic side of Orthodoxy “has long been subjected to criticism that is fatal to it.” But in the early 80s, a turning point occurred in his attitude towards religion. “...The light of faith penetrates my soul more and more,” he admitted in a letter to von Meck from Paris dated March 16/28, 1881, “... I feel that I am more and more inclined towards this only stronghold ours against all disasters. I feel that I am beginning to be able to love God, which I was not able to do before.” True, the remark immediately slips through: “doubts still visit me.” But the composer tries with all the strength of his soul to drown out these doubts and drives them away from himself.

Tchaikovsky's religious views remained complex and ambiguous, based more on emotional stimuli than on deep and firm conviction. Some of the tenets of Christian doctrine remained unacceptable to him. “I am not so imbued with religion,” he notes in one of his letters, “that in death I can confidently see the beginning of a new life.” The idea of ​​eternal heavenly bliss seemed to Tchaikovsky something extremely dull, empty and joyless: “Life then has charm when it consists of alternating joys and sorrows, of the struggle of good with evil, of light and shadow, in a word, of diversity in unity. How can one imagine eternal life in the form of endless bliss?”

In 1887, Tchaikovsky writes in his diary: “ Religion I would like to explain mine in detail someday, if only in order to once and for all clarify my beliefs and the boundary where they begin after speculation.” However, Tchaikovsky apparently failed to bring his religious views into a single system and resolve all their contradictions.

He was attracted to Christianity mainly by the moral, humanistic side; the gospel image of Christ was perceived by Tchaikovsky as living and real, endowed with ordinary human qualities. “Although He was God,” we read in one of the diary entries, “but at the same time he was a man. He suffered just like us. We we're sorry him, we love him, he's perfect human sides." The idea of ​​the omnipotent and formidable God of Hosts was for Tchaikovsky something distant, difficult to understand and inspiring fear rather than trust and hope.

The great humanist Tchaikovsky, for whom the highest value was the human personality, conscious of its dignity and duty to others, thought little about the issues of the social structure of life. His political views were quite moderate and did not go further than thoughts about a constitutional monarchy. “How Russia would be revived,” he once remarks, “if the sovereign (meaning Alexander II) ended his amazing reign by granting us political rights! Let them not say that we have not matured to constitutional forms.” Sometimes this idea of ​​a constitution and popular representation took Tchaikovsky’s form of the idea of ​​a Zemsky Sobor, widespread in the 70s and 80s, which was shared by various circles of society from the liberal intelligentsia to the Narodnaya Volya revolutionaries.

Far from sympathizing with any revolutionary ideals, Tchaikovsky at the same time was deeply distressed by the growing rampant reaction in Russia and condemned the cruel government terror aimed at suppressing the slightest glimmers of discontent and free-thinking. In 1878, at the time of the highest rise and growth of the Narodnaya Volya movement, he wrote: “We are going through a terrible time, and when you begin to think about what is happening, it becomes terrible. On the one hand, a completely dumbfounded government, so lost that Aksakov is exiled for his bold, truthful word; on the other hand, the unfortunate crazy youth, thousands of them without trial or investigation, exiled to places where the raven did not bring bones - and among these two extremes of indifference to everything, the masses are mired in selfish interests, looking at both without any protest.”

This kind of critical statements are repeatedly found in Tchaikovsky’s letters and later. In 1882, shortly after the accession of Alexander III, which was accompanied by a new intensification of the reaction, the same motive sounds in them: “A very dark time has come for our dear, albeit sad, fatherland. Everyone feels a vague uneasiness and dissatisfaction; everyone feels that the state of affairs is fragile and changes must happen, but nothing can be foreseen.” In 1890, the same motive again appears in his correspondence: “... something wrong is now happening in Russia... The spirit of reaction reaches the point that the works of gr. L. Tolstoy is being persecuted as some kind of revolutionary proclamation. Young people are rebelling, and the Russian atmosphere is essentially very gloomy.” All this, of course, influenced Tchaikovsky’s general state of mind, aggravated the feeling of discord with reality and gave rise to an internal protest, which was reflected in his work.

A man of broad, diverse intellectual interests, an artist-thinker, Tchaikovsky was constantly burdened by deep, intense thought about the meaning of life, his place and purpose in it, the imperfection of human relations and many other things that contemporary reality forced him to think about. The composer could not help but be concerned about general fundamental questions concerning the foundations of artistic creativity, the role of art in people's lives and the paths of its development, on which such sharp and heated debates were conducted in his time. When Tchaikovsky answered questions addressed to him that music should be written “as God puts it on the soul,” this showed his insurmountable antipathy to any kind of abstract theorizing, and even more so the affirmation of any generally binding dogmatic rules and norms in art . Thus, reproaching Wagner for the forcible subordination of his work to an artificial and far-fetched theoretical concept, he notes: “Wagner, in my opinion, killed the enormous creative power in himself with theory. Any preconceived theory chills the immediate creative feeling.”

Valuing in music above all sincerity, truthfulness and spontaneity of expression, Tchaikovsky avoided loud declarative statements and proclamation of his tasks and principles for their implementation. But this does not mean that he did not think about them at all: his aesthetic convictions were quite firm and consistent. In the most general form, they can be reduced to two main provisions: 1) democracy, the belief that art should be addressed to a wide range of people, serve as a means of their spiritual development and enrichment, 2) the unconditional truth of life. The famous and often quoted words of Tchaikovsky: “I would like with all the strength of my soul for my music to spread, so that the number of people who love it, who find consolation and support in it, increases,” were not a manifestation of a vain pursuit of popularity at any cost, and the composer’s inherent need to communicate with people through his art, the desire to bring them joy, strengthen strength and good spirits.

Tchaikovsky constantly talks about the truth of expression. At the same time, he sometimes showed a negative attitude towards the word “realism”. This is explained by the fact that he perceived it in a superficial, vulgar Pisarev interpretation, as excluding sublime beauty and poetry. He considered the main thing in art not external naturalistic verisimilitude, but the depth of comprehension of the inner meaning of things and, above all, those subtle and complex psychological processes hidden from the superficial glance that occur in the human soul. It is music, in his opinion, more than any other art that has this ability. “In the artist,” Tchaikovsky wrote, “there is unconditional truth, not in a banal protocol sense, but in a higher sense, opening up to us some unknown horizons, some inaccessible spheres, where only music can penetrate, and among writers no one has gone so far like Tolstoy."

Tchaikovsky was no stranger to a penchant for romantic idealization, for the free play of fantasy and fairy-tale fiction, for the world of the wonderful, magical and unprecedented. But the center of the composer’s creative attention was always a living, real person with his simple but strong feelings, joys, sorrows and hardships. That acute psychological vigilance, spiritual sensitivity and responsiveness that Tchaikovsky was endowed with allowed him to create unusually bright, life-truthful and convincing images that we perceive as close, understandable and similar to us. This puts him on a par with such greatest representatives of Russian classical realism as Pushkin, Turgenev, Tolstoy or Chekhov.

3

One can rightfully say about Tchaikovsky that he was made a composer by the era in which he lived, a time of high social upsurge and great fruitful changes in all areas of Russian life. When a young official of the Ministry of Justice and a music amateur, having entered the St. Petersburg Conservatory, which had just opened in 1862, soon decided to devote himself to music, this caused many people close to him not only surprise, but also disapproval. Not without a certain risk, Tchaikovsky’s action was not, however, accidental and rash. A few years earlier, Mussorgsky retired from military service for the same purpose, contrary to the advice and persuasion of his older friends. Both brilliant young people were prompted to take this step by the increasingly established attitude towards art in society as a serious and important matter that contributes to the spiritual enrichment of people and the multiplication of national cultural heritage.

Tchaikovsky's entry into professional music was associated with a profound change in his views and habits, attitude towards life and work. The composer’s younger brother and first biographer M.I. Tchaikovsky recalled how even his appearance changed after entering the conservatory: “With long hair, dressed in his own cast-offs of his former dandyishness, he changed in appearance as radically as in everyone else.” in other respects." With the demonstrative carelessness of his toilet, Tchaikovsky wanted to emphasize his decisive break with the former noble-bureaucratic environment and the transformation from a polished socialite into a common worker.

In just over three years of study at the conservatory, where one of his main mentors and leaders was A. G. Rubinstein, Tchaikovsky mastered all the necessary theoretical disciplines and wrote a number of symphonic and chamber works, although not yet completely independent and uneven, but marked by his extraordinary talent. The largest of them was the cantata “To Joy” based on Schiller’s ode, performed at the graduation ceremony on December 31, 1865. Soon after this, Tchaikovsky’s friend and classmate Laroche wrote to him: “you are the greatest musical talent of modern Russia... I see in you the greatest, or, better said, the only hope for our musical future... However, everything you have done... I consider it only the work of a schoolchild, preparatory and experimental, so to speak. Your creations will begin, perhaps, only in five years, but they, mature, classical, will surpass everything that we had after Glinka.”

Tchaikovsky's independent creative activity developed in the second half of the 60s in Moscow, where he moved at the beginning of 1866 at the invitation of N. G. Rubinstein to teach in the music classes of the Russian Musical Society, and then at the Moscow Conservatory, which opened in the fall of the same year. “...For P.I. Tchaikovsky,” as one of his new Moscow friends N.D. Kashkin testifies, “for many years she became the artistic family in whose environment his talent grew and developed.” The young composer met with sympathy and support not only in musical, but also in literary and theatrical circles of the then Moscow. Acquaintance with A. N. Ostrovsky and some of the leading actors of the Maly Theater contributed to Tchaikovsky’s growing interest in folk songs and ancient Russian life, which was reflected in his works of these years (the opera “The Voevoda” based on Ostrovsky’s play, the First Symphony “Winter Dreams”) .

The 70s were a period of unusually rapid and intense growth of his creative talent. “There is such a preoccupation heap,” he wrote, “which envelops you so tightly during the height of work that you do not have time to look after yourself and forget everything except what is directly related to work.” In this state of genuine obsession with Tchaikovsky, three symphonies, two piano and violin concertos, three operas, the ballet “Swan Lake”, three quartets and a number of others were created before 1878, including quite large and significant works. If we add to this the extensive pedagogical work that took a lot of effort and time at the conservatory and his collaboration in Moscow newspapers as a music columnist that continued until the mid-70s, one cannot help but be struck by the enormous energy and inexhaustible flow of his inspiration.

The creative pinnacle of this period were two masterpieces - “Eugene Onegin” and the Fourth Symphony. Their creation coincided with an acute mental crisis that brought Tchaikovsky to the brink of suicide. The immediate impetus for this shock was his marriage to a woman, the impossibility of living together with whom the composer was aware from the very first days. However, the crisis was prepared by the totality of the conditions of his life and the crisis over a number of years. “An unsuccessful marriage accelerated the crisis,” B.V. Asafiev rightly notes, “because Tchaikovsky, having mistakenly counted on creating a new, more creatively favorable - family - environment in these living conditions, quickly broke free - to complete creative freedom. That this crisis was not of a morbid nature, but was prepared by the entire impetuous development of the composer’s work and the feeling of the greatest creative upsurge, is shown by the result of this nervous outburst: the opera “Eugene Onegin” and the famous Fourth Symphony.”

When the severity of the crisis somewhat dulled, the time came for critical analysis and revision of the entire path traveled, which dragged on for years. This process was accompanied by bouts of sharp dissatisfaction with oneself: complaints about the lack of skill, immaturity and imperfection of everything he has written so far are increasingly heard in Tchaikovsky’s letters; sometimes it seems to him that he is exhausted, exhausted and will no longer be able to create anything of any significance. A more sober and calm self-esteem is contained in a letter to von Meck dated May 25-27, 1882: “... An undoubted change has occurred in me. There is no longer that ease, that pleasure in work, thanks to which days and hours flew by unnoticed for me. I console myself with the fact that if my subsequent writings will be less warmed by true feeling than the previous ones, then they will gain in texture, will be more thoughtful, more mature.”

The period from the late 70s to the mid-80s in Tchaikovsky's development can be defined as a period of quest and accumulation of strength to master new great artistic tasks. His creative activity has not decreased during these years. Thanks to the material support of von Meck, Tchaikovsky was able to free himself from the burdensome work in the theoretical classes of the Moscow Conservatory and devote himself entirely to composing music. From his pen comes a number of works that, perhaps, do not have such breathtaking dramatic power and tension of expression as “Romeo and Juliet”, “Francesca” or the Fourth Symphony, or such charm of warm, soulful lyricism and poetry as “Eugene Onegin”, but masterful, impeccable in form and texture, written with great imagination, wit and inventiveness, and often with genuine brilliance. These are three magnificent orchestral suites and some other symphonic works of these years. The operas “The Maid of Orleans” and “Mazeppa”, created at the same time, are distinguished by their breadth of forms and desire for acute, intense dramatic situations, although they suffer from some internal contradictions and a lack of artistic integrity.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (April 25 (May 7), 1840, in the village at the Kama-Votkinsk plant, Vyatka province, now the city of Votkinsk, Udmurtia - October 25 (November 6), 1893, St. Petersburg) - a great Russian composer, one of the best melodists, conductor, teacher, musical and public figure. Father - Ilya Petrovich Tchaikovsky (1795 - 1880).

He graduated from the School of Law in St. Petersburg (1859), served in the Ministry of Justice (until 1863). From 1861 he studied in the Music classes of the Russian Musical Society (RMS), transformed in 1862 into the St. Petersburg Conservatory, from which he graduated in 1865 in the composition class of A. G. Rubinstein. In 1866–78 he was a professor at the Moscow Conservatory (classes of free composition, theory, harmony and instrumentation).

Tchaikovsky actively participated in the musical life of Moscow, his works were published and performed here, and the main genres of creativity were determined. The result of their acquaintance in 1868 and creative contacts with members of the “Mighty Handful” was the creation of program symphonic works (on the advice of M. A. Balakirev, the overture-fantasy Romeo and Juliet (1869), the Manfred symphony (1885) was written; V. V. Stasov suggested to Tchaikovsky the idea for the fantasy symphony “The Tempest” (1873).

Creativity of the 70s. distinguished by the intensity of quests and the diversity of artistic interests. In con. 70s Tchaikovsky experienced a severe mental crisis caused by overstrain of creative forces, as well as circumstances of his personal life. For several years he lived mainly abroad (mainly in Switzerland and Italy). During these years, material support and correspondence (1876–90) with N. F. von Meck were important for Tchaikovsky. All R. 80s Tchaikovsky returned to active musical and social activities. In 1885 he was elected director of the Moscow branch of the Russian Musical Society, and contributed to raising the level of musical culture in Moscow. From 1885 he lived constantly in the Moscow region - in the vicinity of the city of Klin (Maidanovo, Frolovskoye), from 1892 - in Klin itself, where after the death of the composer a memorial house-museum was opened. Since the late 1880s. He performed extensively as a conductor in Russia and abroad. Concert trips strengthened Tchaikovsky's creative and friendly ties with Western European musicians (Hans von Bülow, Edvard Grieg, Antonin Dvorak, Gustav Mahler, Arthur Nikisch, Camille Saint-Saëns, etc.).

Creation
Almost all musical genres are represented in Tchaikovsky's work, in which opera and symphony were leading. The music reflected the deep social and ethical conflicts born of Russian reality in the 2nd half. 19th century. There is a noticeable increase in the tragic principle in the works of recent years (especially in the opera The Queen of Spades and the 6th Symphony). The content of Tchaikovsky's music is universal: it covers images of life and death, love, nature, childhood, everyday life, it reveals in a new way the works of Russian and world literature - A. S. Pushkin and N. V. Gogol, Shakespeare and Dante. Tchaikovsky's music reveals deep connections with the work of L.N. Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, F.M. Dostoevsky, I. S. Turgenev, A. P. Chekhov. In Tchaikovsky's music, deep processes of spiritual life, doubt, despair and the impulse towards the ideal were realized.

Interesting Facts

* In 1890, Tchaikovsky wrote sketches in his notebook for the “Queen of Spades” he was composing. And on one piece of paper, written down in hasty handwriting, is obviously the theme (melody) he just invented, which is played by the violins at the very beginning of the fourth scene - “The Countess’s Bedroom.” This is one of the best places in the opera. Tchaikovsky wrote down the beginning of this melody in a book and added: “and similar erotic whining...”

Major works

Voivode (1868)
Ondine (1869)
Oprichnik (1872)
Evgeny Onegin (1878)
The Maid of Orleans (1879)
Mazepa (1883)
Cherevichki (1885)
The Enchantress (1887)
Queen of Spades (1891)
Iolanta (1891)

Swan Lake (1876)
Sleeping Beauty (1889)
The Nutcracker (1892)

Symphonic works

"The Thunderstorm", overture to a drama (1864)
Symphony No. 1 “Winter Dreams” (1866)
"Fatum", symphonic fantasy (1868)
Symphony No. 2 (1872)
Concerto No. 1 for piano and orchestra (1875)
Symphony No. 3 (1875)
"Francesca da Rimini", symphonic fantasy (1876)
Variations on a Rococo Theme, for cello and orchestra (1878)
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (1878)
Symphony No. 4 (1878)
"1812", solemn overture (1880)
"Romeo and Juliet", fantasy overture (1869, 1870, 1880)
Concerto No. 2 for piano and orchestra (1880)
"Manfred", symphony (1885)
Pezzo capriccioso (1887)
Symphony No. 5 (1888)
Concerto No. 3 for piano and orchestra (1893)
Symphony No. 6 (1893)

Piano music

"The Seasons" Op.37b, 12 characteristic scenes (1876)
Children's Album Op.39, 24 easy pieces (1878)
18 pieces, Op.72 (1892)

Selected orchestral works

Slavic March (1876)
March of the Voluntary Fleet (1878)