What makes tchaikovsky unique

On the evening of the 20th October, , Tchaikovsky visited a restaurant on Nevsky Prospekt. While he was there, he ordered a glass of water which was just out of the tap and not boiled. The next day, he suddenly felt ill, despite being in good health in the days before. A doctor was called, and the diagnosis was cholera. A few days later, on the 25th October, Tchaikovsky died in his apartment on Malay Morskaya street. Firstly St Petersburg was going through an epidemic of cholera and serving unboiled water during an outbreak would have been very risky.

Cholera is a highly contagious disease, so it was odd that his funeral was open casket. All the above leads people to suspect that he ended his life by committing suicide after his alleged sexual relations with men surfaced. We and our partners use cookies to better understand your needs, improve performance and provide you with personalised content and advertisements. To allow us to provide a better and more tailored experience please click "OK".

Sign Up. Travel Guides. Videos Beyond Hollywood Hungerlust Pioneers of love. Anastasiia Ilina. He was a lawyer by trade. He was likely a homosexual. His music was not always successful. He worked as a journalist. He skipped his final exam.

He participated in the opening of Carnegie Hall. He destroyed two operas. In his reviews, he praised Beethoven, considered Brahms overrated and despite his admiration took Schumann to task for poor orchestration.

In , while Tchaikovsky was still at the School of Jurisprudence and Anton Rubinstein lobbied aristocrats to form the RMS, critic Vladimir Stasov and an year-old pianist, Mily Balakirev, met and agreed upon a nationalist agenda for Russian music. Taking the operas of Mikhail Glinka as a model, they espoused a music that would incorporate elements from folk music, reject traditional Western methods of musical expression and use exotic harmonic devices such as the whole tone and octatonic scales.

Moreover, they saw Western-style conservatories as unnecessary and antipathetic to fostering native talent; imposing foreign academics and regimentation would stifle the Russian qualities Balakirev and Stassov wished to nurture. Followers trickled in. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, a naval cadet, followed in and Alexander Borodin, a chemist, in Like Balakirev, they were not professionally trained in composition but possessed varying degrees of musical proficiency.

Together, the five composers became known as the moguchaya kuchka , translated into English as the Mighty Handful or The Five. His founding a professional institute where predominantly foreign professors taught alien musical practices heated the controversy to boiling point. Balakirev attacked Rubinstein for his musical conservatism and his belief in professional music training. Cui, who championed the nationalist cause as a music critic for the next half-century, wrote a blistering review of a cantata Tchaikovsky had composed as his graduation thesis.

The review devastated the composer. Tchaikovsky, now Professor of Music Theory at the Moscow Conservatory, had already promised his Characteristic Dances to that ensemble but felt ambivalent. He wanted to fulfil his commitment, but had concerns over sending his composition to someone whose musical aims ran counter to his own and could thus be considered hostile.

He eventually sent the Dances but enclosed a request for encouragement should they not be performed. Balakirev, whose influence over the other composers in The Five had meanwhile waned, may have sensed the potential for a new disciple in Tchaikovsky.

These letters set the tone for their relationship over the next two years. The group also welcomed his Second Symphony, subtitled the Little Russian. In its original form, Tchaikovsky allowed the unique characteristics of Russian folk song to dictate the symphonic form of its outer movements, rather than Western rules of composition. This was a primary aim of The Five. However, Tchaikovsky became dissatisfied with this approach, choosing to make a large cut in the finale and rewrite the opening movement along Western lines when he revised the symphony seven years later.

Despite his collaboration with Balakirev, Tchaikovsky made considerable efforts to ensure his musical independence from the group as well as from the conservative faction at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. The disappointments in between exacerbated a lifelong sensitivity to criticism. Eventually, Rubinstein reconsidered and took up the work. Another was a new attitude becoming prevalent among Russian audiences.

Previously, they had been satisfied with flashy virtuoso performances of technically demanding but musically lightweight compositions. They gradually began listening with increasing appreciation of the music itself.

Tchaikovsky began to compose operas. His first, The Voyevoda , based on a play by Alexander Ostrovsky, was premiered in The composer became dissatisfied with it and, having re-used parts of it in later works, destroyed the manuscript. Undina followed in Only excerpts were performed and it, too, was destroyed. Between these projects, he started to compose an opera called Mandragora , to a libretto by Sergei Rachinskii; the only music he completed was a short chorus of Flowers and Insects.

The first Tchaikovsky opera to survive intact, The Oprichnik , premiered in During its composition, he fell out with Ostrovsky. Mussorgsky, writing to Vladimir Stasov, disapproved of the opera as pandering to the public.

Nevertheless, The Oprichnik continues to be performed from time to time in Russia. The last of the early operas, Vakula the Smith Op. Tchaikovsky was declared the winner, but at the premiere the opera enjoyed only a lukewarm reception. It has also at times caused considerable confusion, from Soviet efforts to expunge all references to same-sex attraction and portray him as a heterosexual, to efforts at armchair analysis by Western biographers.

Tchaikovsky lived as a bachelor most of his life. In , at the age of 37, he wed a former student, Antonina Miliukova. The marriage was a disaster. He was also aided by Nadezhda von Meck, the widow of a railway magnate who had begun contact with him not long before the marriage. As well as an important friend and emotional support, she also became his patroness for the next 13 years, which allowed him to focus exclusively on composition.

More debatable is how comfortable the composer felt with his sexual nature. There are currently two schools of thought. Both groups agree that Tchaikovsky remained aware of the negative consequences should knowledge of his orientation become public, especially of the ramifications for his family. Modest shared his sexual orientation and became his literary collaborator, biographer and closest confidant. Tchaikovsky was eventually surrounded by an adoring group of male relatives and friends, which may have aided him in achieving some sort of psychological balance and inner acceptance of his sexual nature.

The level of official tolerance Tchaikovsky may have experienced, which could fluctuate depending on the broad-mindedness of the ruling Tsar, is also open to question. Russian society, with its surface veneer of Victorian propriety, may have been no less tolerant than the government. In any case, Tchaikovsky chose not to neglect social convention and stayed conservative by nature.

His love life remained complicated. A combination of upbringing, timidity and deep commitment to relatives precluded his living openly with a male lover. A similar blend of personal inclination and period decorum kept him from having sexual relations with those in his social circle. He regularly sought out anonymous encounters, many of which he reported to Modest; at times, these brought feelings of remorse. He also attempted to be discreet and adjust his tastes to the conventions of Russian society.

Nevertheless, many of his colleagues, especially those closest to him, may have either known or guessed his true sexual nature. There is no reason however to suppose that these personal travails impacted negatively on the quality of his musical inspiration or capacity. Undeterred, and while still privately preferring a homosexual lifestyle, the composer discussed wedding plans at length with his father. By the end of , Tchaikovsky had fallen in love with Iosif Kotek, a former student from the Moscow Conservatory.

Though he wrote to Modest that Kotek reciprocated his feelings, the composer distanced himself a few months later when Kotek proved to be unfaithful. At roughly the same time another friend, Vladimir Shilovsky, suddenly married.

Tchaikovsky did not take the news well. He and Shilovsky, who may have also been homosexual, had shared a mutual bond of affection for just over a decade. Tchaikovsky had previously mentioned the possibility of marriage to Modest, out of concern that public knowledge of his sexuality might scandalize his family. Modest and their sister Sasha, in turn, had warned against such a step.

In doing so, he did not consider several factors. One was that his feelings on the matter may have been conflicted. Age alone would make that lifestyle much harder to discard or ignore than if he had married much earlier. In July , Tchaikovsky married another former student, Antonina Miliukova, after receiving a series of impassioned letters from her. To ensure there would be no interference, he told only Anatoly and his father of his engagement. He did not inform Modest or Sasha until the day before his wedding or Vladimir Shilovsky until the day of the wedding.

He invited only Anatoly to the ceremony. Almost as soon as the wedding ended, Tchaikovsky felt he had made a mistake and soon afterwards found that he and Antonina were incompatible psychologically and sexually. If Tchaikovsky attempted to explain his sexual mores to his wife, she did not understand. As time passed, Tchaikovsky may have realized that marriage itself, not simply Antonina, may have been wrong for him. Money matters and an inability to compose compounded the situation and drove Tchaikovsky to deeper levels of despair.

The couple lived together for only two and a half months before the mounting emotional crisis forced him to leave. He traveled to Clarens, Switzerland for rest and recovery. He and Antonina remained legally married but never lived together again nor had any children, though Antonina later gave birth to three children by another man.

He never blamed Antonina for the failure of their marriage and he apparently never again considered matrimony or considered himself capable of loving women in the same manner as other men.

Any news of her, regardless of how minor or innocent, would cause Tchaikovsky loss of sleep and appetite, an inability to work, and for him to fixate on imminent death. She was eventually joined by timber merchant Mitrofan Belyayev, railway magnate Savva Mamontov and textile manufacturer Pavel Tretyakov.

Von Meck differed from her fellow philanthropists in two ways. First, instead of promoting nationalist artists, she helped Tchaikovsky, who was seen as a composer of the Western-oriented aristocracy. Second, while Belyayev, Mamontov and Tretyakov made a public display of their largess, von Meck conducted her support of Tchaikovsky as a largely private matter. In , Kotek suggested commissioning some pieces for violin and piano from Tchaikovsky.

Von Meck, who had liked what she had heard of his music, agreed. Von Meck and Tchaikovsky exchanged well over 1, letters, making theirs perhaps the most closely documented relationship between patron and artist.

In these letters Tchaikovsky was more open about his creative processes than he was to any other person. Von Meck eventually paid Tchaikovsky an annual subsidy of 6, rubles, which enabled him to concentrate on composition. With this patronage came a relationship that, while remaining epistolary, grew extremely intimate.

She suddenly ceased her financial subsidy in as a result of her own financial difficulties. While Tchaikovsky was not in as urgent a need of her money as he had been, her friendship and encouragement had remained an integral part of his emotional life. He remained bewildered and resentful about her absence for the remaining three years of his life, and she was just as distressed about his apparent dropping of her friendship, which she was led to believe was because he had never cared for her personally and he had no further use for her once her subsidy had stopped.

This was completely untrue. Tchaikovsky remained abroad for a year after the disintegration of his marriage, during which he completed Eugene Onegin , orchestrated the Fourth Symphony and composed the Violin Concerto. He returned to the Moscow Conservatory in the autumn of but only as a temporary move; he informed Nikolai Rubinstein on the day of his arrival that he would stay no longer than December. Once his professorship had ended officially, he traveled incessantly throughout Europe and rural Russia.

Assured of a regular income from von Meck, he lived mainly alone, did not stay long anywhere and avoided social contact whenever possible. His troubles with Antonina continued. She agreed to divorce him, then refused. While he was on an extended visit to Moscow, she moved into an apartment directly above where he was staying. This could be why his best work from this period, except for the piano trio which he wrote upon the death of Nikolai Rubinstein, is found in genres which did not require deep personal expression.

In , the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour neared completion in Moscow; the 25th anniversary of the coronation of Alexander II in was imminent; and the Moscow Arts and Industry Exhibition was in the planning stage. Nikolai Rubinstein suggested a grand commemorative piece for association with these related festivities.

Tchaikovsky began the project in October , finishing it within six weeks. On 23 March , Nikolai Rubinstein died in Paris. Tchaikovsky, holidaying in Rome, went immediately to attend the funeral. Petersburg in November Now 44 years old, in Tchaikovsky began to shed his unsociability and restlessness.

Vladimir fourth class , which carried with it hereditary nobility and won Tchaikovsky a personal audience with the Tsar. I saw the whole audience was moved, and grateful to me. Thanks to these it is worth living and laboring. Its only other production had been by students from the Conservatory.

In addition, thanks to Ivan Vsevolozhsky, Director of the Imperial Theaters and a patron of the composer, Tchaikovsky was awarded a lifetime annual pension of 3, rubles from the Tsar. This made him the premier court composer, in practice if not in actual title. Despite his disdain for public life, Tchaikovsky now participated in it both as a consequence of his increasing celebrity and because he felt it his duty to promote Russian music.

He helped support his former pupil Sergei Taneyev, who was now director of Moscow Conservatory, by attending student examinations and negotiating the sometimes sensitive relations among various members of the staff.

He almost certainly died by his own hand of arsenic poisoning. Although some of the individual scenes owe much to Russell's colourful imagination, the central theme of a tormented homosexual marrying and then becoming physically repulsed by an unstable admirer, is essentially accurate. Remarkably this was the condition imposed on Tchaikovsky by his wealthy benefactress, Nadezhda von Meck. She loved and shared a profound understanding of his music, but preferred not to get involved with him personally.

When his inspiration was running low, Tchaikovsky found it difficult to compose his way out of a rut. But once he was on a roll, he poured forth breathtaking music at a level rarely equalled and never surpassed by any other Romantic composer.

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