Tschaikowsky and his orchestral music — Background and Themes

s damaged nervous system and jarred self-confidence to normalcy. Unfavorable reviews stung him like wasps. And while Moscow often evidenced great enthusiasm for his music, St. Petersburg was harder to please. The press there was often virulent with abuse.

Then Tschaikowsky pinned great hopes on his operas _Eugene Onegin_ and _Pique Dame_ (“The Queen of Spades”). Both proved fiascos at their premières, though the public and press later revised their opinions drastically. Moreover, reports reached him of the cold reception accorded his _Romeo and Juliet_ in Paris and the catcalls greeting his music in Vienna. And there was a music critic named Eduard Hanslick in Vienna who kept Tschaikowsky awake nights wondering what new critical blast was awaiting his latest Viennese première.

Ironically, America and England were the only two countries instantly attracted to Tschaikowsky’s music. There his prestige rose with each new symphony or overture. Cambridge University conferred an honorary doctor’s degree on him in 1893. Europe was soon to be won over, however. Despite an often hostile press, the music publics of France, Germany, and Austria began clamoring for more and more of his music, and conductors were forced to acquiesce. But to the end he remained a sorrowing and morose man, hypersensitive, even morbidly so, but almost always the soul of kindliness and punctilio. When, on the invitation of Walter Damrosch, Tschaikowsky came to America in 1891, he was widely acclaimed by public and press. While here he gave six concerts in all, four in New York, one in Baltimore and one in Philadelphia. In New York he was guest of honor on the programs of the New York Symphony Society celebrating the opening of the Music Hall, now Carnegie Hall. The festival lasted from May 5 to May 9, and Tschaikowsky was widely feted socially and professionally. He conducted several of his own works in the hall constructed largely from funds provided by the steel magnate, Andrew Carnegie.

The year 1877 is an important one in the chronicle of Tschaikowsky’s life. He made his one disastrous experiment in marriage with a romantic-minded young conservatory student named Antonina Miliukov. The girl had aroused his pity and alarm by her passionate avowals of love and equally passionate threats of suicide. The story is discussed below in my account of the Fourth Symphony, which grew partly out of that distressing episode. Suffice it here to note that the experience was so shattering to Tschaikowsky that he attempted to end his life by standing up to his neck at night in the freezing waters of the Neva River. Antonina eventually died in an insane asylum. Tschaikowsky formed another alliance that year, one far more profitable and far less nerve-wracking than his short tie with Mlle. Miliukov. This was his famous friendship with Nadezhka von Meck, a wealthy and cultivated widow. Out of profound admiration for his music and a probable romantic hope to become Mrs. Tschaikowsky, Mme. von Meck settled an annuity amounting to $3,000 on the destitute and ailing composer. The gift continued for thirteen years. Many letters about life, music, and people were exchanged between Tschaikowsky and his Lady Bountiful. The two never met, however. Tschaikowsky’s Fourth Symphony is dedicated to this remarkable woman, who was the most famous Fairy Godmother in music.

Although Tschaikowsky himself thought of the _Pathetic_ symphony as his crowning masterpiece, the première on October 28, 1893, in St. Petersburg proved a disappointment. Tschaikowsky took it bitterly. Two weeks later, however, the tables were turned. Everybody acclaimed it warmly. But Tschaikowsky was not there to bow his acknowledgment. He had fallen victim to the cholera epidemic then raging in St. Petersburg. Though warned by the authorities, Tschaikowsky drank some unboiled water on November 2. Four days later he was dead. No symphony was more appropriately named than this melancholy masterpiece, the _Pathetic_ symphony, the brooding phrases of which sound truly like the “swan song” of a tired and abysmally disillusioned man of genius.

MARCHES, OVERTURES, FANTASIAS, ETC.

_Marche Slave_, OPUS 31

The _Marche Slave_ stands foremost among Tschaikowsky’s marches, of which he wrote numerous, including several incorporated in his operas and suites. Most of them were composed for special purposes or occasions. There is the _Marche Solennelle_, written “for the Law Students,” which figured on the housewarming program at the opening of Carnegie Hall in May, 1891, besides a _Marche Militaire_, which he wrote for the band of the Czar’s 98th Infantry Regiment. In 1883 the city of Moscow requisitioned a _Coronation March_ from him. Earlier, Tschaikowsky had written a march in honor of the famous General Skobelev. But he held it in such low esteem that he allowed it to circulate as the work of a non-existent composer named Sinopov.