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.

The _Marche Slave_ was written in 1876 for a benefit concert to raise funds for soldiers wounded in the Turko-Serbian war, which presently merged into a greater war between Turkey and Russia. It is based largely on the old Russian anthem, “God Save the Emperor,” and some South Slavonic and Serbian tunes. The main theme has been traced to the Serbian folk song, _Sunce varko ne fijas jednako_ (“Come, my dearest, why so sad this morning?”). Divided into three sections, the march features fragments of the old Czarist hymn in the middle portion. How the hymn itself came to be written is told by its author, Alexis Feodorovich Lvov:

“In 1833, I accompanied the Emperor Nicholas during his travels in Prussia and Austria. When we had returned to Russia I was informed by Count von Benkendorf that the sovereign regretted that we Russians had no national anthem of our own, and that, as he was tired of the English tune which had filled the gap for many years, he wished me to see whether I could not compose a Russian hymn.

“The problem appeared to me to be an extremely difficult and serious one. When I recalled the imposing British national anthem, ‘God Save the King,’ the very original French one and the really touching Austrian hymn, I felt and appreciated the necessity of writing something big, strong and moving; something national that should resound through a church as well as through the ranks of an army; something that could be taken up by a huge multitude and be within the reach of every man, from the dunce to the scholar. The idea absorbed me, but I was worried by the conditions thus imposed on the work with which I had been commissioned.

“One evening as I was returning home very late, I thought out and wrote down in a few minutes the tune of the hymn. The next day I called on Shoukovsky to ask him to write the words; but he was no musician and had much trouble to adapt them to the phrases of the first section of the melody.

“At last I was able to announce the completion of the hymn to Count von Benkendorf. The Emperor wished to hear it, and came on November 23 to the chapel of the Imperial Choir, accompanied by the Empress and the Grand Duke Michael. I had collected the whole body of choristers and re-enforced them by two orchestras. The sovereign asked for the hymn to be repeated several times, expressed a wish to hear it sung without accompaniment, and then had it played first of all by each orchestra separately and then finally by all the executants together. His Majesty turned to me and said in French: ‘Why, it’s superb!’ and then and there gave orders to Count von Benkendorf to inform the Minister of War that the hymn was to be adopted for the army. The order to this effect was issued December 4, 1883. The first public performance of the hymn was on December 11, 1883, at the Grand Theater in Moscow. The Emperor seemed to want to submit my work to the judgment of the Moscow public. On December 25 the hymn resounded through the rooms of the Winter Palace on the occasion of the blessing of the colors.

“As proof of his satisfaction the Emperor graciously presented me with a gold snuff-box studded with diamonds, and in addition gave orders that the words ‘God Save the Tsar’ should be placed on the armorial bearings of the Lvov family.”

_Overture 1812_, OPUS 49

Although clearly a _pièce d’occasion_ prompted by the commemoration of a crucial page in Russian history, the _Overture 1812_ is a minor mystery in the Tschaikowsky catalogue. Supposedly Nicholas Rubinstein commissioned Tschaikowsky in 1880 to write a festival overture for the Moscow Exhibition. At least the composer admits as much in letters to Nadezhka von Meck and the conductor Napravnik.

But his friend Kashkin insisted the piece was requested for the ceremonies consecrating the Moscow Cathedral of the Saviour, intended to symbolize Russia’s part in the Napoleonic struggle. The overture, accordingly, pictured the great events beginning with the Battle of Borodino (September 7, 1812) and ending with Napoleon’s flight from Moscow, after the city was set aflame. To make it more effective, the work was to be performed in the public square before the cathedral. An electric connection on the conductor’s desk would set off salvos of real artillery, and all Moscow would thrill with thoughts of its heroic past. In any case Tschaikowsky finished the overture at Kamenka in 1880, and though the cathedral was dedicated in the summer of 1881, there is no record of the planned street scene having come off.

Instead, we find Tschaikowsky offering the overture to Eduard Napravnik, then directing the Imperial Musical Society of St. Petersburg: “Last winter, at Nicholas Rubinstein’s request, I composed a Festival Overture for the concerts of the exhibition, entitled ‘1812.’” Tschaikowsky then makes a statement that possibly suggests an earlier rebuff: “Could you possibly manage to have this played? It is not of great value, and I shall not be at all surprised or hurt if you consider the style of the music unsuitable to a symphony concert.” Apparently Napravnik turned down the overture, and its première was postponed to August 20, 1882, when it figured on an all-Tschaikowsky concert in the Art and Industrial Exhibition at Moscow.

Tschaikowsky’s attitude to the work is further expressed in the letter to his patroness-saint Mme. von Meck. There he speaks of the overture as “very noisy” and having “no great artistic value” because it was written “without much warmth of enthusiasm.” And in a diary entry of the time he refers to it as having “only local and patriotic significance.”

The “patriotic significance,” of course, is what gives the overture its _raison d’être_ as a motion picture of historical events. Tschaikowsky’s brushstrokes are bold and obvious. The French and Russians are clearly depicted through the use of the Czarist National Anthem and the _Marseillaise_. Fragments of Cossack and Novgorod folk songs enter the scheme, and the battle and fire scenes are as plain as pictures. As the overture develops, one envisions the clash of arms at Borodino, with the Russians stiffly disputing every step and the _Marseillaise_ finally rising dominant. The Russians are hurled back; the French are in Moscow. Finally the city is ablaze and the dismal rout begins, as cathedral bells mingle with the roll of drums and the hymn, _God Preserve Thy People_, surges out in a paean of victory.

_Capriccio Italien_, OPUS 45

Described by Edwin Evans as a “bundle of Italian folk-tunes,” the _Capriccio Italien_ draws partly on published collections of such melodies and partly on popular airs heard by Tschaikowsky in 1880 while touring Italy. “I am working on a sketch of an ‘Italian Fantasia’ based on folksongs,” he notifies his patroness-confidante, Nadeshka von Meck, from Rome on February 17, 1880. “Thanks to the charming themes, some of which I have heard in the streets, the work will be effective.”

Tschaikowsky’s room at the Hotel Constanzi overlooked the barracks of the Royal Cuirassiers. Apparently the bugle-call sounded nightly in the barracks yards contributed another theme “heard in the streets,” for it may be heard in the trumpet passage of the introduction. The _Italian Fantasia_ was fully sketched out in Rome and the orchestration begun. With the title now changed to _Capriccio Italien_, the work was completed that summer on Tschaikowsky’s return to Russia. Nicholas Rubinstein directed the première at Moscow on December 18, 1880. Six years later Walter Damrosch introduced it to America at a concert in the Metropolitan Opera House, the precise date being November 6, 1886.

After the introductory section, the strings chant a lyric theme of slightly melancholy hue, which the orchestra then develops. Later the oboes announce, in thirds, a simple folk melody of less sombre character. This, too, is elaborately worked out, before the tempo changes and violins and flutes bring in another tune. This promptly subsides as a brisk march section sets in, followed by a return of the opening theme. There is a transition to a lively tarantella, then another bright theme in triple rhythm, and finally the Presto section, with a second tarantella motif leading to a brilliant close.

“It is a piece of music which relies entirely on its orchestration for its effects,” writes Evans in the Master Musicians Series. “Its musical value is comparatively slight, but the coloring is so vivid and so fascinating, and the movement throughout so animated, that one does not realize this when listening to the work. It is only afterwards that one experiences certain pangs of regret that such a rich garment should bedeck so thin a figure.”

SUITE FOR STRINGS, _Souvenir de Florence_, OPUS 70

Compared with his output in other forms, Tschaikowsky’s chamber music is small, consisting of an early quartet, of which only the first movement survives, three complete string quartets, a trio, and the _Souvenir de Florence_, written for violins, violas, and ’cellos in pairs.

As the title implies, the work grew out of a visit to Italy early in 1890, though as a clew to the mood and manner of the music, _Souvenir de Florence_ is a better title for the first two movements than for the others. The remaining _Allegretto moderato_ and _Allegro vivace_ bear an Italian “memory” only insofar as much other music by Tschaikowsky and other composers may share the same quality. Even a marked Slavic character is evident in places, which is only natural. As is well known, Tschaikowsky’s overture-fantasy _Romeo and Juliet_ is often dubbed “Romeo and Juliet of the Steppes.”

A first mention of the _Souvenir_ occurs in a letter to Ippolitoff-Ivanoff dated May 5, 1890, written shortly after Tschaikowsky’s return from abroad. It is quoted by his brother Modeste: “My visit brought forth good fruit. I composed an opera, ‘Pique Dame,’ which seems a success to me.... My plans for the future are to finish the orchestration of the opera, sketch out a string sextet [the _Souvenir_], go to my sister at Kamenka for the end of the summer, and spend the whole autumn with you at Tiflis.”

On the following June 30 he communicated news of the sextet to his patroness-saint Mme. von Meck, hoping she would be “pleased to hear” about it. “I know your love of chamber music,” he writes, “and I hope the work will please you. I wrote it with the greatest enthusiasm and without the least exertion.”

In November Tschaikowsky went to St. Petersburg for a rehearsal of _Pique Dame_. While there he arranged for a private hearing of the sextet by friends. The performance left him cold and he resolved to rewrite the Scherzo and Finale. By the following May the work was thoroughly remodelled. It was not till June, 1892, while in Paris, that he actually completed the revision to his satisfaction.

The four movements comprise an _Allegro con spirito_ (D minor, 4-4), an _Adagio cantabile e con moto_ (D major, 3-4), an _Allegretto moderato_ (A minor, 2-4), and an _Allegro vivace_ (D minor-D major, 2-4). The form is largely that of the classical string quartet, though characteristically bold and novel devices of color and structure abound. Often the strings are ingeniously treated to suggest wind instruments, and one senses Tschaikowsky’s frequent striving for orchestral effects.

Research has failed to unearth the “opprobrious epithets” Tschaikowsky is alleged to have heaped upon this slight but appealing work.

OVERTURE-FANTASY, _Romeo and Juliet_

Shortly before the overture-fantasy on Shakespeare’s tragedy took shape in Tschaikowsky’s mind, he had been jilted by the French soprano Désirée Artôt, then enjoying a prodigious vogue as opera singer in St. Petersburg. The twenty-eight-year-old composer and Mlle. Artôt had become engaged in 1868, but the lady promptly left him and married the Spanish baritone Padilla y Ramos. The theory is that Tschaikowsky’s composition grew out of the resulting emotional upset, or at least that his frame of mind conduced to tragic expression on a romantic theme.

The Artôt episode acted as stimulus, but the concrete suggestion for using Shakespeare’s tragedy in a symphonic work came from Balakireff during a walk with Tschaikowsky and their friend Kashkin “on a lovely day in May.” Balakireff, head of the group of five young Russian composers (Tschaikowsky was not one of them) bent on achieving a pure national idiom, went so far as to outline the scheme to Tschaikowsky, unfolding the possibilities of dramatic and musical co-ordination so vividly that the young composer took eagerly to the project. Balakireff even furnished the keys and hints for themes and development.

However, four months went by before Tschaikowsky plunged into the actual composition of the overture-fantasy. Balakireff kept in close touch with him and virtually supervised the process. His dogmatism and narrowness often bored and irritated the young composer. Balakireff accepted this and rejected that, was pitilessly graphic in his comments, and yet somehow egged on the hypersensitive Tschaikowsky to completion of a taxing assignment. Finally, in January of the following year, Balakireff and Rimsky-Korsakoff came to visit him and he could write: “My overture pleased them very much and it also pleases me.” Still, the Moscow public responded coolly, and Tschaikowsky felt obliged to revise much of the score that summer. Further rewriting was done for the definitive edition brought out in 1881.

The thematic scheme is easy to follow. Friar Laurence takes his bow in a solemn andante introduction for clarinets and bassoons in F-sharp minor. The feud of the Montagues and Capulets rages in a B minor allegro. Romeo and Juliet enter via muted violins and English horn in a famous theme in D-flat major suggesting Tschaikowsky’s song _Wer nur die Sehnsucht kennt_ (“None But the Lonely Heart”). The strife-torn Montagues and Capulets return for another bout. Chords of muted violins and violas hinting at mystery and secrecy bring back the love music. The themes of Romeo and Juliet, the embattled families, and Friar Laurence are heard in succession, followed by a fierce orchestral crash, and the storm subsides to a roll of kettledrums.

_Francesca da Rimini_, FANTASIA FOR ORCHESTRA (AFTER DANTE), OPUS 32

Written in 1876, Tschaikowsky’s symphonic treatment of the celebrated love story of Paolo and Francesca grew out of an original project for an opera on the same subject. He abandoned the idea of an opera when the libretto submitted to him proved impossible. Later Tschaikowsky again read through the fifth canto of Dante’s _Inferno_, in which the tragedy is related. Stirred by the verses and also by Gustave Doré’s illustrations, he resolved to write an orchestral fantasy on the subject.

Prefacing the score are the following lines from Dante’s great poem:

“Dante arrives in the second circle of hell. He sees that here the incontinent are punished, and their punishment is to be continually tormented by the crudest winds under a dark and gloomy air. Among these tortured ones he recognizes Francesca da Rimini, who tells her story.

“‘ ... There is no greater pain than to recall a happy time in wretchedness; and this thy teacher knows. But if thou hast such desire to learn the first root of our love, I will do like one who weeps and tells.

“‘One day, for pastime, we read of Lancelot, how love constrained him. We were alone, and without all suspicion. Several times reading urged our eyes to meet, and changed the color of our faces. But one moment alone it was that overcame us. When we read of how the fond smile was kissed by such a lover, he, who shall never be divided from me, kissed my mouth all trembling. The book, and he who wrote it, was a Galeotto. That day we read in it no farther.’

“While the one spirit thus spake, the other wept so that I fainted with pity, as if I had been dying; and fell, as a dead body falls.”

Tschaikowsky used to insist that the following titles be given in the program-book at performances of his fantasia: