'The Nutcrackers' By Tchaikovsky

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky is the author of six symphonies and the finest and most popular operas in the Russian repertory. Tchaikovsky was also one of the founders of the school of Russian music. He was a brilliant composer with a creative imagination that helped his career throughout many years. He was completely attached to his art. His life and art were inseparably woven together. "I literally cannot live without working," Tchaikovsky once wrote, "for as soon as one piece of work is finished and one would wish to relax, I desire to tackle some new work without delay." The purpose of this paper is to give you a background concerning Tchaikovsky's biography, as well as to discuss his various works of

Many artists created and performed music during the period of Romanticism in Europe. Artists during this period masterfully combined multiple musical components to create memorable pieces that they delivered to the public through performances. The artists combined musical components such as form, texture, tempo, melodic range, articulation, dynamic(s), and timbre to create an enjoyable musical experience. By utilizing all of the different musical components, composers created timeless pieces that attracted large crowds of commoners as well as noble and royal families. Tchaikovsky was a musical composer that stood out from the rest of the musical composers during the Romantic period.

Tchaikovsky is one of the most popular of all composers. The reasons are several and understandable. His music is extremely tuneful, opulently and colourfully scored, and filled with emotional passion. Undoubtedly the emotional temperature of the music reflected the composer's nature. He was afflicted by both repressed homosexuality and by the tendency to extreme fluctuations between ecstasy and depression. Tchaikovsky was neurotic and deeply sensitive, and his life was often painful, but through the agony shone a genius that created some of the most beautiful of all romantic melodies. With his rich gifts for melody and special flair for writing memorable dance tunes, with his ready response to the atmosphere of a theatrical situation

During the latter part of his life, rumors emerged of Tchaikovsky being a homosexual. This effected how his works were received, mainly in the Western part of the world. According to Poznansky, “His music began to be criticized as sentimental, romantically excessive, charged with many imperfections and even pathological” (Poznansky, 2012). It is now known that although Tchaikovsky was married to Antonina Miliukova in July 1877, their marriage lasted less than three months. Tchaikovky admits to having homosexual escapades in 1861 and even to falling in love with a student, Losif Kotek. It is quite obvious that these events have no bearing on the popularity of his work now.

After Dvorak left the Organ School in 1859, he basically disappeared from the public eye for twelve years until 1871, which is when he emerged back into the public as a composer. For those twelve years he spent in seclusion, he was occupied with extensive writing in the classical form (8). To much grief and disappointment Dvorak’s first son died in September and his second daughter in October of 1877. These tragic losses were experienced within his grandiose oratorio “Stabat Mater.” For the next twenty years, Dvorak was invited to other European countries to conduct performances of his own works while enduring a struggling relationship with his publisher Hitherto Simrock (7).

It was during his tenure at Moscow Conservatory that Tchaikovsky wrote “Swan Lake” (his first ballet), “Eugene Onegin” (his first opera), his first four symphonies for orchestra, and his widely popular Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23. Throughout the middle of his life, Tchaikovsky experienced traumatic life experiences; from failed relationships and homosexual struggles that caused him personal grief, to an attempted suicide in 1877, his emotional turmoil forced doctors to order him to leave Russia for his own well being. It was during his time in Europe and Switzerland that Tchaikovsky composed his Violin Concerto in D and completed his Symphony No. 4, which was inspired by folk songs of his homeland. Tchaikovsky also played an important role in the musical development of Sergei Rachmaninoff, as Rachmaninoff studied Tchaikovsky’s music under the tutelage of composer Aleksandr Zverev. Tchaikovsky also promoted Rachmaninoff’s opera “Aleko” to the point of the work being accepted and performed in the repertoire at Moscow’s Bolshoi

For my Concert Attendance Report, I decided to view the Music’s Emotional Impact on PBS as I wasn’t able to attend a live orchestra performance. This video captivated a small introduction to Tchaikovsky’s life as well as having one of his well accomplished songs, Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Op. 36 be played by the All-Star Orchestra, which was directed and conducted by Gerard Schwarz. Tchaikovsky wrote this symphony when he was 37 years old when he was in rough patch in life. Tchaikovsky was homosexual and he married a woman, Antonia Miliukova, whom he didn’t love because he didn’t want people to suspect he was different, but to no surprise the marriage didn’t last long and he soon divorced. Tchaikovsky later met Nadezhda von Meck. She impacted

Tchaikovsky=s first masterpiece was composed from 1869-1870. It was a symphonic fantasy based on Shakespeare=s Romeo and Juliet. ARomeo and Juliet@ was the first of Tchaikovsky=s works in which his superbly

The music of Stravinsky has always been “ahead of time” in the way of using new and different ways of presenting music. His early ballets such as Firebird, Petrushka, and The Rite of Spring being a great example of his modernism and will to compose music which is both innovative and shocking. For this essay I have chosen to write about The Firebird (1910) and The Rite of Spring (1913). Firebird was Stravinsky’s first Ballet and his first composition that reached many people because of its modernism and exoticism. The Rite of Spring is still renowned for its portrayal of primitivism, a concept that was accentuated by the riot that happened at its premiere.

The early piano sonatas of Beethoven deserve special mention. Although his first published examples of concertos and trios and the first two symphonies are beneath the masterpieces of Mozart and Haydn, the piano sonatas bear an unmistakably Beethovian stamp: grandiose in scope and length, and innovative in their range of expression. The sonatas were able to move expression from terrible rage to peals of laughter to deep depression so suddenly. Capturing this unpredictable style in his music, a new freedom of expression which broke the bounds of Classical ideals, was to position Beethoven as a disturbed man in the minds of some of his contemporaries. Furthermore, he was to be seen as the father of Romanticism and the single most important innovator of music in the minds of those after him. (Bookspan 27).

During his years in Moscow, Tchaikovsky was able to teach, compose, write, travel, and associate with other composers of the time. With one of those, Balakirev, a member of a group of Russian composers known as "the Five", he formed a close friendship, and from him he gained the idea for the fantasy overture Romeo and Juliet. But the relationship between him and the Five soured, and he even later parodied in one of ballets their use of certain folk melodies over and over again. Although Tchaikovsky was enjoying life in Moscow among his composer friends, he found himself constantly in periods of deep depressions and unhappiness. The largest contributor to his bouts of depression and sadness was his self-hatred and guilt that he had from carrying a heavy secret: Tchaikovsky was gay.

From September of 1850 to May of 1859, Tchaikovsky attended the School of Jurisprudence. At this boarding school in St. Petersburg, he received an excellent education and further pursued his interest in music. During this time,

It is in this restoration that Mussorgsky’s talent for establishing a Russian National sound can be heard. Some of the movements are intended to reflect different cultures through the eyes of a Russian viewing a painting. The “Tuileries” reflects a French sound as “Samuel Goldenberg und Schmuyle‎” reflect a Yiddish sound. Mussorgsky accomplished this through modal harmonies and his modulations are done to reflect the feeling of moving from one painting to the next. Just as he creates French and Yiddish sounds, the finale of the piece, “The Great Gates of Kiev,” carries

In the collapsed Russian Empire, modern generations grasp onto national strength and pride in their remembrance of their pasts. In art, the Russian people immortalize their history through songs about their true inner power and endurance. Bands like Alisa, DDT, Gazmanov, and Arkona comment on the state of modern Russia in comparison to it's past, and while some bands idealize the inner Slavs of the Russian people, others glorify their endurance, and others still are accepting of the new lack of strength in the modern Russian. As Russia reevaluates it's past, each voice acts as a foothold on which Russia regains it's balance.

For many music is a way to communicate and express someone’s emotions. This is one of the many beauties people find in this art form. This researcher paper is about the life and work of Anton Bruckner, a great composer of the romantic period. The research paper will be focus from Bruckner’s early life to his last moments.