It's been quite a while since I've listened to classical music but now that I have time my preference is always Tchaikovsky's work. There are other immortal classics like the compositions of Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Brahms and Vivaldi but my favorite is Tchaikovsky's masterpieces.
If there is some genius with violin compositions, on top of my list is Tchaikovsky. My great appreciation for this magical instrument, the violin, came when my husband introduced me to gypsy music. And now that my son is learning how to play this instrument, the appreciation heightened to some great aspiration. Perhaps to see my son play with an orchestra or even Tchaikovsky's compositions would be a dream come true.
I know that not everyone likes classical music. We must not be secluded to the notion that this music is some kind of sleep-inducing therapy. If there are, then Tchaikovsky's work is not one of them. You have to listen to his music in order to believe what I am saying. I have posted his violin concerto, movement 1, 2 & 3 in this blog but please take time to listen to his masterpiece. Maybe then it will change your misconceptions…maybe then you like classical music and you will tell me that Tchaikovsky is a REAL genius! Happy listening!
Jascha Heifetz plays Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto: 1st mov.
David Oistrakh plays Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto (2nd Mov.)
David Oistrakh plays Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto (3rd Mov.)
In an attempt to discern more about the man behind such wonderful workmanship, I am compelled to make a small research about him. And these are the things I learned:
1. Pyotr (Peter) Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born on April 25, 1840 in a small town of Udmurtia in Russia.
2. He was the son of a mining engineer in the government mines and the second of his three wives, Alexandra, a Russian woman of French ancestry.
3. Musically inclined and intelligent, Pyotr began piano lessons at age five with a local woman, Mariya Palchikova, and within three years could read music as well as his teacher.
4. Despite Tchaikovsky's homosexuality, he got married to Antonina Miliukova, who persistently wrote her passionate letters. But two weeks after the wedding the composer supposedly attempted suicide by putting himself into the freezing Moscow River. Once recovered from the effects of that, he fled to St Petersburg his mind verging on a nervous breakdown. He never returned to his wife after that but did send her a regular allowance through the years. Though they never again lived with each other, they remained legally married until his death.
5. Tchaikovsky wrote several works well known among the general classical public—Romeo and Juliet, the 1812 Overture and Marche Slave.
6. Tchaikovsky is well known also for his ballets, The Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauty.
7. He also completed ten operas, although one of these is mostly lost and another exists in two significantly different versions. In the West his most famous operas are Eugene Onegin and The Queen of Spades.
8. Tchaikovsky demonstrated the Romantic ideals of color, emotional expressiveness, and dramatic intensity. He fused many elements of his style into a single symphonic experience — his love of dance and folk music, his feelings of the Russian countryside and people, and his sense of Fate.
9. Tchaikovsky was also typically Romantic in his choice of subject matter in his operas and symphonic poems. He leaned toward doomed lovers and heroines — Romeo and Juliet, Francesca and Paolo (Francesca da Rimini), Tatiana (Eugene Onegin), even the title character from his abandoned opera Undina.
10. He died of cholera on Nov. 6, 1893 at the age of 53.
If there is some genius with violin compositions, on top of my list is Tchaikovsky. My great appreciation for this magical instrument, the violin, came when my husband introduced me to gypsy music. And now that my son is learning how to play this instrument, the appreciation heightened to some great aspiration. Perhaps to see my son play with an orchestra or even Tchaikovsky's compositions would be a dream come true.
I know that not everyone likes classical music. We must not be secluded to the notion that this music is some kind of sleep-inducing therapy. If there are, then Tchaikovsky's work is not one of them. You have to listen to his music in order to believe what I am saying. I have posted his violin concerto, movement 1, 2 & 3 in this blog but please take time to listen to his masterpiece. Maybe then it will change your misconceptions…maybe then you like classical music and you will tell me that Tchaikovsky is a REAL genius! Happy listening!
Jascha Heifetz plays Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto: 1st mov.
David Oistrakh plays Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto (2nd Mov.)
David Oistrakh plays Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto (3rd Mov.)
In an attempt to discern more about the man behind such wonderful workmanship, I am compelled to make a small research about him. And these are the things I learned:
1. Pyotr (Peter) Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born on April 25, 1840 in a small town of Udmurtia in Russia.
2. He was the son of a mining engineer in the government mines and the second of his three wives, Alexandra, a Russian woman of French ancestry.
3. Musically inclined and intelligent, Pyotr began piano lessons at age five with a local woman, Mariya Palchikova, and within three years could read music as well as his teacher.
4. Despite Tchaikovsky's homosexuality, he got married to Antonina Miliukova, who persistently wrote her passionate letters. But two weeks after the wedding the composer supposedly attempted suicide by putting himself into the freezing Moscow River. Once recovered from the effects of that, he fled to St Petersburg his mind verging on a nervous breakdown. He never returned to his wife after that but did send her a regular allowance through the years. Though they never again lived with each other, they remained legally married until his death.
5. Tchaikovsky wrote several works well known among the general classical public—Romeo and Juliet, the 1812 Overture and Marche Slave.
6. Tchaikovsky is well known also for his ballets, The Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauty.
7. He also completed ten operas, although one of these is mostly lost and another exists in two significantly different versions. In the West his most famous operas are Eugene Onegin and The Queen of Spades.
8. Tchaikovsky demonstrated the Romantic ideals of color, emotional expressiveness, and dramatic intensity. He fused many elements of his style into a single symphonic experience — his love of dance and folk music, his feelings of the Russian countryside and people, and his sense of Fate.
9. Tchaikovsky was also typically Romantic in his choice of subject matter in his operas and symphonic poems. He leaned toward doomed lovers and heroines — Romeo and Juliet, Francesca and Paolo (Francesca da Rimini), Tatiana (Eugene Onegin), even the title character from his abandoned opera Undina.
10. He died of cholera on Nov. 6, 1893 at the age of 53.
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