List of compositions by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) wrote several works well known among the general classical public—Romeo and Juliet, the 1812 Overture, his three ballets The Nutcracker, Swan Lake, and The Sleeping Beauty. These, along with two of his four concertos, three of his six symphonies (seven if Manfred is included) and two of his 10 operas, are probably among his most familiar works. Almost as popular are the Manfred Symphony, Francesca da Rimini, the Capriccio Italien and the Serenade for Strings. His three string quartets and piano trio all contain beautiful passages, while recitalists still perform at least some of his 106 songs.[1] Tchaikovsky also wrote over 100 piano works, which range the entire span of his creative life. While some of these can be challenging technically, they are mostly charming, unpretentious compositions intended for amateur pianists.[2] However, there is more attractive and resourceful music in some of these pieces than one might be inclined to expect.[3]

Tchaikovsky's formal conservatory training allowed him to write works with Western-oriented attitudes and techniques. His music showcases a wide range and breadth of technique, from a poised "Classical" form simulating 18th century Rococo elegance, to a style more characteristic of Russian nationalists, or a musical idiom expressly to channel his own overwrought emotions.[4] Despite his reputation as a "weeping machine,"[1] self-expression was not a central principle for Tchaikovsky. In a letter to von Meck dated December 5, 1878, he explained there were two kinds of inspiration for a symphonic composer, a subjective and an objective one, and that program music could and should exist, just as it was impossible to demand that literature make do without the epic element and limit itself to lyricism alone. Correspondingly, the large scale orchestral works Tchaikovsky composed can be divided into two categories—symphonies in one category, and other works such as symphonic poems in the other. Both categories were equally valid.[5] Program music such as Francesca da Rimini or the Manfred Symphony was as much a part of the composer's artistic credo as the expression of his "lyric ego."[6] There is also a group of compositions which fall outside the dichotomy of program music versus "lyrical ego," where he hearkens toward pre-Romantic aesthetics. Works in this group include the four orchestral suites, Capriccio Italien, the Violin Concerto and the Serenade for Strings.[7]

Contents

[edit] Works by opus number

Works with opus numbers are listed in this section, together with their dates of composition. For a complete list of Tchaikovsky's works, including those without opus numbers, see here. For more detail on dates of composition, see here.

Opp. 75–80 were published posthumously.

[edit] Works by genre

[edit] Ballets

Original cast in the Imperial Ballet's original production of Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker, December 1892

Tchaikovsky's three ballets forced an aesthetic re-evaluation of music for that genre.[9] Before them, ballet music was written by specialists, such as Ludwig Minkus and Cesare Pugni, "who wrote nothing else and knew all the tricks of the trade."[10] Tchaikovsky's talents may have equipped him ideally for ballet. He was gifted melodically, able to write memorable dance music with great fluency, responsive to a theatrical atmosphere and proved a highly gifted orchestrator.[11] Despite initial complaints that Swan Lake was "too learned" and The Sleeping Beauty unusually complicated for ballet dancing, both works have become popular.[12] The Nutcracker, conceived as a ballet where children would play the leading roles, balances "a calculated naivete with concern for detail and characterization."[13] It too came under criticism, for the "nonsense" of the story as well as the ballet's structure, which was exceedingly free and original for its day. Paradoxically, both these perceived weaknesses ultimately worked to its advantage.[14]

[edit] Operas

According to Dutch musicologist Francis Maes, most of Tchaikovsky's operas failed for three reasons. First, the composer could not get good librettos, despite continued requests to some of Russia's leading playwrights and his brother Modest.[15] Second, he was no Verdi, Puccini or Leoncavalo. While he could write music that was often beautiful and sometimes very moving, it was generally not as arresting dramatically as anything those three provided.[15] Third, and perhaps most sadly, Tchaikovsky's enthusiasm for opera writing did not match his theatrical sense.[15] This need to plan or compose an opera was a constant preoccupation.[16] Apparently either unaware of this deficiency or unable to curb his excitement long enough to take a cold, hard look at the true stage-worthiness of a libretto, he seemed destined to repeat his failures.[17]

Yevgeny Onegin by Ilya Repin

Tchaikovsky broke this pattern twice. Eugene Onegin and The Queen of Spades were both strong stories, worthy of setting to music. Their author, Alexander Pushkin, was, if nothing else, a master storyteller. He was also a keep observer of human nature and his wry, penetrating observations of the human condition could be chilling and heart-breaking in the extreme. Moreover, both stories were a perfect match for the composer's talents. Tchaikovsky matched Pushkin's irony and detachment in Eugene Onegin, falling back on a series of musical conventions that, in turn, echoed the literary codes the author used in his "novel in verse."[18] More traditional writers, such as musicologist David Brown, also suggest that a passion and sympathy by the composer for the heroine, Tatiyana, heightened by parallels in the story to events in his own life, may have influenced the quality of music he supplied for Onegin.[19]

With The Queen of Spades, Modest's transposition of the story's timeline in the libretto to the 18th century was a boon for Tchaikovsky, whose favorite composer (and the one he most liked to emulate) was Mozart. The change allowed him to compose, in addition to impassioned love music, a number of 18th century pastiches depicting various social milieus.[20] Also, as the supernatural gradually takes possession of the characters, Tchaikovsky matches it with equally ghostly music.[21] He had already experimented in this vein in the transformation scene of The Sleeping Beauty showing an adeptness for orchestrating a strange, even unnerving sound world of dark fantasy. He would do so again in Act One of The Nutcracker,[22] capturing what Alexandre Benois would call a "world of captivating nightmares" and "a mixture of strange truth and convincing invention."[23]

Full score destroyed by composer, but posthumously reconstructed from sketches and orchestral parts. Not related to the much later symphonic ballad The Voyevoda, Op. 78.
  • Undina (Ундина or Undine, 1869)
Not completed. Only a march sequence from this opera saw the light of day, as the second movement of his Symphony No. 2 in C minor and a few other segments are occasionally heard as concert pieces. Interestingly, while Tchaikovsky revised the Second symphony twice in his lifetime, he did not alter the second movement (taken from the Undina material) during either revision. The rest of the score of Undina was destroyed by the composer.
Premiere April 24 [OS April 12], 1874, Saint Petersburg
Revised later as Cherevichki, premiere December 6 [OS November 24], 1876, Saint Petersburg
  • Eugene Onegin (Евгений Онегин or Yevgeny Onegin), Op. 24, 1877–1878
Premiere March 29 [OS March 17] 1879 at the Moscow Conservatory
Premiere February 25 [OS February 13], 1881, Saint Petersburg
Premiere February 15 [OS February 3] 1884, Moscow
  • Cherevichki (Черевички; revision of Vakula the Smith) 1885
Premiere January 31 [OS January 19], 1887, Moscow)
  • The Enchantress (or The Sorceress, Чародейка or Charodeyka), 1885–1887
Premiere November 1 [OS October 20] 1887, Saint Petersburg
Premiere December 19 [OS December 7] 1890, Saint Petersburg
  • Iolanta (Иоланта or Iolanthe), Op. 69, 1891
First performance: Mariinsky Theatre, Saint Petersburg, 1892. Originally performed on a double-bill with The Nutcracker

(Note: A "Chorus of Insects" was composed for the projected opera Mandragora [Мандрагора] of 1870).

[edit] Symphonies

Tchaikovsky's first three symphonies, while seemingly optimistic and nationalistic, are also chronicles of his attempts to reconcile his training from the Saint Petersburg Conservatory with Russian folk music and his own innate penchant for melody. Both worked against sonata form, the paramount architectural concept in Western classical music, not with it.[24][a 1] With the Fourth, Tchaikovsky hit upon a solution, which he would refine in his remaining two numbered symphonies—the integration of new and violent contrasts, not only between the first subject in the tonic key and the contrasting second subject in the dominant but also between thematic and harmonic contrasts. As a result, the later symphonies became intensely dramatic.[25] The Fourth, particularly in its very large opening movement, was a breakthrough work in emotional depth and complexity. The Fifth, while still not conventional, proved more regular,[26] while the Sixth, the Pathetique, is a work of prodigious originality and power. Generally considered a declaration of despair, it is perhaps one of the composer's most consistent and perfectly composed works.[27].

[edit] Concertos and concertante pieces

A chordal musical theme notated on two staves.
Main theme of the First Piano Concerto, (piano part)

Tchaikovsky wrote four concertos (three for piano, one for violin), two concertante works for soloist and orchestra (one each for piano and cello) and a couple of short works. The First Piano Concerto, while faulted traditionally for having its opening melody in the wrong key and never restating that tune in the rest of the piece, shows an expert use of tonal instability to enhance tension and increase the tone of restlessness and high drama.[28] The Violin Concerto, one of Tchaikovsky's freshest-sounding and least pretentious works, is filled with melodies that could have easily come from one of his ballets.[29] The Second Piano Concerto, more formal in tone and less extroverted than the First, contains prominent solos for violin and cello in its slow movement, giving the impression of a concerto grosso for piano trio and orchestra.[30] The Third Piano Concerto, initially the opening movement of a symphony in E flat, was left on Tchaikovsky's death as a single-movement composition. It is unclear whether he would have added two more movements or left it as is.[31] Tchaikovsky also promised a concerto for cello to Anatoliy Brandukov and one for flute to Claude-Paul Taffanel but died before he could work on either project in earnest.[a 2]

Of the concertante works, the Variations on a Rococo Theme for cello and orchestra was inspired by Mozart and shows Tchaikovsky's affinity for Classical style in its tastefulness and refined poise.[32] The Concert Fantasia for piano and orchestra is related in its light tone and unorthodox formal structure to the orchestral suites. (The opening movement, in fact, had originally been intended for the Third Suite.) Written as a display piece for the soloist, it hearkens back to a time when audiences concentrated more on the virtuosity of the performer than on the musical content of the piece being played.[33] The Andante and Finale for piano and orchestra was completed and orchestrated posthumously by Taneyev. Originally the second and fourth movements of the E-flat symphony, it is unclear whether Tchaikovsky would have used them to expand the Third Piano Concerto into a full-length work.[31]

Miscellaneous works include the following:

  • Sérénade mélancolique, Op. 26, for violin and orchestra.
The original slow movement of the Violin Concerto, Tchaikovsky replaced it with the Cazonetta currently in that work.
Dedicated to violinist Iosif Kotek, who assisted Tchaikovsky in composing the Violin Concerto, in part to make amends for not dedicating that work to Kotek.
Written for Anatoliy Brandukov in the somber key of B minor (the same key as the Pathétique Symphony), the composition's capriccioso aspect comes from Tchaikovsky's fanciful treatment of the work's simple theme.
This piece, lost for 106 years, was found in Saint Petersburg in 1999 and reconstructed by James Strauss.

[edit] Other orchestral works

[edit] Program music and commissioned pieces

Tchaikovsky wrote programmatic music throughout his career. While he complained to his patroness, Nadezhda von Meck, that doing so seemed like offering the public "paper money" as opposed to the "gold coin" of absolute music, he displayed a definite flair for the genre. The fantasy-overture Romeo and Juliet remains one of Tchaikovsky's best known works and its love theme among his most successful melodies. The piece, however, is actually one of three he wrote after works by Shakespeare. The Tempest, while not as successful overall as Romeo, contains a love theme that is extremely effective.[34] Hamlet differs from Romeo in depicting different emotional or psychological states of the title character rather than portraying specific events, an approach more akin to Franz Liszt in his symphonic poems.[35]

The 1812 overture complete with cannon fire was performed at the 2005 Classical Spectacular

Among the other works, Capriccio Italien is a travelogue of the composer's time there during his years of wandering and a conscious emulation of the Mediterranean episodes in Glinka's Spanish Overtures.[36] Francesca da Rimini contains a love theme in its central section that is one of Tchaikovsky's best examples of "unending melody." The composer was particularly fond of this work and conducted it often, most notably at Cambridge when he received his honorary doctorate in 1892. He was more ambivalent about his program symphony Manfred, inspired by Byron's poem of the same name and written to a program supplied by Balakirev. Written in four movements and for the largest orchestra Tchaikovsky employed, the piece remains a rarity in the concert hall but is being recorded with increasing frequency. The Storm and Fatum are early works; The Voyevoda dates from the same period as the Pathetique symphony.

Commissioned works include the 1812 Overture, known for its traditional Russian themes (such as the old Tsarist National Anthem) and its 16 cannon shots and chorus of church bells in the coda. Though Tchaikovsky did not value the piece highly, it has become perhaps his most widely known composition. Marche Slave (otherwise known as the Slavonic March) is a patriotic piece commissioned for a Red Cross benefit concert to support Russian troops in the Balkans.[37] Other commissioned works include a Festival Overture on the Danish National Anthem, written to commemorate the wedding of Crown Prince Alexander (who would become Alexander III),[38] and a Festival Coronation March, ordered by the city of Moscow for the coronation of Alexander III.[39]

[edit] Orchestral suites and Serenade

Tchaikovsky wrote four orchestral suites in the period between his Fourth and Fifth Symphonies. The first three are original music, while the fourth, subtitled Mozartiana, consists of arrangements of music by Mozart.[a 3] He valued the freedom the suites gave him to experiment and saw them as a genre for unrestricted musical fantasy.[40] They contain music in a number of styles—scholarly counterpoint, salon style, folk music, bizarre scherzos, character pieces—in an overall vein that Russians call prelest, which means "charming" or "pleasing".[41]

In addition to the above suites, Tchaikovsky made a short sketch for a Suite in 1889 or 1890, which was not subsequently developed.

Tchaikovsky himself arranged the suite from the ballet The Nutcracker. He also considered making suites from his two other ballets, Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty. He ended up not doing so, but after his death, others compiled and published suites from these ballets.

Like Capriccio Italien, the Serenade for Strings was inspired by Tchaikovsky's time in Italy and shares that work's relaxed buoyancy and melodic richenss. The first movement, "Pezzo in forma di Sonatina" ("In the form of a sonatina"), was an homage to Mozart. It shares some formal features with that composer's Overture to Le Nozze di Figaro but otherwise emulates his music only in wit and lightness, not in style.[42]

[edit] Incidental music

  • Dmitri the Pretender and Vassily Shuisky (1867), incidental music to Alexander Ostrovsky's play Dmitri the Pretender
  • The Snow Maiden (Snegurochka), Op. 12 (1873), incidental music for Ostrovsky's play of the same name. Ostrovsky adapted and dramatized a popular Russian fairy tale,[43] and the score that Tchaikovsky wrote for it was always one of his own favorite works. It contains much vocal music, but it is not a cantata or an opera.
  • Montenegrins Receiving News of Russia's Declaration of War on Turkey (1880), music for a tableau.
  • The Voyevoda (1886), incidental music for the Domovoy scene from Ostrovsky's A Dream on the Volga
  • Hamlet, Op. 67b (1891), incidental music for Shakespeare's play. The score uses music borrowed from Tchaikovsky's overture of the same name, as well as from his Symphony No. 3, and from The Snow Maiden, in addition to original music that he wrote specifically for a stage production of Hamlet. The two vocal selections are a song that Ophelia sings in the throes of her madness, and a song for the First Gravedigger to sing as he goes about his work.

[edit] Piano

[edit] Chamber music

[edit] Choral music

A considerable quantity of choral music (about 25 items), including:

[edit] Arrangements of the works of others[45]

Composer Work and forces Arranged for Date
Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 17 in D minor, Op. 31, No. 2, "Tempest", first movement Orchestra (4 versions) 1863
Beethoven Violin Sonata No. 9 in A, Op. 47 "Kreutzer", first movement Orchestra 1863–64
Bortniansky Complete Church Music, choir Choir, edited July – November 1881
Cimarosa "Le faccio un inchino", trio from Il matrimonio segreto (available for 3 voices and piano) 3 voices and orchestra 1870
Dargomyzhsky Little Russian Kazachok, orchestra Piano 1868
Dargomyzhsky "The golden cloud has slept", 3 voices and piano 3 voices and orchestra 1870
Dubuque Maria Dagmar Polka, piano Orchestra 1869
Glinka "Slavsya" from A Life for the Tsar, arr, couplets Mixed chorus and orchestra February 1883
Joseph Gungl Le Retour, waltz, piano Orchestra 1863–64
Haydn "Gott erhalte Franz den Kaiser", 4 voices Orchestra by 24 February 1874
Kral "Ceremonial March", piano Orchestra May 1867
Herman Laroche Karmosina, Fantasy Overture, piano Orchestra August – September 1888
Liszt "Es war ein Konig in Thule", voice and piano Voice and orchestra 3 November 1874
Alexei Lvov "God Save the Tsar!" (the then national anthem), chorus and piano Mixed chorus and orchestra February 1883
Sophie Menter Ungarische Zigeunerweisen, piano (short score) Piano and orchestra 1892
Mozart 4 works arr. orchestra as Mozartiana (Suite No. 4) June – August 1887
Mozart Fantasia in C minor, K. 475, piano Vocal quartet (Night) 15 March 1893
Anton Rubinstein Ivan the Terrible, Op. 79, orchestra Piano duet 18 October – 11 November 1869
Anton Rubinstein Don Quixote, Op. 87, orchestra Piano duet 1870
Schumann Symphonic Studies, Op. 13 (piano), Adagio and Allegro brillante Orchestra 1864
Schumann "Ballade vom Haidenknaben", Op. 122, No. 1, declamation and piano Declamation and orchestra 11 March 1874
Stradella "O del mio dolce", song with piano Voice and orchestra 10 November 1870
Tarnovsky Song "I remember all", arr. Dubuque for piano Piano duet 1868
Weber Piano Sonata in A-flat, J. 199, Scherzo Menuetto Orchestra 1863
Weber Piano sonata in C, J. 138 – Perpetuum mobile Piano left hand 1871

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Schonberg, 367.
  2. ^ Brown, Man and Music, 118.
  3. ^ Brown, The Final Years, 408.
  4. ^ Brown, New Grove, 18:606.
  5. ^ Wood, 75.
  6. ^ Maes, 154.
  7. ^ Maes, 154–155.
  8. ^ "Paul Collin". http://www.tchaikovsky-research.net/en/people/collin_paul.html. Retrieved 22 February 2012. 
  9. ^ Maes, 148.
  10. ^ Maes, 144.
  11. ^ Brown, New Grove (1980), 18:614.
  12. ^ Maes, 146, 148.
  13. ^ Maes, 148.
  14. ^ Maes, 148–9.
  15. ^ a b c Wiley, New Grove (2001), 25:150.
  16. ^ Wiley, New Grove, 25:160.
  17. ^ Wiley, New Grove (2001), 25:150–1.
  18. ^ Maes, 130; Taruskin, Grove Opera, 4:666–7.
  19. ^ Brown, New Grove (1980), 18:617.
  20. ^ Taruskin, Grove Opera, 4:669.
  21. ^ Maes, 152–4; Taruskin, Grove Opera, 4:668–9.
  22. ^ Brown, Man and Music, 405.
  23. ^ Benois, Alexandre, Moi vospominaniia (My Reminiscences), vol. 1 (bks. 1-3), 603. As quoted in Volkov, 124.
  24. ^ Brown, Final, 422–4; Cooper, 29.
  25. ^ Keller, The Symphony, 1:346-7.
  26. ^ Brown, Man and Music, 337.
  27. ^ Brown, Man and Music, 417.
  28. ^ Brown, New Grove (1980), 18:613.
  29. ^ Brown, New Grove (1980), 18:619.
  30. ^ Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 231.
  31. ^ a b Brown, Final, 388–9.
  32. ^ Brown, Crisis, 120.
  33. ^ Wiley, New Grove (2001), 25:160.
  34. ^ Brown, New Grove (1980), 18:612.
  35. ^ Brown, New Grove (1980), 18:623; MacDonald New Grove (1980), 18:429.
  36. ^ Brown, New Grove (1980), 18:620; Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 232.
  37. ^ Wiley, New Grove (2001), 25:153.
  38. ^ Wiley, New Grove (2001), 25:152.
  39. ^ Brown, Wandering, 213–14.
  40. ^ Maes, 155.
  41. ^ Wiley, New Grove (2001), 25:159.
  42. ^ Wiley, Tchaikovsky, 236–7.
  43. ^ Russian Fairy Tales, Spring 1998: Snow Maiden
  44. ^ John Warrack, Tchaikovsky, Comprehensive List of Works: Choral Works, p. 273
  45. ^ John Warrack, Tchaikovsky, Comprehensive List of Works, p. 279

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Mozart and Beethoven's themes, by comparison, may not seem striking or beautiful but by design work well as germ-cells for growth and development. The emphasis is architectural—not on the theme itself but on what can be built from it (Cooper, 29).
  2. ^ A conjectural version of the former has since appeared. Another work for cello and orchestra was assembled in 1940 by cellist Gaspar Cassadó from some of Tchaikovsky's Op. 72 piano works.
  3. ^ Because of the difference in musical content, Tchaikovsky intended Mozartiana to stand as a separate work. It was numbered with the other three suites after his death.

[edit] Bibliography

  • ed Abraham, Gerald, Music of Tchaikovsky (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1946). ISBN n/a.
    • Abraham, Gerald, "Operas and Incidental Music"
    • Alshvang, A., tr. I. Freiman, "The Songs"
    • Cooper, Martin, "The Symphonies"
    • Dickinson, A.E.F., "The Piano Music"
    • Evans, Edwin, "The Ballets"
    • Mason, Colin, "The Chamber Music"
    • Wood, Ralph W., "Miscellaneous Orchestral Works"
  • Brown, David, ed. Stanley Sadie, "Tchaikokvsky, Pyotr Ilyich," The New Grove Encyclopedia of Music and Musicians (London: MacMillian, 1980), 20 vols. ISBN 0-333-23111-2.
  • Brown, David, Tchaikovsky: The Early Years, 1840-1874 (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1978). ISBN 0-393-07535-2.
  • Brown, David, Tchaikovsky: The Crisis Years, 1874-1878, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1983). ISBN 0-393-01707-9.
  • Brown, David, Tchaikovsky: The Years of Wandering, 1878-1885, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1986). ISBN 0-393-02311-7.
  • Brown, David, Tchaikovsky: The Final Years, 1885-1893, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1991). ISBN 0-393-03099-7.
  • Brown, David, Tchaikovsky: The Man and His Music (New York: Pegasus Books, 2007). ISBN 0-571-23194-2.
  • Maes, Francis, tr. Arnold J. Pomerans and Erica Pomerans, A History of Russian Music: From Kamarinskaya to Babi Yar (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 2002). ISBN 0-520-21815-9.
  • Schonberg, Harold C. Lives of the Great Composers (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 3rd ed. 1997).
  • Steinberg, Michael, The Symphony (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).
  • Warrack, John, Tchaikovsky Symphonies and Concertos (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1969). Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 78-105437.
  • Warrack, John, Tchaikovsky (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973). SBN 684-13558-2.
  • Wiley, Roland John, Tchaikovsky's Ballets (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1985). ISBN 0-198-16249-9.
Life
Music
General information
Tamara Toumanova & Serge Lifar.jpg
Ballet by genre
Ballet by region
Dancers
Technique
Apparel
Schools
Companies
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_compositions_by_Pyotr_Ilyich_Tchaikovsky&oldid=480349344"
Personal tools
Namespaces

Variants
Actions
Navigation
Interaction
Toolbox
Print/export
Languages