Le cygne noir tchaikovsky biography

Acte I [ modifier modifier le code ]. Acte II [ modifier modifier le code ]. Acte III [ modifier modifier le code ]. Acte IV [ modifier modifier le code ]. Orchestration [ modifier modifier le code ]. Modifications musicales [ modifier modifier le code ]. Partition de Drigo [ modifier modifier le code ]. Programme du ballet [ modifier modifier le code ].

La suite [ modifier modifier le code ]. Versions [ modifier modifier le code ]. Cette section ne cite pas suffisamment ses sources mai Allegro moderato V. Tempo di valse VII. Coda : Allegro vivo Allegro giusto Danses du corps de ballet et des nains : Moderato assai — Allegro vivo Pas de six. Intrada : Moderato assai I. Allegro II.

Andante con moto III. Moderato IV. Allegro V. Moderato — Allegro simplice Coda : Allegro molto Danse hongroise. Danse espagnole : Allegro non troppo Tempo di bolero Danse napolitaine : Allegro moderato — Andantino quasi moderato — Presto Mazurka : Tempo di mazurka Entracte : Moderato Danses des petits cygnes : Moderato Tchaikovsky's father, who had also contracted cholera but recovered, sent him back to school immediately in the hope that classwork would occupy the boy's mind.

Music, while not an official priority at school, also bridged the gap between Tchaikovsky and his peers. They regularly attended the opera [ 36 ] and Tchaikovsky improvised at the school's harmonium on themes he and his friends had sung during choir practice. On 10 Junethe year-old Tchaikovsky graduated as a titular counselor, a low rung on the civil service ladder.

Appointed to the Ministry of Justice, he became a junior assistant within six months and a senior assistant two months after that. He remained a senior assistant for the rest of his three-year civil service career. Previous tsars and the aristocracy had focused almost exclusively on importing European talent. Tchaikovsky enrolled at the Conservatory as part of its premiere class.

He studied harmony and counterpoint with Zaremba and instrumentation and composition with Rubinstein. The Conservatory benefited Tchaikovsky in two ways. It transformed him into a musical professional, with tools to help him thrive as a composer, and the in-depth exposure to European principles and musical forms gave him a sense that his art was not exclusively Russian or Western.

He believed and attempted to show that both these aspects were "intertwined and mutually dependent". Rubinstein was impressed by Tchaikovsky's musical talent on the whole and cited him as "a composer of genius" in his autobiography. Rubinstein and Zaremba refused to consider the work unless substantial changes were made. Tchaikovsky complied but they still refused to perform the symphony.

It was given its first complete performance, minus the changes Rubinstein and Zaremba had requested, in Moscow in February Once Tchaikovsky graduated inRubinstein's brother Nikolai offered him the post of Professor of Music Theory at the soon-to-open Moscow Conservatory. While the salary for his professorship was only 50 rubles a month, the offer itself boosted Tchaikovsky's morale and he accepted the post eagerly.

He was further heartened by news of the first public performance of one of his works, his Characteristic Dancesconducted by Johann Strauss II at a concert in Pavlovsk Park on 11 September Tchaikovsky later included this work, re-titled Dances of the Hay Maidensin his opera The Voyevoda. From toTchaikovsky combined his professorial duties with music criticism while continuing to compose.

Inwhile Tchaikovsky was still at the School of Jurisprudence and Anton Rubinstein lobbied aristocrats to form the Russian Musical Societycritic Vladimir Stasov and an year-old pianist, Mily Balakirevmet and agreed upon a nationalist agenda for Russian music, one that would take the operas of Mikhail Glinka as a model and incorporate elements from folk music, reject traditional Western practices and use non-Western harmonic devices such as the whole tone and octatonic scales.

While ambivalent about much of The Five's music, Tchaikovsky remained on friendly terms with most of its members. The infrequency of Tchaikovsky's musical successes, won with tremendous effort, exacerbated his lifelong sensitivity to criticism. Nikolai Rubinstein's private fits of rage critiquing his music, such as attacking the First Piano Concertodid not help matters.

Another factor that helped Tchaikovsky's music become popular was a shift in attitude among Russian audiences. Whereas they had previously been satisfied with flashy virtuoso performances of technically demanding but musically lightweight works, they gradually began listening with increasing appreciation of the composition itself. Tchaikovsky's works were performed frequently, with few delays between their composition and first performances; the publication from onward of his songs and great piano music for the home market also helped boost the composer's popularity.

During the late s, Tchaikovsky began to compose operas. His first, The Voyevodabased on a play by Alexander Ostrovskypremiered in The composer became dissatisfied with it, however, and, having re-used parts of it in later works, destroyed the manuscript. Undina followed in Only excerpts were performed and it, too, was destroyed. The first Tchaikovsky opera to survive intact, The Oprichnikpremiered in During its composition, he lost Ostrovsky's part-finished libretto.

Cui wrote a "characteristically savage press attack" on the opera. Mussorgsky, writing to Vladimir Stasovdisapproved of the opera as pandering to the public. Nevertheless, The Oprichnik continues to be performed from time to time in Russia. The last of the early operas, Vakula the Smith Op. With Serov's death, the libretto was opened to a competition with a guarantee that the winning entry would be premiered by the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre.

Tchaikovsky was declared the winner, but at the premiere, the opera enjoyed only a lukewarm reception. Tchaikovsky remained abroad for a year after the disintegration of his marriage. During this time, Tchaikovsky's foreign reputation grew and a positive reassessment of his music also took place in Russia, thanks in part to Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky 's call for "universal unity" with the West at the unveiling of the Pushkin Monument in Moscow in Before Dostoevsky's speech, Tchaikovsky's music had been considered "overly dependent on the West".

As Dostoevsky's message spread throughout Russia, this stigma toward Tchaikovsky's music evaporated. Two musical works from this period stand out. With the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour nearing completion in Moscow inthe 25th anniversary of the coronation of Alexander II in[ n 10 ] and the Moscow Arts and Industry Exhibition in the planning stage, Nikolai Rubinstein suggested that Tchaikovsky compose a grand commemorative piece.

Tchaikovsky agreed and finished it within six weeks. He wrote to Nadezhda von Meck that this piece, the Overturewould be "very loud and noisy, but I wrote it le cygne noir tchaikovsky biography no warm feeling of love, and therefore there will probably be no artistic merits in it". On 23 MarchNikolai Rubinstein died in Paris.

That December, Tchaikovsky started work on his Piano Trio in A minor"dedicated to the memory of a great artist". InTchaikovsky began to shed his unsociability and restlessness. That March, Emperor Alexander III conferred upon him the Order of Saint Vladimir fourth classwhich included a title of hereditary nobility [ 89 ] and a personal audience with the Tsar.

In addition, at the instigation of Ivan VsevolozhskyDirector of the Imperial Theaters and a patron of the composer, Tchaikovsky was awarded a lifetime annual pension of 3, rubles from the Tsar. This made him the premier court composer, in practice if not in the actual title. Despite Tchaikovsky's disdain for public life, he now participated in it as part of his increasing celebrity and out of a duty he felt to promote Russian music.

He helped support his former pupil Sergei Taneyevwho was now director of Moscow Conservatory, by attending student examinations and negotiating the sometimes sensitive relations among various members of the staff. He served as director of the Moscow branch of the Russian Musical Society during the — season. During this period, Tchaikovsky also began promoting Russian music as a conductor, [ 90 ] In Januaryhe substituted, on short notice, at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow for performances of his opera Cherevichki.

These appearances helped him overcome life-long stage fright and boosted his self-assurance. In NovemberTchaikovsky arrived at Saint Petersburg in time to hear several of the Russian Symphony Concertsdevoted exclusively to the music of Russian composers. One included the first complete performance of his revised First Symphony; another featured the final version of Third Symphony of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakovwith whose circle Tchaikovsky was already in touch.

Rimsky-Korsakov, with Alexander GlazunovAnatoly Lyadov and several other nationalistically-minded composers and musicians, had formed a group known as the Belyayev circlenamed after a merchant and amateur musician who became an influential music patron and publisher. Discussion of Tchaikovsky's personal life, especially his sexualityhas perhaps been among the most extensive of any composer in the 19th century and certainly of any Russian composer of his time.

Biographers have generally agreed that Tchaikovsky was homosexual. According to Modest Tchaikovskythis was Pyotr Ilyich's "strongest, longest and purest love". Tchaikovsky's dedication of his Sixth symphony to his nephew Vladimir "Bob" Davydov 21 at the time and his feelings expressed about Davydov in letters to others, especially following Davydov's suicide, [ 9 ] has been cited as evidence for romantic love between the two.

It is still unknown whether Tchaikovsky, according to musicologist and biographer David Brown"felt tainted within himself, defiled by something from which he finally realized he could never escape" [ ] or whether, according to Alexander Poznanskyhe experienced "no unbearable guilt" over his sexual desires [ 72 ] and "eventually came to see his sexual peculiarities as an insurmountable and even natural part of his personality Relevant portions of his brother Modest's autobiography, where he tells of the composer's same-sex attraction, have been published, as have letters previously suppressed by Soviet censors in which Tchaikovsky openly writes of it.

In one such passage he said of a homosexual acquaintance: "Petashenka used to drop by with the criminal intention of observing the Cadet Corps, which is right opposite our windows, but I've been trying to discourage these compromising visits—and with some success. He does it for the love of art and adores men with beards. Tchaikovsky lived as a bachelor for most of his life.

Mismatched psychologically and sexually, [ ] the couple lived together for only two and a half months before Tchaikovsky left, overwrought emotionally and suffering from acute writer's block. Tchaikovsky was also aided by Nadezhda von Meckthe widow of a railway magnate, who had begun contact with him not long before the marriage. As well as an important friend and emotional support, [ ] she became his patroness for the next 13 years, which allowed him to focus exclusively on composition.

Nine days later, on 6 November, Tchaikovsky died there, aged Tchaikovsky's death is attributed to choleracaused by drinking unboiled water at a local restaurant. As for illness, problems of evidence offer little hope of satisfactory resolution: the state of diagnosis; the confusion of witnesses; disregard of long-term effects of smoking and alcohol.

We do not know how Tchaikovsky died. Of Tchaikovsky's Western le cygne noir tchaikovsky biographies, Robert Schumann stands out as an influence in formal structure, harmonic practices, and piano writing, according to Brown and musicologist Roland John Wiley. Tchaikovsky displayed a wide stylistic and emotional range, from light salon works to grand symphonies.

Some of his works, such as the Variations on a Rococo Themeemploy a "Classical" form reminiscent of 18th-century composers such as Mozart his favorite composer. Other compositions, such as his Little Russian symphony and his opera Vakula the Smithflirt with musical practices more akin to those of the 'Five', especially in their use of folk song.

American music critic and journalist Harold C. Schonberg wrote of Tchaikovsky's "sweet, inexhaustible, supersensuous fund of melody ", a feature that has ensured his music's continued success with audiences. Sometimes he used Western-style melodies, sometimes original melodies written in the style of Russian folk song; sometimes he used actual folk songs.

The first challenge arose from his ethnic heritage. Unlike Western themes, the melodies that Russian composers wrote tended to be self-contained: they functioned with a mindset of stasis and repetition rather than one of progress and ongoing development. On a technical level, it made modulating to a new key to introduce a contrasting second theme exceedingly difficult, as this was literally a foreign concept that did not exist in Russian music.

The second way melody worked against Tchaikovsky was a challenge that he shared with the majority of Romantic-age composers. They did not write in the regular, symmetrical melodic shapes that worked well with sonata formsuch as those favored by Classical composers such as Haydn, Mozart or Beethoven; rather, the themes favored by Romantics were complete and independent in themselves.

This challenge was why the Romantics "were never natural symphonists". Harmony could be a potential trap for Tchaikovsky, according to Brown, since Russian creativity tended to focus on inertia and self-enclosed tableaux, while Western harmony worked against this to propel the music onward and, on a larger scale, shape it. Modulation maintained harmonic interest over an extended time scale, provided a clear contrast between musical themes, and showed how those themes were related to each other.

RhythmicallyTchaikovsky sometimes experimented with unusual meters. More often, he used a firm, regular meter, a practice that served him well in dance music. At times, his rhythms became pronounced enough to become the main expressive agent of the music. They also became a means, found typically in Russian folk music, of simulating movement or progression in large-scale symphonic movements—a "synthetic propulsion", as Brown phrases it, which substituted for the momentum that would be created in strict sonata form by the interaction of melodic or motivic elements.

This interaction generally does not take place in Russian music. Tchaikovsky struggled with sonata form. Its principle of organic growth through the interplay of musical themes was alien to Russian practice. According to Brown and musicologists Hans Keller and Daniel ZhitomirskyTchaikovsky found his solution to large-scale structure while composing the Fourth Symphony.

He essentially sidestepped thematic interaction and kept sonata form only as an "outline", as Zhitomirsky phrases it. Tchaikovsky placed blocks of dissimilar tonal and thematic material alongside one another, with what Keller calls "new and violent contrasts" between musical themeskeysand harmonies. Partly owing to the melodic and structural le cygne noir tchaikovsky biographies involved in this accumulation and partly due to the composer's nature, Tchaikovsky's music became intensely expressive.

This music has the mark of the truly lived and felt experience". This active engagement with the music "opened for the listener a vista of emotional and psychological tension and an extremity of feeling that possessed relevance because it seemed reminiscent of one's own 'truly lived and felt experience' or one's search for intensity in a deeply personal sense".

As mentioned above, repetition was a natural part of Tchaikovsky's music, just as it is an integral part of Russian music. By making subtle but noticeable changes in the rhythm or phrasing of a tune, modulating to another key, changing the melody itself or varying the instruments playing it, Tchaikovsky could keep a listener's interest from flagging.

By extending the number of repetitions, he could increase the musical and dramatic tension of a passage, building "into an emotional experience of almost unbearable intensity", as Brown phrases it, controlling when the peak and release of that tension would take place. Like other late Romantic composers, Tchaikovsky relied heavily on orchestration for musical effects.

Rimsky-Korsakov regularly referred his students at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory to it and called it "devoid of all striving after effect, [to] give a healthy, beautiful sonority". Tchaikovsky's expert use of having two or more instruments play a melody simultaneously a practice called doubling and his ear for uncanny combinations of instruments resulted in "a generalized orchestral sonority in which the individual timbres of the instruments, being thoroughly mixed, would vanish".

In works like the "Serenade for Strings" and the Variations on a Rococo ThemeTchaikovsky showed he was highly gifted at writing in a style of 18th-century European pastiche. Tchaikovsky graduated from imitation to full-scale evocation in the ballet The Sleeping Beauty and the opera The Queen of Spades.

Le cygne noir tchaikovsky biography

His Rococo pastiches also may have offered escape into a musical world purer than his own, into which he felt himself irresistibly drawn. In this sense, Tchaikovsky operated in the opposite manner to Igor Stravinskywho turned to Neoclassicism partly as a form of compositional self-discovery. Tchaikovsky's attraction to ballet might have allowed a similar refuge into a fairy-tale world, where he could freely write dance music within a tradition of French elegance.