Tchaikovsky04 – Teachers Learn ETD

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Part 4: The Final Years 1885 - 1893

Preview: The Wandering Years 1877 - 1885

(INTRODUCE LENTO LUGUBRE, THE 1st MOVEMENT FROM THE MANFRED SYMPHONY THEN PLAY UNDER)

TCHAIKOVSKY:

Truly there would be reason to go mad, were it not for music.

At Davos among the Swiss Alps, where Tchaikovsky visited a dying friend, he read Manfred by Byron and was inspired to begin a symphony. Perhaps he identified with Byron’s unnatural sexual love, expressed in Manfred’s case, as in Byron’s, by his love for his half sister. In Tchaikovsky’s his guilt might well have concerned his homosexuality.

He described the first movement of the symphony.

Manfred wanders in the Alps. He is tormented by hopelessness and memories of his guilty past. Imbued with the secrets of magic, he communicates with the forces of hell; yet they cannot give him the oblivion he craves.

Memories of his ruined Astarte (his half-sister), whom he had passionately loved, gnaw at his heart. There is no end to his despair.

(BRING UP THE LENTO LUGUBRE, THE 1st MOVEMENT FROM THE MANFRED SYMPHONY THEN PLAY OUT)

NARRATOR:

He returned to his new house to work on the symphony.

TCHAIKOVSKY:

It means a summer of almost unremitting melancholy, since the subject matter is so depressing.

NARRATOR:

Yet the music was not all doom and gloom, as evinced in the second movement.

(BRING UP THE SECOND MOVEMENT OF THE MANFRED SYMPHONY AND WEAVE UNDER)

The daughter of a friend described his daily routine at this time.

DAUGHTER OF A FRIEND:

He rose between seven and eight and bathed in the river that flowed past the house. After his morning tea, he devoted his time to studying English, or to serious reading. This was followed by the first of his daily walks, for not more than three quarters of an hour. From half past nine he worked, and at one precisely he had lunch, after which, whatever the weather, he took another walk. Solitude during this walk was essential, for he spent much of his time composing in his head.

During his afternoon tea at four o’clock, he would read the papers or converse with his guests, if he had any. From five till seven he would work at his desk. Before supper, in the summer, he would take a third walk, often in the company of friends; while in the autumn or the winter, he often played the piano. And after supper, until eleven, a game of cards, some reading, or writing letters, of which there were always very many.

(BRING UP THE SECOND MOVEMENT OF THE MANFRED SYMPHONY AND PLAY OUT)

NARRATOR:

He felt called upon to do something for the poor peasants in the neighbourhood; and so he decided to finance the new Maidanovo school.

In the spring of the next year he set out across the Caucasus Mountains to Georgia, a far flung outpost of the Russian Empire. His brother Anatoly and sister-in-law, Parasha, were living there. He described the journey across the mountains.

TCHAIKOVSKY:

The Daryalskoye gorge is terrifying, gloomy, wild. Finally we climbed up between two high walls of snow. I had to put on my fur coat. At six in the evening we descended into the valley of Aragvi. I dined and then took a walk by moonlight. We left early the next morning… coming across picturesque villages. The descent was made at such a speed that it was truly frightening, particularly on the bends. And then there opened up a view so amazingly wonderful that you want to weep for joy. The farther you go, the more the south makes itself felt.

Not all the trees in Tiflis are yet in leaf, but then all the fruit trees are in blossom, and it is as warm as June. The main streets are very lively, the shops are luxurious, and it smells totally of Europe. But when I went into the native quarter, I found myself in a situation utterly new to me. In the streets, narrow as those in Venice, are endless rows of small shops, where the locals sit cross-legged. It is very interesting and novel.

NARRATOR:

In Tiflis a concert of his works was arranged. When he entered the director’s box there was a standing ovation, and then he received a presentation of a beautifully wrought silver wreath.

He spent a lot of his time in Tiflis with Ivan Verinovsky, a young artillery officer. It seems that not only Tchaikovsky had feelings for him, but that his sister-in-law, Parasha, also made advances to this dashing young man. Within a few days of Tchaikovsky’s departure by train and steamer for Marseille, he heard that the confused Verinovsky had committed suicide.

TCHAIKOVSKY:

He was young, happy, adorable, healthy and popular; then suddenly he shoots himself. I am quite unable to reconcile myself to this thought, which has haunted me persistently, with no mercy.

(BRING UP KUMA’S ARIA FROM THE ENCHANTRESS AND WEAVE UNDER)

NARRATOR:

Yet his life was to take on a new dimension. He had long wanted greater control over the interpretation of his work. So when he composed a new opera called The Enchantress and having got over his nerves, he conducted its first performance. The critic Kashkin was full of praise.

KASHKIN:

He has all the essential qualities for conducting an orchestra: complete self control, extreme clarity and definition in his beat . . . His direction is distinguished by its utter simplicity.

He has a quality which cannot be acquired . . . that inner fire, that animation, which communicate to the orchestra and which irresistibly act upon the audience.

(BRING UP KUMA’S ARIA FROM THE ENCHANTRESS AND PLAY OUT)

NARRATOR:

Together with two previous concerts Tchaikovsky had now established his reputation as a conductor as well as a composer. In 1888 he set off for his first international tour as a celebrated conductor of his own work. He met other famous composers, including Dvorak, Massenet, Fauré, Gounod, Grieg, Richard Strauss and Brahms. He liked Brahms as a man, but detested his music. The eccentric English composer and dog lover, Dame Ethel Smyth, whom he took a liking to in Leipzig, wrote of him:

DAME ETHEL SMYTH:

Accustomed to the uncouth, almost brutal manners affected by many German musicians as part of the make up and one of the symptoms of genius, it was a relief to find in this Russian, whom even the rough diamonds allowed was a master of his own lines, a polished and cultivated gentleman and man of the world. Even his detestation of Brahms’s music failed to check my sympathy.

NARRATOR:

The success of this tour which briefly took in many German cities, Vienna, Prague, Paris and London, led to his ambition to later visit the United States.

(BRING UP THE SECOND MOVEMENT OF THE FIFTH SYMPHONY AND TAKE UNDER)

Back in Russia that summer he rented a new house at Frolovskoye, not far from Maidanovo, where he stocked his garden with almost every kind of flower and where he worked on his new Fifth Symphony.

TCHAIKOVSKY:

There’s wonderful very old furniture, which gives the whole house a romantic touch. The garden is very sympathetic. But what’s best of all is that you can go straight from the garden into the wood. After my morning coffee I wander out through some little wooden gates, carry on across a ditch, and then quite soon, there opens out a garden which has run wild and has turned into a delightful, quiet, cosy spot with an extraordinary variety of birds. The call of the oriole and the trilling of the nightingale are the songs I find the most entrancing.

(BRING UP THE FIFTH SYMPHONY AND TAKE DOWN)

NARRATOR:

The Fifth has been described as the most Russian of his symphonies. It was to be received ecstatically by both audience and orchestra at its first performance in St. Petersburg on the 17th November 1888.

(BRING UP THE FIFTH SYMPHONY AGAIN AND PLAY OUT)

Before he set out on his second international concert tour, he was commissioned to write a new three act ballet. He chose The Sleeping Beauty, a libretto based on Charles Perrault’s La Belle au bois dormant.

After his tour to Germany, Geneva, Paris and London, where he hated the pea-souper fog, he received the scenario of the ballet.

(BRING UP THE SLEEPING BEAUTY AND TAKE UNDER)

TCHAIKOVSKY:

I’m charmed, delighted beyond all description. It suits me perfectly, and I ask for nothing more than to set it to music.

TSAR:

Very nice.

NARRATOR:

Said Tsar Alexander III condescendingly at the dress rehearsal in St Petersburg on 14th January 1890. At the première the next day the audience were equally lukewarm. However the critic, Laroche, proved more farseeing.

LAROCHE:

Within children’s fairy tales are contained some of the profoundest ideas that stir mankind.

(BRING UP SLEEPING BEAUTY AND PLAY UNDER AGAIN)

Often inclined to melancholy, even despair, this reveals a Tchaikovsky, happy, brimming with health, humour and sensual delight. It is one of the composer’s pearls. It reveals new horizons as yet unknown.

(BRING UP SLEEPING BEAUTY AND PLAY UNDER AGAIN)

NARRATOR:

Within a week of the première he was on his way to Florence to work on a new opera.

TCHAIKOVSKY:

I have chosen Pushkin’s novella The Queen of Spades. Three years ago my brother, Modest, set about writing a libretto.

(BRING UP YA VAS LYUBLYU (I LOVE YOU) FROM THE QUEEN OF SPADES AND PLAY UNDER)

NARRATOR:

Tchaikovsky was no stranger to romantic love. At this time it seems that he was in love with his nephew, Bob Davidov; but he failed ever to find a stable, lasting relationship.

This may be why the expressions of love that he draws from his male characters often have an urgent and tormented intensity, as in Hermann’s declaration of love to Liza.

Tchaikovsky admitted that composing Hermann’s death scene caused an unexpected and violent reaction.

TCHAIKOVSKY:

I pitied Hermann so much that I began weeping copiously. This weeping went on an awfully long time, turning into a mild fit of hysteria of a very pleasant kind: that is, I found weeping awfully pleasant.

(BRING UP YA VAS LYUBLYU FROM THE QUEEN OF SPADES AND PLAY OUT. THEN SLOWLY INTRODUCE A STORM AT SEA WHICH SLOWLY BUILDS THROUGH TO NEXT SPEECH)

NARRATOR:

In early 1891 he was offered the then enormous sum of $2,500 to conduct at the Carnegie Hall, New York. He set sail from Le Havre for America on the steamship La Bretagne on 17th April. He hated the voyage. Just before his departure he had heard of the death of his sister, Sacha, mother to his beloved nephew, Bob Davidoff. He wanted to be solitary, but, when they discovered his identitiy, he was plagued by his fellow passengers. Furthermore he passed through the worst hurricane of the year.

(BRING THE STORM TO A CLIMAX. THEN CROSSFADE INTO THE HAMLET FANTASY OVERTURE AND TAKE UNDER THE FOLLOWING.)

NARRATOR:

It abated before he arrived at New York. His fellow Russian and Head Librarian of the Detroit Symphony, Elkhonon Yoffe, wrote a 216 page book about his 25 day stay in America.

YOFFE:

One calm April evening Tchaikovsky set foot on American soil. He had come from the other end of the earth – an alien with a burden of painful worries. He had not a single friend in America waiting to comfort him. But America was prepared to welcome a superstar, one of the greatest composers of the century.

TCHAIKOVSKY:

My picture is in all the papers. Everyone here flatters, honours and celebrates me. It turns out I am ten times better know in America than in Europe. Works of mine that are still unknown in Moscow are performed here several times a season – Hamlet for example.

Here I am a big shot.

(BRING UP THE HAMLET FANTASY OVERTURE AND PLAY OUT)

NARRATOR:

At the inaugural concert of the Carnegie Hall on 5th May 1891, he conducted his own Coronation March; but he had to wait two more days to take New York by storm, when he conducted his Third Suite.

(INTRODUCE AND THE THIRD SUITE THEN WEAVE UNDER)

In Berlin a few years previously it had been described by one critic as being as boring as a sitting of the Holy Synod and by another as an explosion of dynamite.

The reaction in America speaks for itself.

THE MORNING JOURNAL:

Wonderful … a power that at once enchains and charms us.

NEW YORK DAILY TRIBUNE:

Genius !

THE PRESS:

The best German music is now being written in St. Petersburg.

EVENING POST:

The climax of the evening … imposing … original … rich … majestic.

NARRATOR:

A dinner was held in his honour.

TCHAIKOVSKY:

The table was entirely covered with flowers. Beside every lady’s place-setting lay a bouquet; for the men buttonholes of lilies of the valley. Beside every lady’s place stood a small portrait of me in a delicate frame. The dinner began at 7.30 and ended precisely at 11. It would be impossible to spell out the innumerable dishes. In the middle of dinner ice cream was served in little boxes, to which were attached small writing-slates, each with a pencil and sponge. Elegantly inscribed on the slates were extracts from my works. Next I was asked to sign my autograph on everyone’s slates. The conversation was very animated.

Opposite me Carnegie was sat, a little old man, the admirer of Moscow and possessor of 40 million dollars.

(BRING UP THE THIRD SUITE AND PLAY OUT)

NARRATOR:

After this whirlwind tour in which he fitted in a visit to Niagara Falls, he sailed back to Europe, aand arrived in St Petersburg, tired but elated. He returned to Maidanovo ready to get on with composing.

In 1890 it had been agreed that he would write a one-act opera, Iolanta and a two-act ballet The Nutcracker for the Imperial Theatre in St Petersburg. Although he was far more interested in Iolanta, the story of a blind princess, The Nutcracker enjoyed a more enduring fame.

(INTRODUCE ACT 1 WALTZ FROM THE NUTCRACKER AND WEAVE UNDER)

It seems that, as he neared the end of his life, at least in this music, Tchaikovsky was reliving the joy of his childhood. He always loved children and this piece was written particularly for their entertainment. During the first performance some instruments were played by children; and there were even specially made trumpets, whistles, cuckoos, and wooden and metal rattles to mimic the sound of cracking nuts.

(BRING UP ACT 1 WALTZ FROM THE NUTCRACKER AND WEAVE PLAY OUT)

Shortly after the premiere he received a letter from Fanny Dürbach, the French governess he had loved so much as a child and whom he had not seen for forty four years

FANNY DÜRBACH:

Dear Pierre, Permit me to call you thus, as I did when you were my dear little pupil. When my present pupils had insisted I should write to you, I had said to them: ‘We shall see each other in heaven.’ However now, because you are often in France, come the more quickly that I may the more quickly see you. My house is too humble for your stay, but we have here an hotel with a garden run by honest people.

NARRATOR:

When he visited her in the small French town of Montbéliard, he was astonished at how little she had changed.

(INTRODUCE THE DANCE OF THE SUGAR PLUM FAIRY FROM THE NUTCRACKER AND PLAY VERY GENTLY UNDER THE FOLLOWING)

He wrote to his brother, Nikolay.

TCHAIKOVSKY:

She received me with joy, tenderness and great simplicity. Immediately I understood why both our parents and all of us had loved her very much. She is a sympathetic, straightforward, intelligent being, who exudes goodness and honesty.

She showed me our exercise books … and several wonderfully sweet letters from Mama. I cannot describe the delectable magical feeling I experienced. It seemed I was breathing the air of our Votinsk home, and listening to the voice of Mama. It was awesome, but at the same time sweet.

(BRING UP THE DANCE OF THE SUGAR PLUM FAIRY FROM THE NUTCRACKER AND TAKE DOWN AGAIN)

NARRATOR:

Perhaps he was particularly receptive to intimations of childhood from his recent composition of the Nutcracker. Incidentally the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy was one of the first pieces of music ever to incorporate the celeste.

(BRING UP THE DANCE OF THE SUGAR PLUM FAIRY FROM THE NUTCRACKER AND PLAY OUT)

Although Fanny Dürbach had rather he become a poet than a composer, she later wrote to him:

FANNY DÜRBACH:

I bless God for your successes, and for granting you the earthly reward that your talents deserve. How many gifted people are not recognised in their lifetime?

NARRATOR:

At the age of fifty two he was at the height of his fame. But he had less than a year to live.

Meanwhile in France he was elected a member of L’Académie Française and then he was offered an Honorary Doctorate at Cambridge University. He accepted the invitation.

(INTRODUCE GENTLY THE 1ST MOVEMENT OF THE 4TH SYMPHONY )

On his way there in Berlin he wrote to his nephew Bob Davidov.

(BRING UP THE 4TH SYMPHONY AND TAKE UNDER )

TCHAIKOVSKY:

Probably due to memories of our time together last year, I have been overcome with yearnings and suffered and wept more than ever. It’s really kind of psychopathic.

NARRATOR:

In London, he rehearsed and conducted his Fourth Symphony with the Philharmonic Society in London. He was extremely nervous and according to young Henry Wood, who was present at the final rehearsal, he called out:

TCHAIKOVSKY:

Vodka! More vodka!

(BRING UP THE 4TH SYMPHONY)

NARRATOR:

In fact the concert was a success and Bernard Shaw, who was present as a music critic, noted the unusually high level of playing that he drew from the orchestra.

(PLAY OUT THE 4TH SYMPHONY)

In Cambridge he stayed at Downing College, dined at King’s College and the next morning received his award.

TCHAIKOVSKY:

At 11.30 we put on our doctoral robes, which consist of a white silk gown faced with crimson velvet.and a black velvet beret with a gold tassel. Four doctors of law were admitted to their degrees along with us, one of whom was an Indian maharajah, who wore a turban adorned with precious stones and a diamond necklace, and one a field marshal. Dare I confess that, as the enemy of the commonplace, and of the neuter tints of our modern garb, I was enchanted with this adventure?

At noon the procession set out on foot. I walked behind Saint-Saens. Watched by a lot of people we crossed a big courtyard to the Senate House. There the Chancellor took each of us by the hand and said in Latin: ‘In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit I declare you to be a doctor.’

(BRING UP THE SIXTH SYMPHONY AND WEAVE THROUGH UNTIL THE END OF THE PRODUCTION)

NARRATOR:

Back in Russia he immediately worked on scoring his last and his greatest symphony the Pathetique. He wrote to Bob Davidov.

TCHAIKOVSKY:

I consider it the best and, in particular, the most sincere of all my works. I love it as I have never loved any other of my musical offspring.

NARRATOR:

Some consider it the gloomiest of all his works and link it to his suspected suicide. Others, such as Igor Stravinsky on his death bed, found delight in it. One critic, Vasily Ysatrebtsev said:

YASTREBTSEV:

It depicts ourselves alone . . . with our unresolved doubts, sorrows, joys.

NARRATOR:

When Alexei Apukhtin, once his closest friend, died, Grand Duke Konstantin suggested he should write a requiem, a setting of a poem of that name by Apukhtin himself. Tchaikovsky replied.

TCHAIKOVSKY:

My latest symphony is steeped in very much the same spirit as his poem. I hesitate to repeat myself. In requiems there is much talk of God the judge, God the chastiser, God the avenger. Forgive me, Your Highness, but I dare to suggest that I do not believe in such a God. That kind of God cannot stir in me those tears, that rapture, that awe before the creator and source of every good that might inspire me.

NARRATOR:

His brother, Modest wrote of his composition of the Sixth Symphony:

MODEST:

It was as though it absorbed the gloomy melancholy of the preceding years, and Pyotr Ilyich for the moment experienced that lightening, which is experienced by a man who has confessed to a sympathetic soul everything that has long wearied and tormented him. It was as if death had become less terrible, mysterious and frightening. He was from his return from England until the very end, calm, serene, almost full of joie de vivre as in the best period of his life.

NARRATOR:

He conducted the performance of the Pathetique on 29th October 1893. It was to be performed later at Moscow, but he never lived till then. He died on 6th November, after successfully completing his greatest work.

(BRING UP THE PATHETIQUE AND TAKE DOWN AGAIN)

Today there is still much controversy about the cause of his death. At this time there was a major outbreak of cholera in Russia, which killed over two hundred thousand people. Apparently a few days before his death he drank a glass of unboiled water; and on the whole the symptoms, if not the period of incubation, would seem to point to cholera. However there is also the conspiracy theory that it was threatened to tell the Tsar of his homosexual practices and that he was encouraged to take his own life in order to avoid the scandal and the possibility of being exiled to Siberia.

Different biographers have different theories. Let us leave the last words to Tchaikovsky.

(BRING UP THE PATHETIQUE AND TAKE DOWN AGAIN)

TCHAIKOVSKY:

THE END

Music is the most beautiful of all Heaven’s gifts to humanity wandering in the darkness. Alone it calms, enlightens, and stills our souls. It is not the straw to which the drowning man clings; but a true friend, refuge, and comforter, for whose sake life is worth living.

(BRING UP THE PATHETIQUE AND PLAY OUT)

Music of the Great Composers

Johann Sebastian Bach

Ludwig van Beethoven

Part 4: The Final Years 1885 - 1893

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