Tchaikovsky's Impact on Russia - Essay Example

Tchaikovsky’s Impact on Russia Peter Tchaikovsky was born in 1840 and died in 1893 in Saint Petersburgafter what is believed to have been a cholera infection though some people associate his death with suicide (Newmarch, Tchaikovsky, & Evans, 2002). His works, which included harmony, concertos, musical comedy, ballets, chamber music and a choral setting of the Russian orthodox are well known across the globe mainly because of its unlikeness. He was the first Russian composer to make an appearance in international stage and to have his music well accepted by different audiences worldwide. Tchaikovsky personal life was turbulent from his youth since he faced various hardships as he grew especially after his mother died of cholera. He was forced to deal with the cold atmosphere of a military boarding school and he would find solace in music since he could not find peace in any other place. He is believed to have begun practicing music at a tender age and at the age of five years; he would attend piano lessons conducted by a local woman who was experienced in playing piano. He attended school in Saint Petersburg since his father was working as a director in a local technological institute. The school curriculum then did not place a lot of emphasis on curriculum and therefore he never learnt a lot on music while in the school though he used to visit theaters and operas regularly. From the regular visits, Tchaikovsky developed a lot of passion in music especially the romantic ones, probably out of the influence of Rossini and Verdi who used to perform in the theatre. When his father discovered his passion on music, he started paying for him to attend classes with a then talented and experienced piano teacher. However, when his father consulted the teacher on whether his son had prospects of majoring in music as a career, the teacher discouraged him and told him that he was not such gifted (Klevantseva, 2005). Tchaikovsky was forced to continue with his coursework according to the advice of the piano teacher and he persisted until he graduated. After graduation he joined the civil service where he served in the lowest rank in the ministry of justice and later promoted to be a senior assistant and served in that position for a long time. It was during his course of work in the civil service that he learned of music classes that were being conducted in the locality by a certain music school and he enrolled. His father continued to support him financially and therefore since he was being funded he later joined other music classes with Zaremba who was talented in music. Zaremba discovered his talent in music and he encouraged him to continue with classes until he graduated having studied harmony, counterpoint, fugue, instrumentation and composition. After graduating, he became a professor of harmony, composition and history of music in the same institution and he began his lifetime journey of music (Rzhevsky, 2002). He later became part of a famous nationalistic school of music that came to be known later as the Might Handful from where he started practicing his skills. Tchaikovsky in 1866 he began his first symphony, which he titled winter Daydreams but he realized that the work demanded a lot of attention than he had anticipated. It was a time of endless depression, which was because of lack of enough sleep since he spent most of his time on the project. The lack of sleep combined with the many hours spend on the work made him to starting losing his creative power and to his discouragement when he presented the work to his former teachers most of them believed it was not good enough. He performed it in a Russian musical school from where he received encouragement and he worked on it until he finished and later performed it. This performance provided a good platform for him to begin his work since it was well received by majority of his audience. Tchaikovsky grew to become one of the most loved Russian composers of all times and he has influenced the music industry worldwide with his many productions. His music is mainly famous for its strong emotional and technical skills coupled with strong work habits that have been instrumental in guaranteeing a lasting appeal on his audience globally. His deep sensitivity characteristic of his music and the captivating melodies that he produced has enamored listeners many years after his death. He has been lauded by several Europeans for his ability to offer more substantive music as opposed to exoticism, which was common among many composers then. The works of this famous musician are characterized by a western oriented attitude that is well integrated with the Russian culture and often have well placed idioms that express the intended motives. This is mainly because the conservatory education he received as he was growing imparted in him a sense of Russian culture and thus after learning the western culture he was better placed to combine the two cultures. His music has therefore been effective in expressing Russian culture both in the use of local language and in the composer’s good grasp of the native culture. Tchaikovsky’s work has therefore served to uphold the culture of the Russian people in a number of ways and it has therefore made it popular across the world. As a result many people today are knowledgeable on the Russian way of life and majority of the listeners of Tchaikovsky’s music desire to visit the country at least once in their life time. This would not be the case where it not of the music by this great artist of the 19th century since he has been a key contributor. Tchaikovsky’s gift for melody and orchestration, his unique power to compose memorable dance music and his good responsiveness to a theoretical scenario made him better placed than any other musician for Ballet. The three ballets he released in the course of his life caused an aesthetic revolution in ballet genre of music that has remained to be significant up to today. This is because he was able to add to the previous decorative spectacle a more fluent drama that fitted well in shifting divertissements as opposed to the mechanical way that the divertissements used to be shifted. He was therefore able to come up with characterful musical ballad that had well-structured plots to completely captivate and draw the attention of the audience. Tchaikovsky in the course of his life composed ten operas and had started writing twenty others all of which were too captivating to be ignored by any lover of operas (Zajaczkowski, 2005). Among the operas he had started composing was an opera on the famous Romeo and Juliet which could have been one of the best operas of all times if it had been completed. This is because of the creativity that he was capable of applying in the work coupled with his unique treatment of the subject in consideration to bring the best in the operas. His symphonies were also incomparable since he was able to reconcile his studies in the music school with the Russian society and thus produce a nationalistic work. He became one among the very few composers who were able to impose their personality to their symphonies to give them a new sense of life that are very important for symphony to be well accepted. Tchaikovsky in his lifetime managed to write four concertos, two concert ante works for soloist and orchestra together with a couple of short works all of which contributed to the success of his career. All of these works showed his unique classical ability of uniting the western style with the local way of life that made them to be acceptable both at home and abroad. Because of this, the works have remained relevant over the years as opposed to many other works of 19th century that are no longer played. Furthermore, the works have continued to bridge the gap between the two cultures and especially on the side of the Russian people who have continued to be receptive to the western musical works. His life influenced the Russian culture in a number of ways though most of the impact was not evident when he was alive and in the following few years after his death. His support for homosexuality though suppressed by the soviets in Russia for a long time until the post-soviet era has come to be well known in Russia and in the western countries. The letters he used to write to his brother Modest who was also a gay and excerpts from his diary provide enough information to show that he was a gay. Furthermore, most of his closest relationships were homosexuals; for example, he is believed to have fallen in love with his own servant Alexey whom he was very close to (Brown, 2010). The fact that Tchaikovsky was associated with homosexuality has been instrumental in transforming most of the Russians today to be acceptable to gays and other groups of people who may have differing view on sexuality. Initially men who expressed attraction to the same sex were under constricted police observation and were seen as extremely wicked people probably because the laws that time did not recognize them. The situation today has changed and though homosexuals are not fully accepted and recognized by the law there are generally more accepted and Tchaikovsky’s life has contributed to this either directly or indirectly. The society today in Russia accepts the fact that some of its members are homosexuals and therefore the general perception of the members of public on sexuality has been influenced positively. Many homosexuals today do not undergo the same intimidation that Tchaikovsky underwent that made him to be conservative and thus failed to express his sexual interests openly. The gay community today is more vocal than it was in the 19th and 29th centuries and it openly declares its support of same sex marriages and encourages other people to join them. Tchaikovsky had an unsuccessful heterosexual marriage, which is believed to have lasted for less than three months probably because he was not prepared for it psychologically and socially. Within few days after marrying one of his conservatory students and while still on honeymoon he started to deeply regret that he had married. He was greatly depressed and he tried committing suicide by throwing himself into a freezing river but he was rescued on time before he had fully succumbed to freezing (Hoffer, 2014). After divorcing his wife, his creativity is believed to have increased since within short period he released two of his finest works, the fourth symphony and opera Eugene to the surprise of many people who were expecting his career to end. The way Tchaikovsky responded to his failed marriage has served as a source of encouragement to today’s musicians and generally young people. It has taught them that despite the challenges they may face as they pursue their passions they should not give up but they should rise up and continue working towards realizing those dreams. As a result many young people today in Russia and around the world are able to look up to Tchaikovsky as a role model hence they are able to face their failures in a positive way. The widow daughter of a Russian railway tycoon who supported Tchaikovsky financially and emotionally after his failed marriage provided an example on how people in a community should support each other despite their failures. Many people today in Russia have drawn important lessons from this friendship especially on the way the widow helped Tchaikovsky avoid embarrassment and the manner in which she assisted him to concentrate on his career. Though the relationship ended drastically after around thirteen years of communication through letters with no physical meetings after the widow claimed of bankruptcy, it has provided important lessons to various people over the years. Tchaikovsky is believed to have been influenced in his compositions by the desire to promote female purity, which was common among Russian communities in the 19th century. Most of his work is believed to have been morally acceptable over the years at home and abroad since there have been very few controversies if any on the moral values propagated in his various works. In addition, many musical analysts have described them as well fitting in any society that is interested in upholding the right social values and imparting them to the subsequent generations. His music has thus been used to encourage various people to uphold the right moral values especially with regard to purity in order to avoid the shortcomings that are because of living impurely. Furthermore, many musicians and composers of musical works have been influenced to come up with songs that convey the right moral values to the targeted audience through avoiding controversial topics. Tchaikovsky for the better part of his life has not had a good relationship with the government of Russia mainly because of his support for homosexuality. The government tried indirectly to distance itself from Tchaikovsky as evidenced by the difficult it endured to recognize him fully in the course of his life out of the uncertainty of the reaction of the people. It was until 1880 during the commemoration of the Pushkin monument in Moscow that Dostoyevsky gave a speech that later became popular urging the government to become a real brother to all men despite their ideological believes (Baring, 2006). His speech urged the Russian government to unite with the west and thus indirectly it called for the government to become receptive to the western culture. The government thus had no choice but to recognize Tchaikovsky and in 1885, Alexander III conferred to him the order of Saint Vladimir that gave him the right to belong to the heredity nobility, a right that was highly esteemed. As a result, Tchaikovsky resettled in Russia after considerably a long time and he lived there until the time of his death after which the land he lived in was converted to a museum. After the death of Tchaikovsky, the Russian government tried to suppress information about the sexuality of the great artist in order to create what it believed to be a good image of itself. However, several years later after the change of the government, it became evident that it was completely impossible to conceal the information from the rest of the world. As a result, Tchaikovsky’s involvement in same sex relationships, as well as its importance to his music life became known in Europe and in majority of the countries where his music was widely listened. The controversial relationship between Tchaikovsky and the Russian government did not end after the change of governments but it has continued over the years up to today. Recently the Russian minister of culture Vladimir Medinsky denied that the Swan Lake composer was a homosexual arguing that there is no enough evidence to show that he was a gay. He was responding to critics after it emerged that a movie that was being produced under the funding of the government would disregard the sexuality of the Tchaikovsky because it was controversial (Shaun, 2013). The film scriptwriter later removed all the scenarios that would bring controversy in the film and that would compromise its legality according to the Russian laws. The scriptwriter later supported what the minister had said and added that Tchaikovsky was only a troubled man who had developed love for his male friends because of his failure to sustain his marriage. This behavior of the scriptwriter shows that the government may have coerced him to take their opinion if at he wanted to continue receiving funding from the government. The prime minister of Russia is believed to have indirectly accepted the fact that the composer was associated with gay during an interview he had in one of the media stations. He argued that as a country they celebrate the ability of Tchaikovsky to compose many musical masterpieces that have made the country to receive praise but not his sexuality. This conflicting information shows the controversies that have prevailed for a very long time concerning the manner in which the state should treat the composer. They know very well that he was a homosexual but majority of the people do not want to be associated with the fact yet on the other hand, they want to be associated with his great inventions. Despite the enormous success the musician has enjoyed, he has received several criticisms about his music in addition to the criticism on his sexuality. Some Russian locals argued that his music was not good enough and that it had been polluted by the western culture, which according to them he had managed to tactfully, hide in his works. They further argued that his music was widely accepted in the west because it contained a lot of western culture than the nationalistic culture and thus according to the critics his music was not good. They believed that the composer has negatively influenced the way Russian composers compose their musical works and he has been seen as being responsible for corrupting the local culture. It is also argued that most of the qualities in his music that make it to be appealing to its listeners and the way that he is able to control the emotion of his audience shows the compositional shallowness in his works. This coupled with the fact that his music required the audience to participate mentally as it played has been described as musical snobbery, which directly conveys the view of the composer to the listeners regardless of their national background. It is evident that Tchaikovsky was a famous Russian composer who enjoyed many achievements in the course of his life which most of the then music composers did not enjoy. It is also clear that the musical life of this great composer has affected the lives and generally the entire culture of the Russian people. Therefore, there is need for the government and all concerned organizations to continue supporting the works of this world celebrated music composer. References Baring, M. (2006). An outline of Russian literature. New York, NY: Novinka Books. Brown, D. (2010). Tchaikovsky: The man and his music. London: Faber & Faber. Hoffer, C. (2014). Music listening today, Cengage advantage edition (5th ed.). Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning. Klevantseva, T. (2005). Prominent Russians: Pyotr Tchaikovsky. Russiapedia. Retrieved from http://russiapedia.rt.com/prominent-russians/music/pyotr-tchaikovsky/ Newmarch, R., Tchaikovsky, P. I., & Evans, E. (2002). Tchaikovsky: His life and works, with extracts from his writings, and the diary of his tour abroad in 1888. Honolulu, Hawaii: University Press of the Pacific. Rzhevsky, N. (2002). The Cambridge companion to modern Russian culture. Cambridge [u.a].: Cambridge Univ. Press. Shaun, W. (2013, September 18). Tchaikovsky was not gay, says Russian Culture Minister. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/sep/18/tchaikovsky-not-gay-russian-minister Zajaczkowski, H. (2005). An introduction to Tchaikovskys operas. Westport, CN: Praeger. Read More