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Tchaikovsky is one of the most popular of all composers. The reasons are several and understandable. His music is extremely tuneful, opulently and colourfully scored, and filled with emotional passion. Undoubtedly the emotional temperature of the music reflected the composer's nature. He was afflicted by both repressed homosexuality and by the tendency to extreme fluctuations between ecstasy and depression. Tchaikovsky was neurotic and deeply sensitive, and his life was often painful, but through the agony shone a genius that created some of the most beautiful of all romantic melodies. With his rich gifts for melody and special flair for writing memorable dance tunes, with his ready response to the atmosphere of a theatrical situation and his masterly orchestration, Tchaikovsky was ideally equipped as a ballet composer. His delightful fairy-tale ballets, Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker are performed more than any other ballets. Swan Lake, Tchaikovsky's first ballet, was commissioned by the Imperial Theatres in Moscow in 1875. He used some music from a little domestic ballet of the same title, composed for his sister Alexandra's children in 1871. Swan Lake tells the story of Prince Siegfied, who sees the Odette, the Queen of Swans, become a beautiful maiden whilst he is out hunting wild swans. She explains that she is under the spell of the wicked magician, Von Rothbart, and is condemned to live as a swan by day, and a human by night. Only when a man swears to love her and no other, forever, the spell will be broken. Siegfried declares his love, but at a ball the following evening, he is tricked into asking Odile, the magician's daughter, to marry him. Von Rothbart makes her look like Odette, but dressed in... ... middle of paper ... ...chestral introduction with an imperfect cadence. A strong rhythmic ¾ allegro passage, with sequences and descending scales is played by the orchestra, with timpani and cymbals. The music modulates, and a short, quiet woodwind passage is then alternated with an orchestral passage with dotted rhythms, creating a `terraced dynamics' effect. Part B begins with a major clarinet melody accompanied by pizzicato strings. A minor flute sequence follows, and is followed by a repetition of the oboe melody. A string sequence is then played, imitated by the oboe. There is a crescendo, then the rhythmic orchestral melody returns, alternated with a short flute passage. There are suspensions, descending scales and a crescendo, followed by a strong rhythmic passage with the timpani playing on the beat. Imperfect cadences are played, before the piece finishes with a perfect cadence.
While Tchaikovsky is known for his compositions of classical ballet, he was overall great as a pianist. Like most composers of music, his compositions reflected that of his feelings greatly, which helped him connect to the public and spread his music quite well. As a child, he became better than his teacher in one year, and at the age of ten went to the School of Jurisprudence and quickly completed the upper division classes. After graduating, he did four years at the Ministry of Justice, which didn’t really suite him well. Once out of the Ministry of Justice in the 1860s, he joined the Music Conservatory at the age of 22. Shortly after joining, he composed his first orchestral score in 1864. Two years later, he settled down in Moscow and started to increase his fame as a composer. In the following years he would tour around Europe and even into the United States. In 1893, six days after the premiere of his last piece he
It is a bright warm day in Verona beach, what a lovely day, until, you see, a bunch of hooligans known as the Montague's, riding around in a bright yellow convertible, making a racket. In Baz Luhrmann’ s revolutionary remake of William Shakespeare’s play, Romeo and Juliet, he proves that it is possible to translate the 16th century play in a cinematic, action packed, modern-day film.
The piece also switches from 3/2 back to the original time, 4/2. An oboe plays on top of the ostinato, followed by the main fugue from the scherzo from a flute. A solo clarinet plays the same fugue following the flute. Both continue to play, but this time, the two are in harmony, unlike in the scherzo in which both struggled for coexistence. The same melodies are passed from the woodwinds to the brass, all the while, the ostinato starts to become more and more fragmented, “sporadic, even” (Biles, Logan). A baritone enters, playing a somber melody, and the piece ends with the basses echoing a descending step from G to
Arnold Schoenberg "broke down the traditional tonal system and invented a new way of organizing music" with the concepts of "twelve-tone music," "Emancipation of the dissonance" and "equal rights of pitches." He persisted his sense of tonality through his life. Pierrot Lunaire consists of musical settings of 21 poems about the character and set for voice, flute, clarinet, cello, violin, and piano. He took "atonality to never before heard places." Igor Stravinsky was a primary tonal composer with an anti-romantic attitude who sought to extend musical ambiguity as far as possible, while remaining within the tonal system. He was an objectivist who treated everything in composition including emotion as object. His work The Rite of Spring has highly
The piano plays the main themes, and it was absent from playing before. The piano plays two octaves in the treble register. There is a viola in the background playing a counter melody, which slows towards
Music has an ability to make the listeners feel what the composer felt when they composed it. That idea really took off during the Romantic Era, after Beethoven paved a new way for composers to express themselves. One of the most prominent figure of the Romantic Era that really expressed himself in his music was Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Tchaikovsky’s wide and diverse musical repertoire made him into one of the most celebrated composer in history. But when he composed his sixth symphony, he declared it to be “the best thing I ever composed or shall compose.” Then, he suddenly died nine days after the premiere. There are many theories that might connect to the two and I will argue that Tchaikovsky composed his sixth symphony knowing that this
The first movement is in sonata form - Allegro ma non troppo, un poco maestoso. Strings and horns appear from the distance as if they had been already playing out of earshot. The music gradually intensifies in volume until the final explosion into the first subject. Then this whole process is repeated. The first movement shows a contrast of emotion that seems to return in the recapitulation befor...
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is widely considered the most popular Russian composer in history, who has added major contributions to the world of music in his time as well as in ours. His most influential as well as prominent works include The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker.
... began the piece, and the beat of the drum was frequent. After the introduction, the rest of the musicians joined. The pianist also had a solo part with the companion of the drum. The pace of the song was moderately fast, and the song ended with a climax.
With the death of Stalin in 1953 artists of the Soviet Union found themselves with more political freedom, and they used this freedom to create art that expressed the inhumane actions that the regime continued to commit. During Stalin’s life Shostakovich constantly pushed the party beliefs, and after Stalin’s death Shostakovich began composing more of the music he deemed necessary. Twice in his life Shostakovich was denounced, and practically forced out his craft due to this formalist, anti-party music. Despite constantly being aware of the dangers, Shostakovich continued to write music that displeased the regime on a variety of political fronts. He could have easily left the country to write his masterpieces, but he loved his country too much, despite its political flaws, to be willing to run. Shostakovich’s Eleventh Symphony is a multi-narrative piece in that it retells the 1956 Budapest uprising,
Out of the two dances, Matthew Bourne’s rendition of Swan Lake was my least favorite. I thoroughly enjoyed the traditional clip of Swan Lake. In the traditional dance there was precision, cohesiveness, and timing. One big reason I did not enjoy Bourne’s dance is because it seemed too “flowy”. By that I mean it was a more relaxed version in my opinion. I did not like how there was so many people in this dance compared to the traditional one, and that it did not seem that all dancers were dancing with one another. There was a lot of jumping and flaying of their arms. This felt more of lyrical dance compared to a ballet. The dance for me, was just more watching a lot of people running on and off stage jumping and swaying.
...re was very interesting transitions between the variation, for example, string section plays the variation from low to high, when they reach the highest note, the brass family takes over and continue with the scale and make it more higher. Tremolo style was used in this piece, which is a quick ups and downs stroke mode. The music were very soothing and attracted the audience. Lastly, they end the piece with the same variations that was played at the beginning.
Tchaikovsky is one of the most beloved composers in history. An inspired craftsman of melody, orchestration and tonal color, he wrote in an astonishing variety of musical forms, from symphonies to ballet scores to concertos (Sadie, 94). His life and work are the stuff of legend, and his personal struggles are almost as well recorded today as the methods by which he created his music (Osborne, 77).
He published his first orchestral works, a symphony and an opera, by 1869 (1). Inspired by E. T. A. Hoffmann’s libretto, Tchaikovsky wrote his best-recognized ballet, The Nutcracker (“Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky” 2).The Nutcracker lends an ironic understatement to Tchaikovsky because of the ballet’s cheerfulness and Tchaikovsky’s various forms of mental stress he faced throughout his life (2).... ... middle of paper ... ...
... then plays allegro passages of semi quavers, accompanied by timpani and descending scales in the woodwind. The clarinet, takes over the main melody whilst the cello accompanies with sequences. The French horn takes over the melody, accompanied by the strings. The flute briefly plays the melody before the cello plays octaves, accompanying the woodwind as they play a reprise of the DSCH theme and the timpani crashes. Repeating the themes in the first movement, the cello plays the DSCH motif followed by the "tate ta, tate ta" rhythm in the strings. The horn then plays the theme in augmentation, whilst the cello plays passages of ascending and descending scales, and the theme is heard again in the strings. The movement builds up with the motif appearing increasingly often in the woodwind and strings and climaxes with octaves by the soloist and a boom from the timpani.