VA - Tchaikovsky in Odessa: Part Two (2020)

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VA - Tchaikovsky in Odessa: Part Two (2020)

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Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was a Russian composer of the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music made a lasting impression internationally, bolstered by his appearances as a guest conductor in Europe and the United States. He was honored in 1884 by Emperor Alexander III, and awarded a lifetime pension.

Although musically precocious, Tchaikovsky was educated for a career as a civil servant. There was scant opportunity for a musical career in Russia at that time and no system of public music education. When an opportunity for such an education arose, he entered the nascent Saint Petersburg Conservatory, from which he graduated in 1865. The formal Western-oriented teaching he received there set him apart from composers of the contemporary nationalist movement embodied by the Russian composers of The Five, with whom his professional relationship was mixed. Tchaikovsky's training set him on a path to reconcile what he had learned with the native musical practices to which he had been exposed from childhood. From this reconciliation he forged a personal but unmistakably Russian style—a task that did not prove easy. The principles that governed melody, harmony and other fundamentals of Russian music ran completely counter to those that governed Western European music; this seemed to defeat the potential for using Russian music in large-scale Western composition or for forming a composite style, and it caused personal antipathies that dented Tchaikovsky's self-confidence. Russian culture exhibited a split personality, with its native and adopted elements having drifted apart increasingly since the time of Peter the Great. This resulted in uncertainty among the intelligentsia about the country's national identity—an ambiguity mirrored in Tchaikovsky's career.

Despite his many popular successes, Tchaikovsky's life was punctuated by personal crises and depression. Contributory factors included his early separation from his mother for boarding school followed by his mother's early death, the death of his close friend and colleague Nikolai Rubinstein, and the collapse of the one enduring relationship of his adult life, which was his 13-year association with the wealthy widow Nadezhda von Meck who was his patron even though they never actually met each other. His homosexuality, which he kept private, has traditionally also been considered a major factor, though some musicologists now downplay its importance. Tchaikovsky's sudden death at the age of 53 is generally ascribed to cholera; there is an ongoing debate as to whether cholera was indeed the cause of death, and whether his death was accidental or self-inflicted.

While his music has remained popular among audiences, critical opinions were initially mixed. Some Russians did not feel it was sufficiently representative of native musical values and expressed suspicion that Europeans accepted the music for its Western elements. In an apparent reinforcement of the latter claim, some Europeans lauded Tchaikovsky for offering music more substantive than base exoticism and said he transcended stereotypes of Russian classical music. Others dismissed Tchaikovsky's music as "lacking in elevated thought", according to longtime New York Times music critic Harold C. Schonberg, and derided its formal workings as deficient because they did not stringently follow Western principles.

“I have never experienced anything like this before in my life. They are honouring me here as if I were some great man, almost a person who had saved their Motherland.”

Pyotr Tchaikovsky about Odessa and Odessa’s people

Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky arrived at Odessa on the 12th of January 1893. Lev Kupernik, the Head of Odessa Branch of the Russian Imperial Musical Society and Ivan Grekov, entrepreneur of the Odessa City Theatre, invited him to Odessa. The composer agreed to take part in the production of his opera Queen of Spades and conduct two symphonic concerts.

Odessa’s people were looking forward to the maestro’s arrival. “People were fighting to get the tickets for these concerts in spite of the high price the Musical Society had put. The Society had problems with funding and it needed extra money to make ends meet. Interviewers followed Tchaikovsky and rivaled to question him. Tchaikovsky was so polite that he responded in a written form to be exact in his answers,” – Abram Kaufman, a journalist, wrote in his memoirs.

Musicians of the Odessa City Theatre were looking forward to the first rehearsal of the Queen of Spades and were walking there as if they were going to some party. “The orchestra musicians were at their places long before the agreed time… As soon as Pyotr Il’yich appeared on stage the orchestra burst into thunders of applause and “Hurray” screams. The musicians started playing touché and raised the composer up on their hands, to his great amazement. They were swinging him for a long time. All the people present in the theatre stood up, the applause lasted for 15 minutes. Pyotr Il’ych walked to the first row of chairs, sat and making comments followed the rehearsal from there,” – Sergei Levin, an orchestra musician, told.