About Tchaikowsky.

[Enrique]

I consider myself to be a person with an innate sensibility for true beauty. And I say it here, among people who belong, and this I am entitled to say after having belonged to BSR for some time now, to that selected circle which is always seeking perfection: not only was Chaikowsky a genius, but he was a genius of the highest rank.

You have to assert this once in a while in order to shut the mouth of ignorants and people who really have not a highly developed taste for music. I have heard statements such as "Tchaikowsky was a light music composer", and said by a famous music critic.

Can somebody seriously deny the incredible melodic gift he had, or the exquisite sense for orchestration he shows all over his works, that way of developing material by the most unexpected metamorphosis of themes. He loved the use of scales going all through the orchestra upwards and downwards, and those pedal notes in the brasses, as if he had lived in the time of Mozart and Beethoven.

He is truly one the greats, and will live for ever in the hearts of authentic people who loves beauty in music.

[Michael]

"Selections from Swan Lake" was the very first classical music recording I ever bought. I followed this up with "The Sleeping Beauty". Then came the Sixth Symphony - and I stalled for a while. It took me a long time to make sense of it (after all, I was coming straight from the Beatles). However, after many listenings, I saw (or heard) the light.

I owe Tchaikovsky a lot yet I am still not sure how to pronounce his name. I know it can be spelt in at least three different ways but is the V sounded in the "kovsky" or is it "kowski"? I have heard it both ways on radio programmes.

[Enrique]

"Selections from Swan Lake" was the very first classical music recording I ever bought. I followed this up with "The Sleeping Beauty". Then came the Sixth Symphony - and I stalled for a while. It took me a long time to make sense of it (after all, I was coming straight from the Beatles). However, after many listenings, I saw (or heard) the light.

You were luckier than I was. My first conscious contact with classical music (how tedious to have to add the adjective every time you say that) was one of the suites from The Nutcracker. Because this music is so carefully written and was absorbed in childhood, it is dear to me. The second experience I remember is Carmen, the suite. My father may have had more "sophisticated" tastes but this is what was at the reach of one's hand. I say this because, according to mom, he began with Beethoven, knew then Wagner and entered ,at the end, his Stravinskian period. A very common fate, you see.

You know, already as a teenager, at home a soap opera was heard at the wireless. The music they used for that was from the Sixth, last movement. As they only played the main theme, I think this is why I did not like the music too much by then. And when I came to know the whole movement, that theme stood in the way of a good appreciation. Of course it's the greatest the symphony has to give us.

I owe Tchaikovsky a lot yet I am still not sure how to pronounce his name. I know it can be spelt in at least three different ways but is the V sounded in the "kovsky" or is it "kowski"? I have heard it both ways on radio programmes.

Believe me. The sound is that of the letter "f" in English: kofski, almost indistinguishable from English "v" in that position. But at first, I think, it was the Germans who gave the norm for the spelling. And they wrote "kowsky" because of their peculiar way of making the double u sound.

[Megan]

You were luckier than I was. My first conscious contact with classical music (how tedious to have to add the adjective every time you say that) was one of the suites from The Nutcracker. Because this music is so carefully written and was absorbed in childhood, it is dear to me. The second experience I remember is Carmen, the suite. My father may have had more "sophisticated" tastes but this is what was at the reach of one's hand. I say this because, according to mom, he began with Beethoven, knew then Wagner and entered ,at the end, his Stravinskian period. A very common fate, you see.

You know, already as a teenager, at home a soap opera was heard at the wireless. The music they used for that was from the Sixth, last movement. As they only played the main theme, I think this is why I did not like the music too much by then. And when I came to know the whole movement, that theme stood in the way of a good appreciation. Of course it's the greatest the symphony has to give us.




Believe me. The sound is that of the letter "f" in English: kofski, almost indistinguishable from English "v" in that position. But at first, I think, it was the Germans who gave the norm for the spelling. And they wrote "kowsky" because of their peculiar way of making the double u sound.

Here is a site that helps with pronounciation.

http://www.pronouncenames.com/search?name=tchaikovsky+

[Enrique]

I'll put that into my list of useful URLs.

[Peter]

He is truly one the greats, and will live for ever in the hearts of authentic people who loves beauty in music.

Yes I think this is true and I think your use of the word 'beauty' is significant because that is what he himself strived for and why he loved Mozart so much. There is much of Tchaikovsky that is neglected when you consider the number of operas he wrote for example. The 4th symphony has always been a favourite of mine (especially the wonderful 1st movt - I'm not so sure about the finale). Then there are the suites - no.2 and no.3 which I love more than the more popular no.4 'Mozartiana'.

[Enrique]

I'm glad we have similar points of view regarding that who Russia, for a long time, considered her number one composer (I think it is Mussorgsky who is claimed by others to deserve that place).

[Michael]

Then there are the suites - no.2 and no.3 which I love more than the more popular no.4 'Mozartiana'.

Your mention of the suites has reminded me of something and I must make a correction to what I said above. I bought my first "classical" (I hate the word too) records in 1967 but almost five years earlier, when I was only buying pop singles, I bought a 45 - as they were called - with just one short item on each side.
Side one was Vaughan Williams' "Fantasia on Greensleeves" and the other was Tchaikovsky's "Waltz from Serenade for String Orchestra in C".
So my interest in this music was lying dormant, waiting to erupt in a blaze of glory in 1968 when I bought my first Beethoven.

(Tune in again next week, folks, for another gripping installment!)

[Enrique]

I owe Tchaikovsky a lot yet I am still not sure how to pronounce his name. I know it can be spelt in at least three different ways but is the V sounded in the "kovsky" or is it "kowski"? I have heard it both ways on radio programmes.

This reminds me some words by Mark Twain: "They spell it Vinci and pronounce it Vinchy. Foreigners always spell better than they pronounce". The characteristic ironic way of his.

[Sorrano]

My first real experiences with Tchaikovsky was with the last three symphonies. What I've found is that he had an innate sense of musical drama, which was ideal, of course for composing the ballet music, but the symphonic output and other orchestral works demonstrate that ability, perhaps more than any other composer. His music has always been very close to my heart.

[Chris]

I have always particularly loved his concertos.

[Enrique]

Your mention of the suites has reminded me of something and I must make a correction to what I said above. I bought my first "classical" (I hate the word too) records in 1967 but almost five years earlier, when I was only buying pop singles, I bought a 45 - as they were called - with just one short item on each side.
Side one was Vaughan Williams' "Fantasia on Greensleeves" and the other was Tchaikovsky's "Waltz from Serenade for String Orchestra in C".
So my interest in this music was lying dormant, waiting to erupt in a blaze of glory in 1968 when I bought my first Beethoven.

(Tune in again next week, folks, for another gripping installment!)

That serenade, when I knew it, I thought (my goodness, if I had a grasp of English ... My own ignorance makes me look pedant, for I must steadily fall back on "educated" words) I had made a discovery, and I bought both the record and the score. I have both of them yet. Tchaikowsky's waltzes! And in particular that from the serenade. A student of composition at the conservatory, some years my senior, seeing how fond I was of that composition, told me he specially liked the exposition of the theme in the first movement, how well "built" it seemed. He sat at the piano and, for my delight, played the beginning for me. So, he really knew it by heart, or perhaps was studying it as part of his studies. He invariably dressed in suit and wore a bowler hat for, at that level, a student must already have a personality, and it's a good idea to begin by the physical. I mean, if he was to be a composer at all.

So my interest in this music was lying dormant, waiting to erupt in a blaze of glory in 1968 when I bought my first Beethoven.

And what did you buy, Michael? Do you remember?

[Peter]

Then there is the Manfred symphony and the sextet 'Souvenir de Florence' - both great and neglected works as is the 2nd piano concerto, completely and unjustly overshadowed by no.1.

[Michael]

And what did you buy, Michael? Do you remember?

I certainly do remember: it was the Pastoral Symphony, Pittsburgh Phil conducted by William Steinberg. (I have since transferred it to CD but I still have the vinyl copy.)

And when I first played it, I didn't like it one bit. I thought it was trite and repetitious - especially after Tchaikovsky's 5th and 6th. It took me about a month to tune in and then I went raving mad and bought every Beethoven record I could lay my hands on.

A whole range of classical music was being reissued at the time. Those vinyl L.P.s cost about a third of the price of pop records.

[Enrique]

I was also unfair to the Pastoral. It must have been my first Beethoven ... hum... perhaps I already knew the Emperor Concerto, and a concerto is more easy than a symphony. What I do remember very well, is that hearing it for the first time did not make me feel anything special. I knew it was Beethoven, and that his music, very specially a symphony, I was supposed to like it. So the disappointment was more with myself than with the symphony. Latter I learned that Beetohven requires preparation, I mean a previous listening training. I had been exposed to classical music since my early childhood, but with important interruptions. Mom was fond of tango, which he listened to often. And she latter told me that I, being a little creature, climbed to a chair to get hold of the wireless and changed the station, remarking "Music ugly", automatically set the dial to Radio Nacional, and triumphly exclaimed: "This pretty".

So, it's always been a mistery for me why the 6th, precisely the 6th was hard for me at first auditions. It was not lack of contact with good music. Because I think for a newcomer to the Beethoven world the 6th should be one of the more accessible symphonies.