Tchaikovsky: “… I love Russian element in all its manifestations”

In honor of the 175th anniversary of the birth of Pyotr Tchaikovsky, celebrated May 7, 2015, the Presidential Library makes available on its website a collection of rare materials on the great Russian composer.

Browsing electronic copies of rare books about him make us believe that the greatest minds of humanity highly appreciated the work of Tchaikovsky. Leo Tolstoy wrote in his letter to Pyotr about the feelings he experienced when listening to the Andante from Tchaikovsky's first quartet: "I have never received such great reward for my literary work as this wonderful evening."

Abroad Tchaikovsky was elected an honorary member of the largest music societies, he was mentioned on a par with Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner. Imbued with a truly popular and profound truth of life, his works excite and will continue to excite the listener. This is stated in the book of B. Kochakov, "Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky."

Tchaikovsky was born May 7, 1840 in a small town of Votkinsk, where his father, Ilya Petrovich, was the director of a public plant.

The first musical impressions of the future composer were associated with folk songs and old mechanical musical instruments available at home - it was a concertina, used by the composer's mother, Alexandra Andreevna. In his memoirs, Tchaikovsky wrote: "I grew up in the wilderness, from early childhood I was filled with ineffable beauty of Russian folk music... I passionately love the Russian element in all its manifestations. I'm Russian in every sense of the word..."

Tchaikovsky had carried love for music throughout his life and chose it over legal service. In 1862 he passed the exams to enter the St. Petersburg Conservatory, which had just opened. G. Bernandt in his "P. I. Tchaikovsky" writes: “having graduated from the highest musical institution with a silver medal, the future composer was proposed the post of professor at the Moscow Conservatory. In the capital, Pyotr met the brightest Russian musicians, writers and artists - Alexander Ostrovsky, Anton Chekhov, the artistic world of the Maly Theater.

The symphonic style of the Russian genius was studied in many musicological research works - it was really an uncommon phenomenon in the musical circles of the two Russian capitals and in Europe. Totally, the composer wrote seven symphonies. Tchaikovsky’s ascent as a symphonist was his Sixth Symphony. "The significance of symphonic work of Tchaikovsky is enormous, says an electronic copy of B. Yarustovsky’s "P. I. Tchaikovsky" available on the Presidential Library website. Just like another genius symphonist, Beethoven, summed up in his works the preceding development of the world instrumental music, Tchaikovsky embodied in his work the achievements of not only the Russian symphonic style that preceded him, but the whole Western European music of the 19th century. The man and the life around him, man and nature, man and society - these are the basic ideas underlying the symphonies. And these ideas, reflected in musical images, are always in a collision, in continuous development."

In his work Tchaikovsky also attached great importance to opera genre. "Opera has the advantage that it makes it possible to speak the language of the masses," he wrote in a letter to Nadezhda von Meck in 1879. There comes a time when Tchaikovsky picks up a volume of "Onegin" and in one night writes the script and starts writing the eponymous opera. "What an abyss of poetry in Onegin! - he wrote to his brother Modest. I'm not mistaken, I know well that there will be little stage effects and movement in this opera, but the general poetry, humanity and simplicity of the story combined with the brilliant text replace with interest all the disadvantages."

Composer also constantly referred to small forms. He is the author of 100 songs, which are the gems of vocal lyricism, as well as of more than 100 piano pieces.

Among the priceless items of the Presidential Library there are: Tchaikovsky's musical autographs given to Rimsky-Korsakov, Yastrebtsov, notes of Tchaikovsky in the score of the Second Concerto for Piano and Orchestra; a few photos with a dedicatory inscription, in particular, to M. Balakirev of March 3, 1887; journal articles, lifetime editions of the composer and books about him published in the Soviet age; Tchaikovsky’s correspondence with M. Balakirev, S. Taneyev and N. F. von Meck; posters of concerts of the composer and other interesting materials.

The world of the Russian genius is enormous; any information about him will excite music lovers even many centuries later.