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Under von Meck's patronage, Tchaikovsky became increasingly famous as a composer. Nevertheless, he continued to be depressed and withdrawn in his personal life. In the year 1893, when he was 53 years old, Tchaikovsky died suddenly from a case of cholera that he got from drinking some contaminated water. Some music historians believe his death was from an accident; however, David Brown, a scholar who has extensively studied Tchaikovsky's life, insists that the melancholy composer committed suicide (Brown 626). Despite the problems in his personal life, Tchaikovsky's creative output was enormous. He wrote six symphonies, including his Sixth Symphony ("Pathetique"), which is among the most celebrated such works today. He also wrote 23 other works for the orchestra, including several overtures such as Romeo and Juliet and the Festival Overture ("1812"). He wrote 11 operas, of which The Queen of Spades and Eugene Onegin are the most popular. He composed three famous ballets: The Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker. He wrote 10 concertos for either piano, violin or cello. He also wrote six works for chamber orchestra, one piano duet, and 18 opuses for solo piano. In addition, he composed five major choral works, 13 songs cycles (each of which contains between six and 16 songs), and a |
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The historical significance of the composer can be seen in the fact that he was representative of the Romantic period in music. The Romantic movement, which swept Europe during the 19th century, can best be understood in contrast to the Classical period which preceded it. The Classical period, which was characterized by the music of Haydn, Mozart, and early Beethoven, was a time when composers were generally supported by the patronage of the nobility. The musical style of the period was based on the ideas of harmonic proportion which had originally been developed during ancient Greek and Roman times. Thus, it was a style in which elegance and refinement were considered far more important than emotional expression. In contrast, the Romantic period was marked by the dissolution of the European patronage system. The composers, who no longer had to create their works for the pleasure of kings and queens, began to be more emotionally expressive in their music. In addition, the music itself became more expansive, with more chromaticism and tone color than ever before. Two other unique elements in Romantic music were the spread of nationalism, in which composers expressed pride in their home nations, and the use of "program music," in which instrumental music was "inspired by a poem, novel, play, painting, sculpture, or some other extramusical entity, and meant to suggest the essence of that entity to the listener" (Griffel 589).Gilder, Eric. The Dictionary of Composers and Their Music. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1986. Whittall, Arnold. Romantic Music: A Concise History from Schubert to Sibelius. London: Thames and Hudson, 1987. Symphony Number 6 in B Minor ("Pathetique") was written in 1893, shortly before Tchaikovsky's death. This work again emphasizes emotional expression and as such it clearly exhibits the depression and pessimism which plagued the composer at that time in his life (Brown 626). As in Romeo and Juliet and the 1812 Ov |
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