I have a playlist called My Funeral that I wish play in my funeral.

Tchaikovsky

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky(/tʃaɪˈkɒfski/ chy-KOF-skee; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893)was a Russian composer of the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music would make a lasting impression internationally. Tchaikovsky wrote some of the most popular concert and theatrical music in the current classical repertoire, including the ballets Swan Lake and The Nutcracker, the 1812 Overture, his First Piano Concerto, Violin Concerto, the Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy, several symphonies, and the opera Eugene Onegin.

Although musically precocious, Tchaikovsky was educated for a career as a civil servant as there was little opportunity for a musical career in Russia at the 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 that Tchaikovsky 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 that reconciliation, he forged a personal but unmistakably Russian style. The principles that governed melody, harmony, and other fundamentals of Russian music ran completely counter to those that governed Western European music, which 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. That 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, his failed marriage with Antonina Miliukova, and the collapse of his 13-year association with the wealthy patroness Nadezhda von Meck. Tchaikovsky’s homosexuality, which he kept private, has traditionally also been considered a major factor though some scholars have played down its importance. His dedication of his Sixth symphony to his nephew Vladimir “Bob” Davydov and his feelings expressed about Davydov in letters to others, especially following Davydov’s suicide, have been cited as evidence for a romantic love between the two.Tchaikovsky’s sudden death at the age of 53 is generally ascribed to cholera（霍乱）, but there is an ongoing debate as to whether cholera was indeed the cause and whether the death was accidental or intentional.

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 deficient because they did not stringently follow Western principles.

Even though many of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s beloved masterpieces like Swan Lake, Romeo and Juliet and the 1812 Overture are regularly heard in concert halls, an argument can be made that the 19th-century Russian composer’s works remain in some ways underappreciated. Indeed, Philip Ross Bullock, author of the 2016 biography, Piotr Tchaikovsky, argues that the composer’s popularity has actually worked against him.

“He is undervalued but perhaps overexposed in some ways,” said Bullock, a professor of Russian literature and music at Oxford University’s Wadham College. “His very popularity, these warhorses, the First Piano Concerto, the Pathetique Symphony [which the CSO will perform Oct. 7-9], become so familiar that people stop hearing them in original ways.”

A member of the academic advisory board of the International Tchaikovsky Society, Bullock offers other reasons for the under-assessment of the composer. For starters, Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) was once subject to what the scholar called a “moral squeamishness” — a distancing by certain academics and others because of his homosexuality and now-outdated notions of how his private life affected his music. “I think that’s not been true for a long time, academically speaking,” Bullock said. “We’ve learned to rehear him.”

Second, Tchaikovsky was a more modern composer than some might think. Mahler was another composer who was discounted for decades after his death in 1911, and then starting in the 1950s and ’60s with the efforts of Leonard Bernstein and others, he began to be seen as a modern master. “Mahler conducted Tchaikovsky at the Vienna Opera House and at the Met when he came to the United States,” Bullock said. “Mahler learned to be Mahler by listening to what Tchaikovsky did to symphonic form.” In his Sixth Symphony, for example, Tchaikovsky broke from tradition and put the movements in the “wrong” order, much as Mahler did in his Ninth Symphony.

“But we always forget to put Tchaikovsky in that place in music history as someone who took us from the 19th century,” he said, “and then ushered in the symphonic practices of Mahler, of Elgar, in many ways, of Shostakovich in the Russian tradition and Sibelius in the Finnish tradition.”

Finally, Tchaikovsky was his own worst enemy. He was self-deprecating about his abilities as a composer. “It’s all rubbish,” Bullock said. “He was a brilliant symphonist.” But the self-criticism, often taken out of context, has affected the way critics view his work.

Among the qualities that have made Tchaikovsky’s music so memorable is his gift for melody. Notable examples can be found across his output, especially what Bullock called his “extraordinary lyrical outpourings” in many of his slow movements, such as that in the Symphony No. 5. The composer wrote 10 operas and more than 100 art songs, and the expressive qualities heard in those pieces often carry over to his instrumental works, as indicated by such markings as “cantabile,” “cantando” or “espressivo.”

Bullock also praised Tchaikovsky’s “winning way” with titles, programs (a preconceived theme or narrative) and particularly, hints of programs, where the composer deliberately withheld details from the audience. “So he engages our capacity as a listener to imagine,” he said. Romeo and Juliet and Francesca da Rimini (an 1876 ode to the famed story from Dante’s Divine Comedy) clearly have narratives, but Tchaikovsky’s programmatic intent for the Fifth and Sixth symphonies remains unclear, despite scholars’ eager efforts to uncover it. “What’s fascinating is the way that Tchaikovsky can use that hint of a story, hint of a personality, to make us do the work, to fill in the gaps and to imagine while we’re listening.”

Although Tchaikovsky’s music is overtly romantic in many ways, he had strong ties to the Classical era, and his favorite composer was Mozart. “When he got to see the original score of Don Giovanni, he was completely transfixed by the connection he had to the 18th century,” Bullock said. Tchaikovsky’s opera The Queen of Spades contains an intermezzo borrowed from a Mozart piano concerto, and the Orchestral Suite No. 4 (Mozartiana) is an arrangement of four works by the composer’s hero. “I think his interest in these classical forms of the 18th century, and his interest in charm, delight, order, proportion — all these things we think of with the 18th century — is often misunderstood because we tend to see him through a romantic, 19th-century prism.”

Igor Stravinsky, who turned to neo-classical music in the 1920s, was fascinated by Tchaikovsky. “It’s maybe that we have evolved a performing tradition that emphasizes the heart-on-sleeve romanticism of Tchaikovsky’s work," Bullock said, “but sometimes we mishear or misunderstand or are not shown the works that would allow us to hear this very different side of him.”

Even though many of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s beloved masterpieces like Swan Lake, Romeo and Juliet and the 1812 Overture are regularly heard in concert halls, an argument can be made that the 19th-century Russian composer’s works remain in some ways underappreciated. Indeed, Philip Ross Bullock, author of the 2016 biography, Piotr Tchaikovsky, argues that the composer’s popularity has actually worked against him.

“He is undervalued but perhaps overexposed in some ways,” said Bullock, a professor of Russian literature and music at Oxford University’s Wadham College. “His very popularity, these warhorses, the First Piano Concerto, the Pathetique Symphony [which the CSO will perform Oct. 7-9], become so familiar that people stop hearing them in original ways.”

A member of the academic advisory board of the International Tchaikovsky Society, Bullock offers other reasons for the under-assessment of the composer. For starters, Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) was once subject to what the scholar called a “moral squeamishness” — a distancing by certain academics and others because of his homosexuality and now-outdated notions of how his private life affected his music. “I think that’s not been true for a long time, academically speaking,” Bullock said. “We’ve learned to rehear him.”

作品

交响曲

• 《g小调第一交响曲“冬之梦”》（1866年）
• 《c小调第二交响曲》（1872年）
• 《D大调第三交响曲》（1875年）
• 《f小调第四交响曲》（1878年）
• 《曼费德交响曲》（1885年）
• 《e小调第五交响曲》（1888年）
• 《b小调第六交响曲“悲怆”》（1893年）

芭蕾舞剧

• 《天鹅湖》（1876年）
• 《睡美人》（1889年）
• 《胡桃夹子》（1892年）

歌剧

• 《叶甫盖尼·奥涅金》（1879年）
• 《黑桃皇后》（1891年）

管弦乐作品

• 《罗密欧与朱丽叶幻想序曲》（1869年）
• 《降b小调第一钢琴协奏曲》（1874年）
• 《D大调小提琴协奏曲》（1878年）
• 《黎密尼的法兰西丝卡》（1876年）
• 《1812序曲》（1880年）
• 《弦乐小夜曲》（1880年）
• 《意大利随想曲》（1880年）
• 《哈姆雷特》（1888年）
• 《斯拉夫进行曲》(1876年)
• 《加晃进行曲》 (1881年)

代表作

The Swan Lake, Op.20

the season, Op.37a

1812 overture，Op.49

Historical background: Napoleon’s invasion of Russia

A scene depicting the French retreat from Russia in 1812, painting by Illarion Pryanishnikov (1874) Main article: French invasion of Russia On 7 September 1812, at Borodino, 120 km (75 mi) west of Moscow, Napoleon’s forces met those of General Mikhail Kutuzov in a concerted stand made by Russia against the seemingly invincible French Army. The Battle of Borodino saw casualties estimated as high as 100,000 and the French were masters of the field. It was, however, ultimately a pyrrhic victory for the French invasion.

With resources depleted and supply lines overextended, Napoleon’s weakened forces moved into Moscow, which they occupied with no delegation to receive the conquerors. Expecting a capitulation from Tsar Alexander I, the French instead found themselves in a barren and desolate city. To make things worse, 48 hours after Napoleon’s entry to the Russian city on 14 September 1812, three quarters of Moscow was burned to the ground.

Deprived of winter stores, Napoleon had to retreat. Beginning on 19 October and lasting well into December, the French Army faced several overwhelming obstacles on its long retreat: famine, typhus, freezing temperatures, harassing cossacks, and Russian forces barring the way out of the country. Abandoned by Napoleon in November, the Grande Armée was reduced to one-tenth of its original size by the time it reached Poland and relative safety.[10]

In 1869, the full edition of War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy was published. The novel reported a very accurate description of the Napoleonic invasion of 1812, reviving memories of the Russian resistance. This led to the commissioning of new monuments, paintings and also of new musical compositions, including Tchaikovsky’s.

structure

The piece begins with the simple, plaintive Russian melody of the Eastern Orthodox Troparion of the Holy Cross (also known as “O Lord, Save Thy People”) played by four cellos and two violas（大提琴和中提琴）. This represents the Russian people praying for a swift conclusion to the invasion. Then, the French national anthem（法国国歌）, “La Marseillaise”, is heard, representing the invading French army. Then, the melody of “La Marseillaise” is heard competing against Russian folk music, representing the two armies fighting each other as the French approached Moscow. At this point, five cannon shots are heard（五声炮响）, representing the Battle of Borodino. This is where “La Marseillaise” is most prominent, and seems to be winning. After this, a long descending run represents the French army retreating out of Moscow as the freezing winter winds rage on. At the end of this run the opening motif is repeated, which can be interpreted as prayers being answered. The grand finale culminates with eleven more cannon shots and the melody of “God Save the Tsar!”.