Tchaikovsky - time to rehabilitate?

[Beef Oven!]

No pun intended, eh?

I've often wondered, had he been born 100 years later, would he have composed a Manfred Mann Symphony?

I refuse to let homophobes hijack our beautiful language. When I'm feeling under the weather I still exclaim 'I feel queer'. I refuse to change!

[eighthobstruction]

I just watched Xavier Beauvois' Of Gods and Men on BBC4... what a scene when the old medic puts Swan Lake into their player, the tears and the study of faces...

Tchaikovsky was never out-of-favour for me, if I play him less now it's simply due to (over)-familiarity...or over-indulgence - just 5 or 6 years ago I bought up all the Pony Canyon HDCDs of Svetlanov's recordings in Moscow and Japan and dwelt upon them a little too much... (fishing by obstinate isles, perhaps....) this music can cast a spell which is almost narcotic, but then you may get clean...all passion spent...

But he'll always be (re)-discovered and loved as long as orchestral music is played.

Yes a tremendous film....the power of the human visage

[Petrushka]

My favourite Swan Lake just has to be Rozhdestvensky and the USSR Radio and Television Large Symphony Orchestra, Soviet brass and all! The end is worthy of Gotterdammerung in its dramatic sweep and Rozh hits the spot for me like no other.

Sadly, currently unavailable http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tchaikovsky-...rozhdestvensky

[Beef Oven!]

My favourite Swan Lake just has to be Rozhdestvensky and the USSR Radio and Television Large Symphony Orchestra, Soviet brass and all! The end is worthy of Gotterdammerung in it's dramatic sweep and Rozh hits the spot for me like no other.

Sadly, currently unavailable http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tchaikovsky-...rozhdestvensky

I have a CD of that performance (but not the one shown), but I can't find it anywhere

[David-G]

The real under-rated work, though, in my opinion, is Swan Lake which has absolutely everything one could ask for and is a work of intense, dramatic tragedy on an epic scale.

Yes! I agree.

And Sleeping Beauty, while not a tragedy, can be an extraordinarily effective stage work. This was brought home to me in the Kirov season at CG in 2000, when they brought a reconstruction of the original production, which made a towering impression. All other Sleeping Beautys that I have seen pale in comparison. Unfortunately the Kirov/Mariinsky have not brought this production on subsequent visits.

[jayne lee wilson]

I refuse to let homophobes hijack our beautiful language. When I'm feeling under the weather I still exclaim 'I feel queer'. I refuse to change!

Well I hope you exclaim how gay you feel in Spring!

Everyone should study language(-games)... write "gay" in the middle of the page and cover the rest of it with the cloud of meanings...

[cloughie]

Well I hope you exclaim how gay you feel in Spring!

Everyone should study language(-games)... write "gay" in the middle of the page and cover the rest of it with the cloud of meanings...

Sliver linings and several shades of g(r)ay.

[Beef Oven!]

Well I hope you exclaim how gay you feel in Spring!

Can't promise

[visualnickmos]

My favourite Swan Lake just has to be Rozhdestvensky and the USSR Radio and Television Large Symphony Orchestra, Soviet brass and all! The end is worthy of Gotterdammerung in its dramatic sweep and Rozh hits the spot for me like no other.

Sadly, currently unavailable http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tchaikovsky-...rozhdestvensky

I have the set with Svetlanov - also Melodiya, recorded 1988.

[Alain Maréchal]

Like many others here, he has no need of rehabilitation for me. I once knew someone who "didn't like the sound he gets from an orchestra" and I have never understood the remark.

I recently purchased a set of the symphonies with the LPO conducted by Rostropovich - wonderful oldfashioned romantic performances. I usually get to see Nutcracker every other year or so, and it rarely fails to charm: its a superb score, the pas de deux at the end of act one always brings a lump to the throat. There is a CD of excerpts conducted by Mravinsky, played to the hilt.

Professor Roland Wiley makes a very persuasive case for the Sleeping Beauty as a tightly scored symphonic structure with the "correct" key sequences, usually unnoticed because it is rarely performed uncut.

If I had to keep just one Tchaikovsky work, it would be the Serenade for strings - LSO conducted by Barbirolli of course.

[cloughie]

If I had to keep just one Tchaikovsky work, it would be the Serenade for strings - LSO conducted by Barbirolli of course.

JB great but Solti and IPO my first love in this work.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Gergiev is often associated with great Tchaikovsky interpretations, but I find him rather brutal, even when conducting the refined Vienna Philharmonic.

[Stanfordian]

Tchaikovsky is one of my favourite composers, always has been ever since I can remember. In fact he's a desert island composer for me.

It's queer, that having said that, I play his music less often than I used to and he rarely gets a mention on the forum.

When I was a kid, his music seemed to be everywhere, even more than Beethoven's, now it's a rarity.

Is it not time to restore him, especially given our preference for music from the 1800s?

Lest he suffers the fate of Mendelssohn

Hiya Beefy, I'm not sure that Tchaikovsky needs rehabilitating. In my view he gets his fair share of performances in the concert hall.

[BBMmk2]

It's certainly quite strange, sometimes, I find, that when you don't hear who the performer is on the radio, and then you look it up on their website, and to your astonishment, you see it's a classic recording. In this case Yevgeny Mravinsky conducting the then Lenin PO!!! And the work Tchaikovsky's Symphony no.5!! I didn't think much of it, especially in the horn part, sounding like a euphonium!

[cloughie]

It's certainly quite strange, sometimes, I find, that when you don't hear who the performer is on the radio, and then you look it up on their website, and to your astonishment, you see it's a classic recording. In this case Yevgeny Mravinsky conducting the then Lenin PO!!! And the work Tchaikovsky's Symphony no.5!! I didn't think much of it, especially in the horn part, sounding like a euphonium!

But Bbm, I would say more like a saxophone - but for me that is part of its charm - I think its something to do with the bore of the tubes. The French sound is similar in the 50s recordings from the PCO eg Solti's Tchaik 5.