Tchaikovsky COTW 17-21/08/15

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Is this a new series or is it a repeat?

[Bryn]

Is this a new series or is it a repeat?

I think it's new. It certainly does not set off any recall for me, and there is no indication of previous broadcast(s).

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Thanks. I must catch up. There's only one stab at them this week, as the midday sessions have been replaced by the Edinburgh Festival concerts.

[Serial_Apologist]

I think I was probably one of many who was first introduced to Tchaikovsky as a child through the music that is most characteristic: Swan Lake, Bleeping Suity, Jo Mio & Rouliette, PC No 1, symphonies 4-6; I'm always taken aback at how much of his music sounds as if it could have been written by someone else; Liszt comes most often to mind for me in the piano music, but often it seems to be no one else in particular, just not Tchaikovsky.

[richardfinegold]

I think I was probably one of many who was first introduced to Tchaikovsky as a child through the music that is most characteristic: Swan Lake, Bleeping Suity, Jo Mio & Rouliette, PC No 1, symphonies 4-6; I'm always taken aback at how much of his music sounds as if it could have been written by someone else; Liszt comes most often to mind for me in the piano music, but often it seems to be no one else in particular, just not Tchaikovsky.

So, which of his pieces sounds like Tchaikovsky?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I think I was probably one of many who was first introduced to Tchaikovsky as a child through the music that is most characteristic: Swan Lake, Bleeping Suity, Jo Mio & Rouliette, PC No 1, symphonies 4-6; I'm always taken aback at how much of his music sounds as if it could have been written by someone else; Liszt comes most often to mind for me in the piano music, but often it seems to be no one else in particular, just not Tchaikovsky.

This all seems very strange indeed. Tchaikovsky has such a distinctive sound. The only Liszt connection I am aware of is in Vallée d'Obermann from Anneés de Pelerinage "Suisse", which was imitated by Tchaikovsky, either deliberately or co-incidentally, in the slow introduction to Romeo & Juliet.

[Serial_Apologist]

So, which of his pieces sounds like Tchaikovsky?

The ones I mentioned in the quote you quoted.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Getting back to the programme, I listened to Tuesday's programme, with a superb performance of The Tempest - a Melodiya recording conducted by Svetlanov. However, according to the Radio 3 website I was listening to the Rococo Variations for Cello & Orchestra.

The programme ended with Romeo & Juliet, but not as we know it, but the original score. It uses much of the same thematic material, but in a very different way. The revised version is a remarkable example of musical cut and paste.

[Serial_Apologist]

This all seems very strange indeed. Tchaikovsky has such a distinctive sound. The only Liszt connection I am aware of is in Vallée d'Obermann from Anneés de Pelerinage "Suisse", which was imitated by Tchaikovsky, either deliberately or co-incidentally, in the slow introduction to Romeo & Juliet.

I think Tchaikovsky is full of Lisztianisms - and the more I think about it, the more I find them in his orchestral music as well as the virtuosic ornateness of his piano techniques and uses of sonority. Although not one of The Five, Tchaik shared their love of Lisztian chromaticism, tendency towards bombastic climax creation (and in Tchaikovsky hysteria), and what has been termed wallpaper pattern methods of form-building, to which Tchaikovsky only managed to find arguably strong enough sonata form adaptations to overcome the sense he himself described as one "where all the seams show" in the Sixth symphony. The Five took Liszt's harmony as a means of circumventing post Mozart/Beethovenian procedures and creating "Russianness" rather as Liszt had superimposed "Hungarianness" and "Spanishness", but in the case of the Russians after Glinka with more regard for modal integrity. Tchaikovsky was well able to do this as well, but not being his main contribution of developing a symphonic style of ballet composition, it was not one of the main distinguishing characterics. I would add that much of his harmony, along with the massed triumphaLiszt orchestral scale surgings Shostakovitch was to parody at the end of his Fifth symphony, are clearly to these ears pre-echoed in Liszt's "Les Preludes".

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Today's outing was at least reasonably consistent with the listing in the website (though they got the wrong movement of the Violin Concerto) but the programme was the least adventurous so far this week - including the 1812 Overture and some of the best-known bits of Swan Lake.

That said, it's the first time I've heard the folk song in the middle of "1812" actually being sung.

[richardfinegold]

The ones I mentioned in the quote you quoted.

I reread the quote; on the first reading I thought you said that the last 3 Symphonies, etc didn't sound like P.I.
I agree with Alpie. I think P.I. is one of those Composers with very distinctive musical fingerprints, with a recognizable sound.
I will frequently turn on the radio which is playing one of his lesser known pieces and identify him as the Composer(last week it was some music from"the Voyoveda"). If anything, his influence is so pervasive that many other Composers tend to sound like him, until they find their own voice (witness early Rachmaninov, or the Sibelius First Symphony).
However, many of the Composer's contemporaries might have agreed with you. "The Mighty Handful" used to attack him for sounding to European and not Russian enough.

[Serial_Apologist]

I reread the quote; on the first reading I thought you said that the last 3 Symphonies, etc didn't sound like P.I.
I agree with Alpie. I think P.I. is one of those Composers with very distinctive musical fingerprints, with a recognizable sound.
I will frequently turn on the radio which is playing one of his lesser known pieces and identify him as the Composer(last week it was some music from"the Voyoveda"). If anything, his influence is so pervasive that many other Composers tend to sound like him, until they find their own voice (witness early Rachmaninov, or the Sibelius First Symphony).
However, many of the Composer's contemporaries might have agreed with you. "The Mighty Handful" used to attack him for sounding to European and not Russian enough.

Yes indeed Richard - although I would demur from your point about the number of composers, aside from Rachmaninov and early Sibelius, influenced by Tchaikovsky. It may be that many people get to hear Tchaikovsky's orchestral music before they do that of Liszt; they then hear, say "Les Preludes" and think, hmmm, now where have I previously heard music that this reminds me of? - Rimsky-Korsakov's "Sheherezade" being an instance in point in my case, since although the broad theme of the first movement (repeated in the last) struck me as sounding very Tchaikovskian on first hearing, those modulations - down a minor third, down a further minor third and back again - are in fact common to a lot of Russian music of the 19th century.

I must admit I'm on shaky ground here!

[Roehre]

... about the number of composers, aside from Rachmaninov and early Sibelius, influenced by Tchaikovsky. ...

Hamilton Harty perhaps (with the wild Geese, 1910 e.g.)

[Serial_Apologist]

Hamilton Harty perhaps (with the wild Geese, 1910 e.g.)

OK; I haven't heard this.

[edashtav]

Yes indeed Richard - although I would demur from your point about the number of composers, aside from Rachmaninov and early Sibelius, influenced by Tchaikovsky. It may be that many people get to hear Tchaikovsky's orchestral music before they do that of Liszt; they then hear, say "Les Preludes" and think, hmmm, now where have I previously heard music that this reminds me of? - Rimsky-Korsakov's "Sheherezade" being an instance in point in my case, since although the broad theme of the first movement (repeated in the last) struck me as sounding very Tchaikovskian on first hearing, those modulations - down a minor third, down a further minor third and back again - are in fact common to a lot of Russian music of the 19th century.

I must admit I'm on shaky ground here!

I'm unsure that Tchaikovsky was deeply versed in Liszt except Liszt the piano virtuoso. We know, now that Liszt was a complex figure, an experimental all of his life , whose music encompassed virtues and vices galore

Liszt on Tchaikovsky: “Mendelssohn’s emulator”; yet Liszt arranged the Polonaise from Eugen Onegin for piano, much to Tchaikovsky’s annoyance.

Tchaikovsky on Liszt: “the old Jesuit” but at the end of his life Tchaikovsky orchestrated Liszt Der König in Thule song. When, much earlier, Tchaikovsky had wanted to orchestrate Mozart (aside:Tchaikovsky on Mozart : “Christ of music”) Ave Verum in his Mozartiana Suite, he based his Pregiera on a Liszt piano transcription of Mozart's last choral work. So deeply does Mozart imbibe at the source of Liszt that he could easily have entitled this prayer “Lisztiana”.

Tchaikovsky was a reticent, sensitive figure who often wrote extrovert , "heart on his sleeve" music. Liszt was the high priest of shallow virtuosity yet a man of god obsessed with the devil. The complex, divergent
personalities of these two individuals are reflected in their music.