Symphony No. 1 (Tchaikovsky)
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , group=n ( ; 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. He wrote some of the most popu ...
wrote his
Symphony A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, most often for orchestra. Although the term has had many meanings from its origins in the ancient Greek era, by the late 18th century the word had taken on the meaning com ...
No. 1 in G minor, ''Winter Daydreams (or Winter Dreams)'' (russian: Зимние грёзы, ''Zimniye gryozy''), Op. 13, in 1866, just after he accepted a professorship at the Moscow Conservatory: it is the composer's earliest notable work. The composer's brother Modest claimed this work cost Tchaikovsky more labor and suffering than any of his other works. Even so, he remained fond of it, writing to his patroness Nadezhda von Meck in 1883 that "although it is in many ways very immature, yet fundamentally it has more substance and is better than any of my other more mature works." He dedicated the symphony to Nikolai Rubinstein.


Form


Instrumentation

The symphony is scored for
piccolo The piccolo ( ; Italian for 'small') is a half-size flute and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. Sometimes referred to as a "baby flute" the modern piccolo has similar fingerings as the standard transverse flute, but the so ...
, two
flute The flute is a family of classical music instrument in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, meaning they make sound by vibrating a column of air. However, unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is a reedless ...
s, two
oboe The oboe ( ) is a type of double reed woodwind instrument. Oboes are usually made of wood, but may also be made of synthetic materials, such as plastic, resin, or hybrid composites. The most common oboe plays in the treble or soprano range. A ...
s, two
clarinet The clarinet is a musical instrument in the woodwind family. The instrument has a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell, and uses a single reed to produce sound. Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitches ...
s (A, B), two
bassoon The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family, which plays in the tenor and bass ranges. It is composed of six pieces, and is usually made of wood. It is known for its distinctive tone color, wide range, versatility, and virtuo ...
s, four
horns Horns or The Horns may refer to: * Plural of Horn (instrument), a group of musical instruments all with a horn-shaped bells * The Horns (Colorado), a summit on Cheyenne Mountain * ''Horns'' (novel), a dark fantasy novel written in 2010 by Joe Hill ...
(E, F), two
trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...
s (C, D), three
trombone The trombone (german: Posaune, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the Brass instrument, brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the Standing wave, air column ...
s (fourth movement only), tuba (fourth movement only),
timpani Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a membrane called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionall ...
,
cymbal A cymbal is a common percussion instrument. Often used in pairs, cymbals consist of thin, normally round plates of various alloys. The majority of cymbals are of indefinite pitch, although small disc-shaped cymbals based on ancient designs soun ...
s,
bass drum The bass drum is a large drum that produces a note of low definite or indefinite pitch. The instrument is typically cylindrical, with the drum's diameter much greater than the drum's depth, with a struck head at both ends of the cylinder. Th ...
and
strings String or strings may refer to: *String (structure), a long flexible structure made from threads twisted together, which is used to tie, bind, or hang other objects Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Strings'' (1991 film), a Canadian anim ...
.


Overview


Composition

Tchaikovsky started writing this symphony in March 1866. Work proved sluggish. A scathing review by
César Cui César Antonovich Cui ( rus, Це́зарь Анто́нович Кюи́, , ˈt͡sjezərʲ ɐnˈtonəvʲɪt͡ɕ kʲʊˈi, links=no, Ru-Tsezar-Antonovich-Kyui.ogg; french: Cesarius Benjaminus Cui, links=no, italic=no; 13 March 1918) was a Ru ...
of the cantata he had written as a graduation piece from the St. Petersburg Conservatory shattered his morale. He also composed day and night. All these factors strained Tchaikovsky's mental and physical health tremendously. He started suffering from insomnia, from pains in his head which he thought to be strokes, and became convinced he would not live to finish the symphony. A successful performance of his revised Overture in F in St. Petersburg lifted his spirits. So did a change of scenery for the summer with his family. Nevertheless, he soon worked himself again into nervous and physical exhaustion by continuing to compose day and night. A doctor declared him "one step away from insanity," ordering complete rest. Tchaikovsky complied. Despite his lack of progress, Tchaikovsky sought the opinion of his former teachers, Anton Rubinstein and
Nikolai Zaremba Nikolai or Nicolaus Ivanovich von Zaremba (russian: Никола́й Ива́нович Заре́мба; ) was a Russian musical theorist, teacher and composer. His most famous student was Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, who became his pupil in 1861. Ot ...
, when he returned to St Petersburg at the end of August. He had hoped for their approval of what he had written as well as accepting at least part of it for a St Petersburg concert of the Russian Musical Society (RMS). Neither situation happened. Both men were negative, refusing to perform any of the symphony.Brown, 100 He stopped work to fulfill his first public commission, a festival overture based on the Danish national anthem to celebrate the Moscow visit of the future
Tsar Tsar ( or ), also spelled ''czar'', ''tzar'', or ''csar'', is a title used by East Slavs, East and South Slavs, South Slavic monarchs. The term is derived from the Latin word ''Caesar (title), caesar'', which was intended to mean "emperor" i ...
Alexander III of Russia Alexander III ( rus, Алекса́ндр III Алекса́ндрович, r=Aleksandr III Aleksandrovich; 10 March 18451 November 1894) was Emperor of Russia, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Finland from 13 March 1881 until his death in 18 ...
with his new Danish bride. Once the commission was finished, Tchaikovsky completed the symphony before the conservatory's Christmas break. This included modifications requested by Rubinstein and Zaremba as a condition for reconsidering the work. Tchaikovsky resubmitted the manuscript to Rubinstein and Zaremba during the Christmas break. Even with their insisted changes, they still disapproved of the symphony on the whole; however, this time they passed the
adagio Adagio (Italian for 'slowly', ) may refer to: Music * Adagio, a Tempo#Basic tempo markings, tempo marking, indicating that music is to be played slowly, or a composition intended to be played in this manner * Adagio (band), a French progressive m ...
and scherzo as "being fit for performance". These two movements were played at an RMS concert in St Petersburg on February 23, 1867, with no success. Tchaikovsky, who had looked upon St Petersburg as the premier musical location in Russia and been obsessed with having his symphony performed there first, was thoroughly disillusioned — not only with St Petersburg audiences, but also with the critical judgments of both his former teachers. He discarded all the revisions they had demanded, standing with one exception by his original version. The exception, it turned out, was unavoidable. At Zaremba's insistence, he had composed a new second subject for the opening movement. He had discarded the papers that contained his original second subject, and he could not remember what he had originally composed. Tchaikovsky had to let the second subject as approved by Zaremba stand as it was. Back in Moscow, Anton's brother Nikolai was willing to perform the symphony; only the composer's insistence on a St Petersburg performance held him back. Tchaikovsky now allowed him to conduct the scherzo at a
Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
concert of the RMS on December 22. Though the scherzo met with little success, Rubinstein was still ready to perform the complete work. This finally took place on February 15, 1868, to great success. Surprisingly, though, the symphony would have to wait 15 years for its next performance. The first performance of the revised version took place in Moscow on December 1, 1883, under the baton of
Max Erdmannsdörfer Max Erdmannsdörfer (14 June 184814 February 1905) (sometimes seen as ''Max von Erdmannsdörfer'') was a German conductor, pianist and composer. He was born in Nuremberg. He studied at the Leipzig Conservatory, becoming concertmaster at Sonders ...
.


Struggles with form

Tchaikovsky freely confessed later in life that he could not write within the proper rules of Western sonata form—those rules of exposition and organic growth and development of themes that Germanic composers such as Haydn and Mozart had invented. Anton Rubinstein was a slavish follower of those rules in his own works. That may in turn have been a handicap for Tchaikovsky in writing ''Winter Dreams''. He could not write a symphony that would please Rubinstein by staying firmly within a classical format while writing music that would stay true to his strengths as a composer. This does not mean that Tchaikovsky was completely unable to work within
musical form In music, ''form'' refers to the structure of a musical composition or musical improvisation, performance. In his book, ''Worlds of Music'', Jeff Todd Titon suggests that a number of organizational elements may determine the formal structure of a ...
. While his natural aptitude for organic symphonic procedures may have certainly been limited, he may have actually done himself less than full justice.Brown, 108 This was Tchaikovsky's first large-scale work. Rubinstein and Zaremba's interference did not help: they only added to anxieties Tchaikovsky would have naturally had, in any case. The First Symphony forced Tchaikovsky to face the facts in one very important way. Before beginning it, he had been content to mould his music as best he could to the practice of previous composers. ''Winter Dreams'' forced him to realize he would have to work "around the rules" for him to grow and develop as a composer. This meant adapting sonata form and symphonic structure to accommodate the music he was gifted to write. He would often show tremendous resourcefulness in doing this, even in this symphony. As musicologist David Brown wrote, "The opening stretch of the first movement is enough to scotch the hoary old legend that Tchaikovsky was devoid of any real symphonic aptitude."


Influences


Teachers

As opposed to the forward-looking tendencies of The Five, Anton Rubinstein and his followers remained suspicious, even hostile, to new trends in music. Instead, they attempted to preserve in their own works what they saw as the best in the Western tradition in the immediate past. Though not active as a composer,
Nikolai Zaremba Nikolai or Nicolaus Ivanovich von Zaremba (russian: Никола́й Ива́нович Заре́мба; ) was a Russian musical theorist, teacher and composer. His most famous student was Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, who became his pupil in 1861. Ot ...
was no exception to this rule. He idolized
Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical ...
, particularly the late works, but his personal tastes had progressed no further than
Mendelssohn Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (3 February 18094 November 1847), born and widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic music, Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositi ...
. Rubinstein, a highly prolific composer in his own right, was almost as backward-looking as Zaremba, writing in a Germanic style similar to Schumann and Mendelssohn. Though as a teacher Rubinstein would try to foster his students' imaginations, he also expected them to remain as conservative as he was.


Mendelssohn

Over the summer holiday with his family in 1866, when evening activities turned to music, Tchaikovsky invariably played Mendelssohn's ''Italian'' Symphony, Schumann's
First First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...
or
Third Third or 3rd may refer to: Numbers * 3rd, the ordinal form of the cardinal number 3 * , a fraction of one third * Second#Sexagesimal divisions of calendar time and day, 1⁄60 of a ''second'', or 1⁄3600 of a ''minute'' Places * 3rd Street (d ...
Symphonies, or ''
Das Paradies und die Peri ''Paradise and the Peri'', in German ''Das Paradies und die Peri'', is a secular oratorio for soloists, choir, and orchestra by Robert Schumann. Completed in 1843, the work was published as Schumann's Op. 50. The work is based on a German tran ...
''. Mendelssohn's presence is strong in ''Winter Daydreams'', with a grace, lightness and pace throughout. The scherzo especially could have stepped from ''
A Midsummer Night's Dream ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' is a comedy written by William Shakespeare 1595 or 1596. The play is set in Athens, and consists of several subplots that revolve around the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. One subplot involves a conflict amon ...
''. Both the symphony's subtitle and those of the first two movements—"Dreams of a Winter Journey" and "Land of Desolation, Land of Mists"—betray a possible fondness of Mendelssohn's ability to express in symphonic form a personal experience arising out of emotion at a romantic landscape, though Tchaikovsky did not carry through this idea to the end (the latter two movements lack subtitles).


Russia

Even with these influences, Russian writer Daniel Zhitomirsky explains, "the ''subject'', the ''genre'' and intonation" of Tchaikovsky's writing are closely intwined with Russian life and folk music." Warrack notes that "the obsessive thirds of Russian folk-song permeate Tchaikovsky's tunes; and he must also at some time been haunted by the interval of the falling fourth, so strongly does it colour the invention in the early symphonies, always prominently placed in the melodies and acting as emotional coloration rather than implying a harmonic progression."Warrack, ''Tchaikovsky Symphonies and Concertos'', 9


Notable recordings

* Antal Dorati conducting the
London Symphony Orchestra The London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) is a British symphony orchestra based in London. Founded in 1904, the LSO is the oldest of London's orchestras, symphony orchestras. The LSO was created by a group of players who left Henry Wood's Queen's ...
* Claudio Abbado conducting the
Chicago Symphony Orchestra The Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) was founded by Theodore Thomas in 1891. The ensemble makes its home at Orchestra Hall in Chicago and plays a summer season at the Ravinia Festival. The music director is Riccardo Muti, who began his tenure ...
* Igor Markevitch conducting the
London Symphony Orchestra The London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) is a British symphony orchestra based in London. Founded in 1904, the LSO is the oldest of London's orchestras, symphony orchestras. The LSO was created by a group of players who left Henry Wood's Queen's ...
*
Michael Tilson Thomas Michael Tilson Thomas (born December 21, 1944) is an American conductor, pianist and composer. He is Artistic Director Laureate of the New World Symphony, an American orchestral academy based in Miami Beach, Florida, Music Director Laureate of ...
conducting the
Boston Symphony Orchestra The Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the second-oldest of the five major American symphony orchestras commonly referred to as the " Big Five". Founded by Henry Lee Higginson in 1881, ...
* Herbert von Karajan conducting the Berliner Philharmoniker * Eugene Ormandy conducting the
Philadelphia Orchestra The Philadelphia Orchestra is an American symphony orchestra, based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. One of the " Big Five" American orchestras, the orchestra is based at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, where it performs its subscription ...
* Mariss Jansons conducting the
Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra The Oslo Philharmonic (Oslo-Filharmonien) is a Norwegian symphony orchestra based in Oslo, Norway. The orchestra traces its roots to the Philharmonic Society founded in 1847 and the Christiania Musical Association co-founded by Edvard Grieg in 187 ...
* Yevgeny Svetlanov conducting the USSR State Symphony Orchestra * Yuri Temirkanov conducting the
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO) is a British symphony orchestra based in London, that performs and produces primarily classic works. The RPO was established by Thomas Beecham in 1946. In its early days, the orchestra secured profitable ...
* Bernard Haitink conducting the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra *
Lorin Maazel Lorin Varencove Maazel (, March 6, 1930 – July 13, 2014) was an American conductor, violinist and composer. He began conducting at the age of eight and by 1953 had decided to pursue a career in music. He had established a reputation in th ...
conducting the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra *
Zubin Mehta Zubin Mehta (born 29 April 1936) is an Indian conductor of Western classical music. He is music director emeritus of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO) and conductor emeritus of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Mehta's father was the foun ...
conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra * Riccardo Muti conducting the New Philharmonia Orchestra, London * Sir Neville Marriner conducting the Academy of St Martin in the Fields *
Vladimir Jurowski Vladimir Mikhailovich Jurowski (; born 4 April 1972) is a Russian conductor. He is the son of conductor Michail Jurowski, and grandson of Soviet film music composer Vladimir Michailovich Jurowski. Early life Born in Moscow, Jurowski began hi ...
conducting the
London Philharmonic Orchestra The London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) is one of five permanent symphony orchestras based in London. It was founded by the conductors Sir Thomas Beecham and Malcolm Sargent in 1932 as a rival to the existing London Symphony and BBC Symphony ...
* Neeme Järvi conducting the
Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra The Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra (GSO; sv, Göteborgs Symfoniker) is a Swedish symphony orchestra based in Gothenburg. The GSO is resident at the Gothenburg Concert Hall at Götaplatsen. The orchestra received the title of the National Orche ...
* Mikhail Pletnev conducting the Russian National Orchestra


Notes


References

* Brown, David, ''Tchaikovsky: The Early Years, 1840–1874'' (New York, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1978) * Holden, Anthony, ''Tchaikovsky: A Biography'' (New York: Random House, 1995) * Keller, Hans, ed. Simpson, Robert, ''The Symphony, Volume One'' (Harmondsworth, 1966) * Maes, Francis, tr. Arnold J Pomerans and Erica Pomerans, ''A History of Russian Music: From ''Kamarinskaya ''to'' Babi Yar (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 2002). . * Poznansky, Alexander, ''Tchaikovsky: The Quest for the Inner Man'' (New York, Schirmer Books, 1991) * Strutte, Wilson, ''Tchaikovsky, His Life and Times'' (Speldhurst, Kent, United Kingdom: Midas Books, 1979) *
Warrack, John John Hamilton Warrack (born 1928, in London) is an English music critic, writer on music, and oboist. Warrack is the son of Scottish conductor and composer Guy Warrack. He was educated at Winchester College (1941-6) and then at the Royal College o ...
, ''Tchaikovsky'' (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973) * Warrack, John, ''Tchaikovsky Symphonies and Concertos'' (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1971, 1969) * Weinstock, Herbert, ''Tchaikovsky'' (New York: Albert A. Knopf, 1944) * Zhitomirsky, Daniel, ed. Shostakovich, Dmitri, ''Russian Symphony: Thoughts About Tchaikovsky'' (New York: Philosophical Library, 1947)


External links

*
Tchaikovsky Research
{{Authority control 1868 compositions Symphonies by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Compositions in G minor Compositions using folk songs