“TALES OF TCHAIKOVSKY” by Des Kelly

Something completely different, especially for the members and readers of eLanka. This is a rare marriage indeed. Something I feel very privileged to write about.

The love I feel for both “Country/Classical” music intermingled together, music, that I feel will thrill the hearts of all of you, out there, who enjoy “great music” no matter from which source.

First, as I did, with another superb Composer of the years gone by, Johann Strauss, I shall endeavour to bring in some hitherto unknown facts about another extremely famous Composer, TCHAIKOVSKY. Pjotr llyitch, born in 1840 and died in 1893, was known world-wide as the greatest of all Russian Masters (of Music).

He was a boy, just six years old, when he had been permitted to listen to music, (yes folks, it was back in 1846, and Russian children had to be “permitted” to do anything!). When his governess entered his bedroom to find young Pjotr sitting on his bed, head in his hands, crying violently.

“The music”!, he groaned & moaned, “the music !, it’s in my head and won’t let me rest, please save me from it”!

Among the amazing feats of young musicians of old (I like that), Tchaikovsky’s was the fact that, when, in a Composition class, in one day, he contrived 200 elaborate variations of a given theme, which was quite possibly an almost impossible thing to accomplish.

While Liszt was another famous Composer of that particular Era, Tchaikovsky detested him. They had met at the opening of the Bayreuth Festival in 1876 and Tchaikovsky was most irritated by what he called”the old hypocrite’s nauseating politeness and unchanging smile (more like a smirk, perhaps). Even many years later when a friend whistled a theme from Liszt’s E-flat piano concerto, he flew into a rage and shouted at him “stop!, and don’t remind me of this comedian. I hate his insincerity and affectation”.

Then there was this other great Composer named Bizet.

One of his most famous works was “Carmen”, which took it’s time to be accepted by the public, but one day, Carmen did become a success. It was simultaneously played in London, Vienna, Milan, St.Petersburg, Copenhagen, and even Paris, but long before that happened, a piano score of Carmen had come into the hands of a lonely, tired musician in Kamenka, Russia. He looked through it with growing amazement. He was told the story of how this work was once considered a disaster, in Paris, and then he said ” In ten years time, I am convinced that Carmen will be the most popular opera in the world”. It was Pjotr llyitch Tchaikovsky who said those words.

Andrew Carnegie, an American Millionaire once invited Tchaikovsky to his New York home. They became friends and the millionaire took great delight in imitating the Composer’s method of conducting, “and he does it very well, too”, said Pjotr llyitch laughingly.

Before the Composer left America, Carnegie embraced him, thanked him for coming to the United States, and said

“You, Mr.Tchaikovsky are a true king of music”.

This “king of music” (the greatest Russian Composer) of all time, died at 53 years of age, in 1893, but his music has stood the test of time, and will live forever.