LIFE OF TCHAIKOVSKY

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 96, 27 April 1929, Page 24

LIFE OF TCHAIKOVSKY

Eighty-nine years'ago,,on the day we now commemorate as Anzac Day, Peter Ilitcli Tchaikovsky was born at Votkinsk, then a military post in Ea.st Russia. His.father was ,an aristocrat, and an officer of the Imperial Army. Neither of his parents- was musical to any degree. The'only-hereditary explanation of Tchaikovsky's marvellous talent _lies in the doctrine that "genius is akin to madness.". There had boen extreme cases of neurosis in his mother's family,' and there is no denying that he inherited this tendency.

Tchaikovsky was not exactly a precocious ■ child, but before he had been in. the world a dozen years he gave amplo evidence of his impending genius. Nevertheless, in spite of his pronounced .leaning towards literature and music, Tchaikovsky was enrolled as a law student. Law. was, however, abandoned in.. favour of a Civil Service position until he was 22, .when'he entered the St. Petersburg Conservatory and took up the study of.music seriously.. Anton Bubenstein was his first tcai-;l> ' or of composition, and Zaremba taugh him harmony, and counterpoint. Foiir years later ho won the prize 1 for.composition with his 'cantata based on Schiller's "Ode to Joy.' 1 'From then onwdrds he became professor of history and theory-at the Moscow Conservatory founded by Nicholas Bubiustein, brother of the famous Anton. This post Tchaikovsky held for twelve years.

-. From 187S onwards he devoted himself .'to composition—thanks largely to the opportunity provided by the bounty of a woman whom he hardly ever sawone Nadeja Yon Meek. If wo are thankful for' Tchaikovsky's great music* we should devote part of our thankfulness to the memory of this generous and farsighted admirer of his works. The correspondence between the composer' and his patron most faithfully reveals the true Tchaikovsky, and was unbroken until his death fifteen years later—on the Cth of November, 1893. • .

Tchaikovsky's place -in Russian music is unique. Russia was late in develops ing musically. Not until the latter half of the last century had she produced a School of Composition recognised outside her own dominions. Her-first internationally.knownmasters were brilliant, but they were dilettantes—Cui,' Moussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, to .mention but_three of the "great five." Tchaikovsky, however, looked on music not as an all-absorbing hobby, but as a profession. He himself, who lived only for his work; would have called it a trade— scoffing at his.own patrician descent. We will do him greatest justice if-we realise that much of his. work, is without an exact parcllel in music, and that, .although his genius had its roots in' ardent patriotism, ho looked on his own work, not as something "above the common herd," but as tho labour of a simple working man. , . ■ '