Tchaikovsky
What illuminating, witty, pithy remarks can I make about old Pyotr? Well, not that many cause I aint nearly as familiar with his music as I am some other dignitaries. lets see… well, he was a big-shot at the tail end of the romantic period. His 
music is huge and sweeping, but nicely put together. I’m not sure precisely what I mean by that last comment. The thing is, I find his music less “stereotypical” sounding than Brahms (whom he is fairly similar to) or Rachmaninov, or many other late or post Romantic-era composers. Tchaikovsky perhaps has the over-the-topness which characterizes that period, but combines it with a more precision engineered sharpness, instead of throwing himself into orgasms of strings all the time.
Well, that paragraph didn’t sound terribly neutral. Oh well, tough. Maybe I’ll go back and change it another time.
Anyway, you might be familiar with a whole bucket load of Pyotr’s music since it’s used all over the shop for movies, cartoons, non-classical concerts, etc. He wrote the 1812 Overture (the one that goes dade-dada-dade-da-da-da boom boom, with cannons. American’s like playing it on the 4th of July, even though it’s not about that 1812 occurrence at all) and Romeo and Juliet (well one of them, I like Prokofiev’s better), and the Nutcracker Suite.
Musical Snippets
- Piano Concerto No. 1, 1st movement - You might know this. It’s big and brash and pretty damn great. One of the most in-your-face openings to a piano concerto ever. (buy at Amazon)
- Romeo and Juliet - This is not the famous lovey-dovey theme which is used all over the place, but a rougher, more rhythmical section from earlier in the piece. (buy at Amazon)
- Marche Slave - If you know the 1812 overture (yes that’s pretty much everyone in existence) you’ll recognize a section towards the end of this which is actually “God Save the Tsar” the old Russian national anthem (which they abandoned after that whole messy revolution thing) Interestingly, they changed the music to this piece as well to avoid anyone glorifying the wicked old Tsar. (buy at Amazon)
- Symphony No. 6 “Pathetique”, 2nd movement - A loping pseudo-waltz from Tchaikovsky’s last piece of music, premiered after he died (or possibly committed suicide). It’s in 5/4 time (try counting the beats 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5, etc) which makes it not really a waltz (which is in 3/4 time) but it sounds like it’s intended to be like a lazy and dragging replacement. Nice. (buy at Amazon)
