Tchaikovsky's Pathétique and Russian Culture
Professor Marina Ritzarev
May 2014 · Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
Ebook
184
Pages
About this ebook
Tchaikovskyʼs Sixth Symphony (1893), widely recognized as one of the worldʼs most deeply tragic compositions, is also known for the mystery surrounding its hidden programme and for Tchaikovskyʼs unexpected death nine days after its premiere. While the sensational speculations about the composerʼs possible planned suicide and the suggestion that the symphony was intended as his own requiem have long been discarded, the question of its programme remains.
Tchaikovsky’s mention of the extreme subjectivity lying behind the work’s artistic concept has usually led scholars to seek clues to the programme in his inner emotional world, and some have mooted his homosexuality as the source of personal tragedy that may be at the work’s roots. In this close analytical and historical study, Marina Ritzarev argues that viewing a work of such outstanding aesthetic achievement solely as a personal lament is both unsatisfactory and inconsistent with Tchaikovskyʼs artistic ethics. She looks for the programme instead in the realm of European eighteenth- and nineteenth-century cultural values. Focusing her extensive knowledge of Russian culture on Tchaikovsky’s personal reading and social circle, she offers a startling new interpretation of this great work.
Tchaikovsky’s mention of the extreme subjectivity lying behind the work’s artistic concept has usually led scholars to seek clues to the programme in his inner emotional world, and some have mooted his homosexuality as the source of personal tragedy that may be at the work’s roots. In this close analytical and historical study, Marina Ritzarev argues that viewing a work of such outstanding aesthetic achievement solely as a personal lament is both unsatisfactory and inconsistent with Tchaikovskyʼs artistic ethics. She looks for the programme instead in the realm of European eighteenth- and nineteenth-century cultural values. Focusing her extensive knowledge of Russian culture on Tchaikovsky’s personal reading and social circle, she offers a startling new interpretation of this great work.
About the author
Marina Ritzarev is an Israeli musicologist of Russian background. She has contributed to research in eighteenth-century Russian music, including biographies of Dmitry Bortniansky and Maxim Berezovsky, and study of choral spiritual concerto. She is the author of Eighteenth-Century Russian Music (Ashgate 2006), a biography of Sergei Slonimsky, and articles developing the theory of vernacular in music. She is Professor of Bar-Ilan University and President of the Israeli Musicological Society.
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