Tchaikovsky Symphony 6 Essay

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is a famous Russian composer that has written many well known works. He has written some of the world's greatest classical and romantic melodies and has written some of the world's famous ballet music. His three most famous ballets include Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, and The Sleeping Beauty. Born on May 7th, 1840 in Votkinsk Russia, the composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky became a musician at an early age. At age four he was already loving music.

I attended to a concert performed by the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra on November 13th this year. This concert took place in the Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco. I chose to attend to this concert because I have never been to a performance by any youth orchestra, I was curious to see how their performance would compare to other orchestras. The first of the three piece that were performed in this concert was Maenads’ Dance, from The Bassarids, composed by Hans Werner Henze. A variety of instruments were used in this piece, including woodwinds, brass, percussion, and strings.

Before the French took over Vienna, Austria is probably when Beethoven began composing the Emperor. This concerto is considered “regal, imperial even”. This is exactly how Beethoven though of Napoleon, as well as himself. He saw both Napoleon and himself as “equally great, equally commanding”. John Clubbe describes perfectly in his article entitled “The Creative Rivalry with Beethoven and Napoleon” how the piano and interpretations relate back to Napoleon and his opinion of him: “WIth a courage and heroism of soul equal to Napoleon’s and with his chosen instrument, the piano, as protagonist, he would take the field against the Emperor.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on January 27, 1756, in Salzburg, Austria, and died on December 5, 1791, in Vienna. He had composed numerous piano concertos, however, this essay would be discussing the social and historical factors that has influenced Mozart to compose one of his famous piano concertos in C Major, K.467. Mozart had arrived in Vienna in 1781 in search of a better musical platform. The musical life in Vienna during the 1780s was one of the world’s greatest then.

In the book, Symphony for the City of the Dead, by M.T. Anderson, the author accentuates the composer, Dmitri Shostakovich, to describe the composer’s devotion for his city and country. The novel was set during 1905-1975 in northern Europe and western Russia. When Shostakovich lived in Leningrad, Russia, during World War 2, he wrote symphonies. He expressed his feelings of horror and hope for Russia's victory against the Nazi power in his symphonies. Although, his seventh symphony was the most significant to all globally in this time of war.

Peter Tchaikovsky was arguably one of the most successful Russian composers of all time. Born in Votkinsk, Russia on May 7, 1840, Peter was influenced by music at a young age. His father was a lieutenant, but both his father and mother were trained in music. Peter began piano lessons at age 5. Within 3 years of lessons, Peter was almost as superb as his teacher.

Ludwig van Beethoven and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart are both considered the greatest composers of history. Although their style is very different they have some similarities in their work. Ludwig van Beethoven was baptized on December 17, 1770 in Bonn. He lived in between the Classical and the Romantic eras. By the age of 11, Beethoven had to leave school because his family could not afford it.

Born into a family of musicians, Richard Georg Strauss, was born in Munich on June 11, 1864. His father, Franz Joseph Strauss, was one of the best French Horn player at that time; he also was a member of the Munich Court Opera. Being in such a musical family, Strauss would be raised with ethics of hard work as well as frugality, precise musical expertise, and a love of the classics. If he was not raised with the ethics of hard work, great works such as Don Juan would have never been written. For the Strauss family, music was integrated in their lives.

Over the past weekend, I saw the West Suburban Symphony Orchestra. This orchestra included, Violin 17, Viola 8, Cello 7, Contrabass 5, Harp 1, Flute and Piccolo 3, Oboe 2, English Horn 1, Clarinet 2, Bass Clarinet 1, Saxophone 1, Bassoon 2, Contrabassoon 1, French Horn 5, Trumpet 3, Trombone 2, Bass Trombone 1, Tuba 1, and Percussion 5. There was also some vocalists including Soprano 14, Alto 15, Tenor 11, and Bass 8. The two pieces that were being performed were, Symphony No. 1 - Winter Dreams - by Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky, and Alexander Nevsky by Sergei Prokofiev. The performance was at the auditorium in Hinsdale Central High School.

The Eighth Symphony was Jean Sibelius's final major compositional project, occupying him intermittently from the mid-1920s until around 1938. How much of the symphony was completed is unknown; Sibelius repeatedly refused to release it for performance, though he promised the premiere to several leading conductors. Following the success of his Seventh Symphony of 1924, it was expected that his symphonic flow would continue, but after the tone poem Tapiola of 1926, his published output was confined to minor pieces and revisions to earlier works. The Eighth Symphony's destruction was made known after Sibelius's death in 1957, but in the 1990s, while cataloguing the composer's many notebooks and sketches, scholars speculated that fragments of music