Tchaikovsky: Battle and Art

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Image courtesy of L'auditori.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was the first Russian composer to achieve international fame and his works are synonymous with Russian music. Paradoxically, he was not part of "The Five": a group of composers that aspired to create a national style of classical music, free from Western influences.

The 1812 Overture, commemorating the successful Russian resistance to Napoleon’s invasion, features La Marseillaise to represent the French army, also the hymn God Save the Tsar!. The same melody features in the solemn Festival Coronation March, written to mark the coronation of Tsar Alexander III. However, during the Soviet era, the music was revised and this reference was removed: that which was Russian was no longer so.

The program concludes with Symphony No. 3 by Boris Kozhevnikov, a score from the other side of the Iron Curtain which reached the United States at the height of the Cold War, and Extreme Make-Over by Johan de Meij, a spectacular reworking of a theme by Tchaikovsky.

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