Is Tchaikovsky an 18th Century Composer?

From tchaikovsky-research.orgSome comments concerning my rereading of Richard Taruskin’s chapter “Tchaikovsky and the Human” from his book Defining Russia Musically. Taruskin’s contention is that Tchaikovsky’s explicit advocacy of autocratic rule and its social structure, coupled with his determination to provide musical entertainment rather than dragoon a listener into the creator’s private egotistical orbit makes Tchaikovsky’s agenda an 18th century one.

Taruskin’s claim that Tchaikovsky is essentially an 18th century composer needs to be taken seriously; not because of his (neoclassic) pastisches, not because of his adoration of Mozart, and certainly not because of some similarity of technical means or stylistic profile — but because Tchaikovsky’s explicit aims and vision of the prupose of art is so consonent with Mozart and his colleagues’ musical aims. But what a composer wants to accomplish isn’t necessarily what he does accomplish.

Click to read more ...

Why I Picked Nicolai Gedda

In my last post I nominated Nicolai Gedda as Loge for my dream Ring Cycle. Of course, one might protest that Gedda didn’t sing Wagner (other than excerpts) after his one Lohengrin in Stockholm. I don’t care, and I’m not the only one. My dad had recorded, back in the 80s, an episode from George Jellinek’s radio show The Vocal Scene on Wagnerian tenors and he, too, treated Gedda’s performance of In fernam Land (the Grail narrative) as “a model in every respect” while dutifully pointing out that Gedda hadn’t continued to pursue Wagner.

Click to read more ...