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Tchaikovsky |
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TH 66 Ode to JoyК радостиMusic to Schiller's hymn, for soloists, chorus and orchestra, C minor—C major (1865).
HistoryComposed during November and December 1865. for the graduation examinations at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. On 12/24 October the Professors' Council at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory determined that, in order to complete his course, Tchaikovsky should be set the task of writing a cantata for chorus and orchestra on the text of Schiller’s Ode to Joy [2]. On 22 October/3 November Tchaikovsky wrote to Aleksandra Davydova, "... I am busy doing some very important work. In order to finish my conservatory course I have been set a large composition, for which I require quiet contemplation and access to instruments" [3]. However, at this stage the composer had not even begun to work on the cantata. It might be supposed that cantata was written during November [4], and in the first half of December, since the first examinations took place on 20 December 1865/1 January 1866 [5]. The cantata was performed on 29 December 1865/10 January 1866 at a public examination for conservatory students before the State Examination Commission and other invited guests. According to Modest Tchaikovsky, the author did not attend [6]. However, no documents have yet come to light to corroborate this fact, and the minutes of the Examination Commission recorded that all students were in attendance [7]. On 15/27 January 1866, Tchaikovsky told Aleksandra Davydova and Lev Davydov: "I wrote my cantata, which satisfied those who were called to pass judgement upon it" [8]. Tchaikovsky was optimistic that Anton Rubinstein would perform the cantata at a Russian Musical Society concert. But the composer was disappointed by a letter of 11/23 January 1865 from Herman Laroche. "Rubinstein has asked me to say", he wrote, "that your cantata will not be performed unless you make a number of changes to it. But this is blackmailing you into rewriting the whole score. Is this really fair play? I think your this unfavourable opinion is unworthy of your cantata—the same cantata that is the greatest musical event in Russia since Judith, and is immeasurably superior (both in inspiration and craftsmanship) than Rogneda... But to rewrite and rewrite would be terrible". In the same letter Herman Laroche predicted that Tchaikovsky would become the greatest Russian composer: "Your creative life is barely than five years old; but it is mature, classical, and surpasses all that has happened since Glinka ... The standard you have set so far simply towers above the most promising of your contemporaries" [9]. In 1890 Petr Jurgenson proposed to Tchaikovsky that the cantata should be published. "I do not want you to print this", the composer replied, "because it is an immature work with no future; moreover, it is set to the text of Schiller’s To Joy. Comparisons with Beethoven would be embarrassing" [10]. The third movement of the Ode (besides the introduction, four bars of postlude and the concluding chorus a cappella) was used by Tchaikovsky in the first act of the opera The Voevoda, in the duet for Mariia Vasil’evna and Bastriukov (Andante non troppo section). From: Музыкальное наследие Чайковского
(1958), pp. 343–344 References:
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