Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

10 Great Violin Concertos You Must Hear

The fun thing about really getting to know the violin concerto repertoire is that there are always more treasures to discover... The violin concerto repertoire is so rich and satisfying, I’m embarrassed to admit that, prior to becoming...

Good Books and Great Music for Christmas Gifting

Here are four recently-published books and four new classical music albums that I have greatly enjoyed this past year... Books I've read several excellent...

Creating Tchaikovsky’s First Symphony

Tchaikovsky's First Symphony is a delight: fresh, assured and just plain fun to listen to. The violins introduce the first movement with a shimmering, sweet tremolo, giving it a dreamy, gossamer texture, that perfectly illustrates the movement’s subtitle, “Daydreams of a Winter Journey"...

“Elegy for Strings”

Editor's Note: Tchaikovsky composed what became known as his "Elegy" in 1884 on a commission from the Moscow Society of Artists, who were honoring Ivan Samarin on the occasion of his fifty years of acting. Tchaikovsky titled the piece for string orchestra, which was meant to open the ceremonies,...

“A Conceited Mediocrity”: Why Tchaikovsky Hated Brahms

Russian composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky had a lot to say about Johannes Brahms’ music—all bad... “I have played over the music of that scoundrel Brahms,” wrote Tchaikovsky in his diary in 1886. “What...

Mozart’s Music: The Culminating Point of Beauty

"When I listen to his music, it is as if I am doing a good deed. It is difficult to convey what exactly his beneficial influence on me consists of, but it is undoubtedly beneficial, and the longer I live, the closer I get to know him,...

Music for Christmas: Ten Great Classical Pieces

What better gift than music for the season in which we celebrate God, the source of all beauty, becoming man? Here are some familiar and less familiar classical pieces. 1. G.F. Handel: Messiah  Though especially popular at Christmas time, it is only “Part the First” of Handel's Messiah that pertains...

Discontent, Death, & Desolation: Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin”

"What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love." —Father Zossima, in Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov Is there an opera that better conveys the mood of late autumn—with the inevitability of...

Music of War and Remembrance: Ten Classical Music Pieces

Across the centuries, composers have been inspired by the twin dramas of human conflict and the subsequent making of peace. Here are ten great pieces of classical music that dramatize war, celebrate its resolution, and recall its sacrifices.

The Top Ten Greatest Violin Concertos

The violin concerto as a form of music has endured for some 300 years and remains, alongside the piano concerto, the most popular type of concerto played in modern concert halls and committed to recording....

Let it Snow! Six Great Classical Musical Pieces about Winter

As polar vortices descend upon the moderate climate zones, allow me to recommend to you, dear reader, six pieces of classical music that will warm your soul, as you curl up by the fire with a good...

The Ten Most Beautiful Classical Symphonies

"Imagination creates reality." —Richard Wagner Though beauty is an absolute reality, we human beings see through a glass darkly, and the space between objective beauty and our own personal taste can be fuzzy. Any list that...

The Top Ten Greatest Operas

Benvenuto Cellini The human voice is God’s most beautiful instrument, and the blending of voices and musical instruments within the context of a dramatic visual presentation is the zenith of human artistic achievement. This is...