This Week in Classical Music: May 6, 2024. Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and more.Tomorrow is the birthday of two great composers, Johannes Brahms and Pyotr (Peter) Tchaikovsky.Brahms was born on May 7th of 1833 in Heide, a small town in northern Germany (then, the duchy of Schleswig-Holstein); Tchaikovsky – seven years later, in a small town of Votkinsk, not far from the Ural Mountains.Tchaikovsky is considered (at least, by the Russians) the greatest Russian composer, while Brahms is one of the “Three Bs” (with Bach and Beethoven).They lived through the same period (Brahms died in 1897, four years after Tchaikovsky), both were great symphonists, they wrote violin concertos that are considered among the best ever written, and their piano concertos are also hugely popular.Nonetheless, their music is as different as it can be, and so were their lives: Brahms’s was steady, not very eventful (at least the way it manifested itself to outsiders), Tchaikovsky’s – full of tragedies, many of which related to his closeted homosexuality.Given the format of our entries, we can do justice neither to their biographies, nor their music: we've dedicated four entries to Arnold Schoenberg just to go into some detail, and here we have two very prolific composers.So instead, we’ll play their violin concertos, the ones we mentioned above, both featuring female soloists.Here’s Rachel Barton Pine playing Brahms (Chicago Symphony Orchestra is conducted by Carlos Kalmar); and here is the Tchaikovsky; Julia Fischer is the soloist, Yakov Kreizberg leads the Russian National Orchestra).
Four composers were born on May 12th:Giovanni Battista Viotti, the famous Italian violinist and composer, in 1755; the Frenchman Jules Massenet, known for his operas Manon and Werther, in 1842; another, musically more adventuresome Frenchman, Gabriel Faure, three years later; and Anatoly Lyadov, the Russian composer known as much for his friendship with Tchaikovsky as for his small scale piano and orchestral pieces.Here’s Lyadov’s Kikimora (a nasty house spirit in Russian mythology); the Russian National Orchestra is conducted by Mikhail Pletnev.
Brahms, Tchaikovsky, 2024
This Week in Classical Music: May 6, 2024. Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and more. Tomorrow is the birthday of two great composers, Johannes Brahms and Pyotr (Peter) Tchaikovsky. Brahms
was born on May 7th of 1833 in Heide, a small town in northern Germany (then, the duchy of Schleswig-Holstein); Tchaikovsky – seven years later, in a small town of Votkinsk, not far from the Ural Mountains. Tchaikovsky is considered (at least, by the Russians) the greatest Russian composer, while Brahms is one of the “Three Bs” (with Bach and Beethoven). They lived through the same period (Brahms died in 1897, four years after Tchaikovsky), both were great symphonists, they wrote violin concertos that are considered among the best ever written, and their piano concertos are also hugely
popular. Nonetheless, their music is as different as it can be, and so were their lives: Brahms’s was steady, not very eventful (at least the way it manifested itself to outsiders), Tchaikovsky’s – full of tragedies, many of which related to his closeted homosexuality. Given the format of our entries, we can do justice neither to their biographies, nor their music: we've dedicated four entries to Arnold Schoenberg just to go into some detail, and here we have two very prolific composers. So instead, we’ll play their violin concertos, the ones we mentioned above, both featuring female soloists. Here’s Rachel Barton Pine playing Brahms (Chicago Symphony Orchestra is conducted by Carlos Kalmar); and here is the Tchaikovsky; Julia Fischer is the soloist, Yakov Kreizberg leads the Russian National Orchestra).
Four composers were born on May 12th: Giovanni Battista Viotti, the famous Italian violinist and composer, in 1755; the Frenchman Jules Massenet, known for his operas Manon and Werther, in 1842; another, musically more adventuresome Frenchman, Gabriel Faure, three years later; and Anatoly Lyadov, the Russian composer known as much for his friendship with Tchaikovsky as for his small scale piano and orchestral pieces. Here’s Lyadov’s Kikimora (a nasty house spirit in Russian mythology); the Russian National Orchestra is conducted by Mikhail Pletnev.