100th anniversary of death of Peter Iljitsch Tschaikowski - Germany / Federal Republic of Germany 1993 - 80 Pfennig

Pyotr (Peter) Ilyich Tchaikovsky is one of the most-performed composers of "serious music" today, 100 years after his death. The literary and philosophically highly educated Russian composer was very open to Western European culture in his musical work. Tchaikovsky set to music works and. a. by A. Pushkin, N. Gogol, Fr. von Schiller and W. Shakespeare. His most important achievement is the perfection of ballet music; his ballets "Swan Lake", "Sleeping Beauty" and "The Nutcracker" are today among the classical components of the musical repertoire. Tchaikovsky was born on May 7, 1840 in Wotkinsk in the Urals. His musical education began at the age of four. At the St. Petersburg Conservatory he graduated in music and was appointed in 1865 as the first professor of harmony at the Moscow Conservatory. His first symphonic work was written in 1868, the first Symphony in G minor "Winter Dreams", then his first opera "Voevoda". In 1877, the composer's relationship with his benefactress Nadjeshda von Meck came to a head. Mrs. von Meck, a rich and music-aware widow, delighted with Tchaikovsky's music, issued a generous annual pension, which enabled the composer to live as a freelance artist. Tchaikovsky spent a lot of time traveling to Switzerland, to Austria and Italy, where some compositions, such as the opera "Eugene Onegin", were composed or completed. In 1887 Tchaikovsky conducted for the first time a performance of his opera "Cherevichki" and had great success. A year later, his first major journey as a conductor followed him to Germany, Czechoslovakia, England and France. During this trip he learned u. a. Brahms, Grieg and Dvorák know. Tchaikovsky visited America in 1891 and enjoyed great successes in New York, Baltimore and Philadelphia. Despite such triumphant concert tours Tchaikovsky felt despair and discontent: He often suffered from depression, which is why he always retreated into solitude. On his recent trip abroad to England, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Cambridge. At the time he wrote to a friend: "... because I am in a most enigmatic state - on the way to the grave. There is something strange, incomprehensible in me. Something like life-weariness seized me. " Once again the great symphonist gathered his strength and composed the 6th symphony "Pathétique", which is considered to be the peak achievement of his oeuvre. Ten days after the première of his last work, Peter I Tchaikovsky died on 6 November 1893, presumed to be a cholera infection, and was buried in St. Petersburg. (Text: Gabriela Kadlubicki, Musicology Institute of the University of Bonn)