Music and Ballet in NineteenthCentury

1
Chapter 59

• Music and Ballet in Nineteenth-Century
• Russia Mussorgsky and Tchaikovsky

2
Lecture Overview

• Music in Russia in general
• Nationalism vs. Europeanism
• Modest Mussorgsky
• life and works
• Within Four Walls from Sunless
• Ballet history, art, craft
• Pyotr Ilych Tchaikovsky
• life and music
• The Nutcracker, Act 1, No. 8
• Review

3
The Life of Modest Mussorgsky (18391881)

• 1839 born in Karevo south of St. Petersburg
  (near present day Estonia)
  
• 1852 enters military school in St. Petersburg,
  no formal musical training
  
• 1857 lessons from Mily Balakirev
• 1869 completes first version of opera Boris
  Godunov
  
• 1874 Boris staged at the Mariinsky Theater in a
  revised version
  
• 1881 dies in St. Petersburg

4
Principal Compositions by Modest Mussorgsky

• Operas including
• Boris Godunov
• The Marriage
• Khovanshchina (incomplete)
• Orchestra include Night on Bald Mountain
• Piano works include the suite Pictures at an
  Exhibition
  
• Songs include the cycles
• The Nursery
• Sunless
• Songs and Dances of Death

5
Modest Mussorgsky, Within Four Walls from
Sunless, 1874
Through-composed form
6
Life of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (18401893)

• 1840 born in a town in the Ural Mountains in
  central Russia grows up in St.
  Petersburg
  
• 1865 graduates from Conservatory in St.
  Petersburg
  
• 1866 appointed to faculty at the Conservatory in
  Moscow
  
• 1870s travels in Europe and lives in various
  Russian cities
  
• 1885 settles in Moscow
• 1892 completes Symphony No. 6 and The
  Nutcracker
  
• 1893 dies in St. Petersburg from cholera

7
Principal Compositions by Tchaikovsky

• Orchestra symphonies (6), tone poems, suites
  concertos
  
• Operas include
• Eugene Onegin
• Queen of Spades
• Ballets
• Sleeping Beauty
• Swan Lake
• The Nutcracker
• Chamber music string quartets (3), sextet
  (Souvenir de Florence)
  
• Songs about 100 including folk song
  arrangements
  
• Chorus cantatas, church music
• Piano character pieces

8
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, The Nutcracker, 1892,
Act 1, scene 8 (At the Christmas Tree)
Ternary form
9
Review Key Terms

• Mikhail Glinka
• Mariinsky Theater
• Mily Balakirev
• kuchka (handful)
• The Five
• Boris Godunov
• ballet
• Marie Taglioni
• scenario
• choreographer
• mime

• variations (ballet)
• divertissement
• Marius Petipa
• celesta
• suite