In Celebration of the Human Voice - The Essential Musical Instrument

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Born: 1840. Died: 1893. Lived in: Russia
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was a Russian composer of the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music would make a lasting impression internationally. He wrote some of the most popular concert and theatrical music in the current classical repertoire, including the ballets Swan Lake and The Nutcracker, the 1812 Overture, his First Piano Concerto, several symphonies, and the opera Eugene Onegin.

Tchaikovsky's training set him on a path to reconcile what he had learned with the native musical practices to which he had been exposed from childhood. From that reconciliation, he forged a personal but unmistakably Russian style. The principles that governed melody, harmony and other fundamentals of Russian music ran completely counter to those that governed Western European music, which seemed to defeat the potential for using Russian music in large-scale Western composition or for forming a composite style, and it caused personal antipathies that dented Tchaikovsky's self-confidence. Russian culture exhibited a split personality, with its native and adopted elements having drifted apart increasingly since the time of Peter the Great.

Arrangements | Recordings

Recordings and DVDs

Corydon Singers : Tchaikovsky - Liturgy of St John Chrysostom

"There is nothing like entering a church on a Saturday, standing in the semi-darkness with the scent of incense wafting through the air, lost in deep contemplation searching for an answer to those perennial questions, wherefore, when, whither and why?" These words, from one of Tchaikovsky's own letters, sum up the spirit behind the glorious Liturgy of St John Chrysostom, Op 41. The work is steeped in the Orthodox tradition, the choral writing provides that sense of transparency and simplicity demanded by the text, and the resulting ambience is rich in the manner familiar to Western listeners from works such as Rachmaninov's Vespers. This recording also includes ten choruses to texts many of which are taken from the Liturgy. The first nine were published together in 1885, while the tenth, An angel crying, was lost shortly after its first performance in 1887 and only rediscovered thirteen years after the composer's death.

Songlist: Nine Sacred Choruses 1884/5:, Izhe kherumvimy - Cherubic Hymn in F major, Izhe kherumvimy - Cherubic Hymn in D major, Izhe kherumvimy - Cherubic Hymn in C major, Tebe poem - We praise you, Dostoyno est - Hymn to the Mother of God, Otche nash - Our Father, Blazhenni yazhe izbral - Blessed are they, Da ispravitsya - Let My Prayer, Nyne sily nebesnyya - Now the powers of Heaven, Angel vopiyashe - The angel cried, Liturgy of St John Chrysostom, Op 41 1878:, Slava Otsu, i Synu - Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, - Priidite, poklonimsya - Come, let us worship, Izhe kherumvimy - Cherubic Hymn, Veruyu - The Creed, Milost mira - A mercy of peace, Tebe poem - We praise you, Dostoyno est - Hymn to the Mother of God, Otche nash - Our Father, Khvalite Gospoda - Praise the Lord, Blagosloven gradyy - Blessed is he who comes