Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Essay

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is a famous Russian composer that has written some of the world's greatest classical and romantic melodies. His music has evoked many emotions from his listeners and has impacted the music world. Not only did he write classical and romantic melodies, he also composed some of the most highly-praised music for ballets. Tchaikovsky's is a prominent and an innovative composer in which can be demonstrated in his three most famous ballets: Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker. Born on May 7th, 1840 in Votkinsk Russia, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky became a musician and appreciated music at an early age. At age five, he started to take piano lessons and became fond of Frédéric Chopin’s and Friedrich Kalkbrenner's piano …show more content…
In 1875, a friend of his who was the manager of a theater in Moscow asked him to write the music for Swan Lake. Since the ballet was inspired by a German fairy tale, the music for it was created to sound elegant, innocent and beautiful. Ballet at that time was not popular and did not appeal much to the public because the music at the time was considered poor quality. Tchaikovsky revolutionized ballet music by writing it to make it sound grand, rich and colorful. Taking less than a year to finish the music for Swan Lake, the premiere took place on March 4, 1877 at the Ballet of the Moscow Imperial Bolshoi Theatre. The ballet resulted in not being successful due to the poor staging and choreography. With dancers already having difficulties with the choreography, they also complained about the music and how it was too difficult to dance to. Despite the failure of the ballet, as the years passed others have been modifying the choreography and staging of it to make the ballet more appealing while still utilizing the music that Tchaikovsky composed. Swan Lake is now one of the popular and well known ballets in the