Ravinia 2022, Issue 5

Lawn Clippings By John Schauer The Pyotr Principle HAVE YOU EVER TRIED to pick your “desert island” composers, those whose music you couldn’t do without? My own tastes have evolved over the years, but one name that has remained firmly in my “top three” composers list is Tchaikovsky, whose music will be celebrated in the August 21 “Tchaikovsky Spec- tacular” that has been an annual feature at Ravinia since 1979. He earned his status as one of my favorites for multiple reasons: his astonish- ing variety of emotions, his brilliant orchestrations (it is often difficult to imagine any instrumentation different from what he has chosen), and—what probably keeps him a major box-office draw—an unsurpassed gift for melody. Everyone loves a good tune. But although his music is performed regularly by virtually every orchestra in the world, his popularity is something of an anomaly in that it is predicated upon a small portion of his total output. Of course everyone is familiar with The Nut- cracker and his Romeo and Juliet and 1812 Overtures, but when did you last listen to his other tone poems or his string quartets or orchestral suites? His First Piano Concerto is possibly the most popular such work in the world, but how often do you hear his second or third essay in that form? His success rate varies wildly from genre to genre. He composed only three ballets, and every one of them is regularly performed by the world’s major ballet companies—that’s batting a thousand. His music seems predisposed to accompa- nying dance; as the legendary ballerina Cynthia Gregory once succinctly put it, his music is “very dancey.” His symphonic average is considerably lower. He wrote seven symphonies (six numbered, plus the Manfred ) of which only three are repertory staples. Leonard Bernstein once observed that people might be excused for having the notion that Tchaikovsky only composed three symphonies, but for some strange reason numbered them 4, 5, and 6. A friend had an even better quip, that Tchaikovsky symphonies “are like Star Wars movies, widely loved, but most people try to ignore the existence of numbers 1, 2, and 3.” Consider that his First Symphony hasn’t been performed at Ravinia in 31 years, Manfred was last performed 39 years ago (its only Ravinia performance!), his Second was last heard here 49 years ago, and the Third has never been performed in its entirety—it shares a fate with some of his other works in that it is usually only performed as accompaniment to dance performances, and then only snippets. I’m delighted conductor Emil de Cou is including excerpts from Tchaikovsky’s opera Mazeppa , because that’s one genre in which the composer has nearly struck out. He composed no fewer than 12 operas, devoting more of his compositional time and energy to that form than any other, but outside of Russia, only two can be heard regularly, Eugene Onegin and The Queen of Spades . Yet like his other unfamiliar works, his neglected operas contain a wealth of magnificent music. Perhaps people have been put off by older Soviet recordings of them, because Russian vocal technique historically differs from that of other countries, often displaying an unfortunate tendency toward what is termed a “Slavic wobble.” Still, the adventurous listener who seeks out Mazeppa , The Enchantress , or The Maid of Orleans will be richly rewarded. Tchaikovsky is unique among composers in that, at least outside of the former Soviet Union, his homosexuality has always been acknowledged, long before Stonewall and the gay liberation movement. Even the Milton Cross Encyclopedia of the Great Composers and Their Music , on which I cut my music history teeth as a child over 60 years ago, mentioned it; and I remember laughing out loud at a 1980s movie review in which the critic humorously described the characters as being “gay as Tchaikovsky.” It’s never been a secret. But it isn’t homophobia that has led some musical snobs to disparage his mu- sic; rather it’s his remarkable popularity. The reasoning seems to be that anything that is liked by so many people can’t possibly be good. Admittedly, over-exposure to some of it may leave one feeling overly saturated, and I confess that being subjected to The Nutcracker every day of every December during the 13 years I worked at San Francisco Opera was, to put it kindly, too much of a good thing. I still consider that score a musical miracle, but to be honest, I don’t need to hear it again. Still, it’s done nothing to diminish Tchaikovsky’s stature in my musical pan- theon. I doubt that anything ever will. John Schauer is a freelance writer who is amazed by the musical gems he’s still discovering as he continues to explore Tchaikovsky’s remarkable output. Peter Ilyich Tchar-Jar-Binks? His numbers 1, 2, and 3 in symphonies are seemingly about as popular as the same numbers in Star Wars movies. RAVINIA MAGAZINE • AUGUST 15 – AUGUST 28, 2022 80