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While the contributions of the Russian nationalistic group The Five were important in their own right in developing an independent Russian voice and consciousness in classical music, the compositions of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky became dominant in 19th century Russia, with Tchaikovsky becoming known both in and outside Russia as its greatest musical talent. His formal conservatory training allowed him to write works with Western-oriented attitudes and techniques, showcasing a wide range and breadth of technique from a poised "Classical" form simulating 18th century Rococo elegance to a style more characteristic of Russian nationalists or a musical idiom expressly to channel his own overwrought emotions.〔Brown, ''New Grove'', 18:606.〕 Even with this compositional diversity, the outlook in Tchaikovsky's music remains essentially Russian, both in its use of native folk song and its composer's deep absorption in Russian life and ways of thought.〔 Writing about Tchaikovsky's ballet ''The Sleeping Beauty'' in an open letter to impresario Sergei Diaghilev that was printed in the ''Times'' of London, composer Igor Stravinsky contended that Tchaikovsky's music was as Russian as Pushkin's verse or Glinka's song, since Tchaikovsky "drew unconsciously from the true, popular sources" of the Russian race.〔Stravinsky, Igor, "An Open Letter to Diaghilev," ''The Times'', London, October 18, 1921. As quoted in Holden, 51.〕 This Russianness of mindset ensured that Tchaikovsky would not become a mere imitator of Western technique. Tchaikovsky's natural gift for melody, based mainly on themes of tremendous eloquence and emotive power and supported by matching resources in harmony and orchestration, has always made his music appealing to the public. However, his hard-won professional technique and an ability to harness it to express his emotional life gave Tchaikovsky the ability to realize his potential more fully than any other Russian composer of his time.〔Brown, ''New Grove'', 18:606-7, 628.〕 ==Ballets== "Tchaikovsky was made for ballet," writes musicologist David Brown〔Brown, ''Final'', 212.〕 Before him, musicologist Francis Maes writes, ballet music was written by specialists, such as Ludwig Minkus and Cesare Pugni, "who wrote nothing else and knew all the tricks of the trade."〔Maes, 144.〕 Brown explains that Tchaikovsky gifts for melody and orchestration, his ability to write memorable dance music with great fluency and his responsiveness to a theatrical atmosphere made him uniquely qualified in writing for the genre.〔Brown, ''New Grove (1980)'', 18:614.〕 Above all, Brown writes, he had "an ability to create and sustain atmosphere: above all, a faculty for suggesting and supporting movement ... animated by an abundant inventiveness, above all rhythmic, within the individual phrase."〔Brown, ''Crisis'', 78.〕 In comparing Tchaikovsky to French composer Léo Delibes, whose ballets Tchaikovsky adored, Brown writes that while the two composers shared similar talents, the Russian's passion places him in a higher league than that of the Frenchman. Where Delibes' music remains decorative, Tchaikovsky's touches the senses and achieves a deeper significance.〔Brown, ''Final', 212–3.〕 Tchaikovsky's three ballets, Maes says, forced an aesthetic re-evaluation of music for that genre.〔Maes, 148.〕 Brown calls Tchaikovsky's first ballet, ''Swan Lake'', "a very remarkable and bold achievement."〔Brown, ''Crisis'', 77.〕 The genre on the whole was mainly "a decorative spectacle" when ''Swan Lake'' was written, which made Tchaikovsky's attempt to "incorporate a drama that was more than a convenient series of incidents for mechanically shifting from one divertissement to the next ... almost visionary."〔 However, while the composer showed considerable aptitude in writing music that focused on the drama of the story, the demand for set pieces undercut his potential for complete success. The lengthy divertissements he supplied for two of the ballet's four acts display a "commendable variety of character" but divert action (and audience attention) away from the main plot.〔Brown, ''Crisis'', 80, ''New Grove (1980)'', 18:613–4〕 Moreover, Brown adds, the formal dance music is uneven, some of it "quite ordinary, a little even trite."〔Brown, ''Crisis'', 80.〕 Despite these handicaps, ''Swan Lake'' gives Tchaikovsky many opportunities to showcase his gift for melody and, as Brown points out, has proved "indestructible" in popular appeal.〔Brown, ''Crisis'', 85.〕 The oboe solo associated with Odette and her swans, which first appears at the end of Act 1, is one of the composer's best–known themes.〔Evans, 194.〕 Tchaikovsky considered his next ballet, ''The Sleeping Beauty'', one of his finest works, according to Brown. The structure of the scenario proved more successful than that of ''Swan Lake''. While the prologue and first two acts contain a certain number of set dances, they are not designed for gratuitous choreographic decoration but have at least some marginal relevance to the main plot. These dances are also far more striking than their counterparts in ''Swan Lake'', as several of them are character pieces from fairy tales such as Puss in Boots and Little Red Riding Hood, which elicited a far more individualized type of invention from the composer. Likewise, the musical ideas in these sections are more striking, pointed and precise. This characterful musical invention, combined with a structural fluency, a keen feeling for atmosphere and a well-structured plot, makes ''The Sleeping Beauty'' perhaps Tchaikovsky's most consistently successful ballet.〔Brown, ''New Grove'', 18:624.〕 ''The Nutcracker'', on the other hand, is one of Tchaikovsky's best known works. While it has been criticized as the least substantial of the composer's three ballets, it should be remembered that Tchaikovsky was restricted by a rigorous scenario supplied by Marius Petipa. This scenario provided no opportunity for the expression of human feelings beyond the most trivial and confined Tchaikovsky mostly within a world of tinsel, sweets and fantasy. Yet, at its best, the melodies are charming and pretty, and by this time Tchaikovsky's virtuosity at orchestration and counterpoint ensured an endless fascination in the surface attractiveness of the score.〔Brown, ''New Grove'', 18:625.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Music of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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