Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and The Five - With The Five

With The Five

As The Five's campaign against Rubinstein continued in the press, Tchaikovsky found himself almost as much a target as his former teacher. Writing on a performance of Tchaikovsky's graduation cantata, Cui lambasted the composer as "utterly feeble.... If he had any talent at all ... it would surely at some point in the piece have broken free of the chains imposed by the Conservatory." The review's effect on the sensitive composer was devastating. Eventually, the relationship between Tchaikovsky and The Five developed into an uneasy truce as Tchaikovsky became friendly at first with Balakirev, then with the other four composers of the group. A working relationship developed between Balakirev and Tchaikovsky that resulted in Romeo and Juliet. The Five's acceptance of Tchaikovsky through their positive reception to this work was further cemented by their enthusiasm for Tchaikovsky's Second Symphony. Subtitled the Little Russian (Little Russia was the term at that time for what is now called the Ukraine) for its use of Ukrainian folk songs, the symphony in its initial version also used several compositional devices similar to those used by the Five in their work. After hearing Tchaikovsky play the final movement of this symphony in piano reduction for the group, Stasov suggested the subject of Shakespeare's The Tempest to Tchaikovsky, who wrote a tone poem based on this subject. After a lapse of several years, Balakirev reentered Tchaikovsky's creative life; the result was Tchaikovsky's Manfred Symphony, composed to a program after Lord Byron originally written by Stasov and supplied by Balakirev. Overall, however, Tchaikovsky continued down an independent creative path, traveling a middle course between those of his nationalistic peers and the traditionalists.