Music of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Songs

Songs

Tchaikovsky wrote 103 songs. While he may not be remembered as a composer of lieder, he produced a larger number of superior works than their comparative neglect would suggest, often concentrating into a few pages a musical image that would seem to ideally match the substance of the text. The songs are extremely varied and encompass a wide range of genres—pure lyric and stark drama; solemn hymns and short songs of everyday life; folk tunes and waltzes. Tchaikovsky is most successful when writing on the subject of love and its loss or frustration

Technically, the songs are marked by several features: artistic simplicity, artlessness of musical language, variety and originality of melody and richness of accompaniment. The songs helped cross-pollinate the composer's work in other genres, with many of his operatic arias closely related to them. While "None but the Lonely Heart" may be the one of his finest songs, as well as perhaps the best-known in the West, the Six Romances, Op. 65 and the Six Romances, Op. 73 are especially recommendable.

Read more about this topic:  Music Of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Famous quotes containing the word songs:

    On a cloud I saw a child,
    And he laughing said to me,

    “Pipe a song about a Lamb”;
    So I piped with merry chear.
    “Piper pipe that song again”—
    So I piped, he wept to hear.

    “Drop thy pipe thy happy pipe
    Sing thy songs of happy chear”;
    So I sung the same again
    While he wept with joy to hear.
    William Blake (1757–1827)

    The militancy of men, through all the centuries, has drenched the world with blood, and for these deeds of horror and destruction men have been rewarded with monuments, with great songs and epics. The militancy of women has harmed no human life save the lives of those who fought the battle of righteousness. Time alone will reveal what reward will be allotted to women.
    Emmeline Pankhurst (1858–1928)

    The hills are alive with the sound of music, with songs they have sung for a thousand years.
    Oscar Hammerstein II (1895–1960)