Symphonies By Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Early Attempts

Early Attempts

Analyzing the symphonies of the Viennese masters was likely a given part of Tchaikovsky's curriculum at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. Through it he apparently realized, as musicologist Ralph W. Wood points out, "that design is a crucial factor in music." He may have also "grasped that form and thematic material must be interdependent, every piece of material carrying the implication of its own self-dictated form." However, perhaps because of Tchaikovsky's own assumptions about emotion and music, he may have felt that he never solved or even confronted squarely the problem of form versus material. He idolized Mozart as a master of form, was aware of how his idol's symphonies functioned compared to his own and found his own lacking. Having clarity or security in how to solve those perceived challenges was another matter. While Tchaikovsky's earlier symphonies are considered optimistic and nationalistic (in other words, much different than the music he would eventually write), they are also chronicles of his attempts to reconcile his conservatory training and study of the masters with the native musical traditions and innate lyricism that worked against what he had learned.