had plagued him
Tchaikovsky’s works for children
Petya, Petya, how could you! Exchange jurisprudence for a pipe! – the angry uncle of a negligent nephew, who quit the service of a titular adviser in the Ministry of Justice for the sake of serving Eutherpe, the patroness of music, was chastising with such words. And the name of his nephew was Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. And today, when the music of Pyotr Ilyich is known to the whole world, when international competitions are held to them. Tchaikovsky, in which academic musicians from all countries take part, it can be argued that it was not in vain that Petya abandoned jurisprudence. In the work of Pyotr Ilyich there are many serious works that won him worldwide fame, but he also wrote music that was understandable and accessible to children. Tchaikovsky’s works for children are familiar to many from early childhood. Who has not heard the song “The grass is green”? – She was hummed and hummed by many, often without suspecting that the music belongs to Tchaikovsky. Continue reading
P.I. Tchaikovsky: through thorns to the stars
A very long time ago on the southwestern borders of Russia, in the steppes of Ukraine, there lived a freedom-loving Cossack family with a beautiful surname Chaika. The history of this kind goes back centuries when the Slavic tribes mastered the steppe fertile lands and were not yet divided into Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians after the invasion of the Mongol-Tatar hordes. The Tchaikovsky family loved to remember the heroic life of the great-grandfather Fyodor Afanasevich Chaika (1695-1767), who, with the rank of centurion, actively participated in the defeat of the Swedes by the Russian troops near Poltava (1709). In that battle, Fedor Afanasevich was seriously wounded. Around the same period, the Russian state began to assign each family a permanent surname instead of nicknames (non-baptismal names). The composer’s grandfather chose his family name Tchaikovsky. Such surnames ending in “sky” were considered noble, as they were given to the families of the nobility. A noble title was awarded to his grandfather for “faithful service to the Fatherland.” In the Russian-Turkish war, he performed the most humane mission: he was a military doctor. Continue reading
