Tchaikovsky 1st Piano Concerto,for a break.

[elleng]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-M7M4UoqBpA

:hi:

[Grey]

1. My very favourite music as a teenager.

I still have and play the Vinyl record.

[elleng]

4. Heard it on radio this A.M., so decided to share.

Heading out of town, so unfortunately won't be able to follow good stuff on my great radio station! Glad you like!

[SCantiGOP]

2. The Music Lovers

Hard movie to find, it was the first Ken Russell directed. At the beginning it has Mr T playing this as his new composition. Interesting sideline is that the theme of the movie is Tchaikovsy's struggle to deny his homosexuality, and he was played by Richard Chamberlain, who was outed by a magazine in the late 80s but didn't acknowledge that he was gay until he was almost 70.

[meegbear]

3. Here's a wonderful redition of it ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvpALlP_7lE&

[Manifestor_of_Light]

5. Didja know Tchaikovsky also wrote excellent chamber music?

I was shocked. I thought he only wrote ballets, piano concertos and symphonies.

He wrote a couple of octets. One of them is called Souvenir de Florence.

[UTUSN]

6. "As if Hamlet had died in the first act." (A telling assessment of the Piano Concerto.)

To a couple of posts from above: He has been my main favorite composer for most of my life, and I had thought a long time ago that I was familiar with almost all of his output. In fact, back when, in my teen years when I knew the most popular (which I confused with "ALL") of the "big" works, I did not know the Sym. #5 and heard it without introduction from the radio announcer and was able to identify it as TCHAIKOVSKY, plus as the #5 from familiar themes, certain "runs" in the violins and such from the other things.

So it was only this year that I read the great biography by Anthony HOLDEN and was astounded to grasp what a mountain of compositions and genres he amassed that I knew not at all. This is to the point of not knowing about the chamber music, etc. I had done the symphonies, ballet "summaries", the orchestral things, and the violin/piano concertos but not the operas and all the rest. Not only had I not even cracked the operas, I had no idea he had focused so intensely on that form.

To the point about his denying his homosexuality: It didn't seem that way in the biography. It seemed like everybody in his professional circle and in the wider gossip circles knew. There's a scene where he and SAINT SAENS were on a rehearsal stage together and the two of them were dancing up a storm. Plus, his letters to his love interests and family were plain in his intentions. He certainly objected to his sexuality being public knowledge, but correct me if this is denial of who he saw himself as being.