Tchaikovsky and the Future of Contemporary Music
For the long-term health of symphony orchestras and classical music (however “classical music” is defined), it’s self-evident that orchestras need to promote and perform music by contemporary composers.
A big question is how to best do that? How can orchestras get thousands of listeners to buy tickets (another prerequisite for survival) to hear a piece that’s totally unfamiliar and perhaps utterly perplexing upon first hearing?
One solution is what the Boston Symphony came up with at a Tanglewood concert on Saturday night, July 27, when they performed Stride, a piece composed in 2019 by Tania León, and paired it with the major work on the program, the Symphony No. 6, Pathétique, by Tchaikovsky, one of the great masterpieces of the symphonic literature.
Though it would be nice to think that the audience came to hear Stride––whoever first said that “all music was once new” made a profound, if obvious point––I would hazard a guess that it was the Tchaikovsky that attracted most of them. Even the middle piece on the program, the Piano Concerto by Aram Khachaturian, so exquisitely performed by Jean-Yves Thibaudet, is not a household name in the lexicon of concert literature.
These days, in the long overdue age of DEI, DWEMs (Dead White European Male composers) are increasingly viewed with a jaundiced eye. “We need to hear more women composers!” Yes. “We need to hear more Black composers!” Yes. “We need to hear more ethnic composers!” Yes, all those things are true. We are indeed way behind in broad representation, and many steps need to be taken to fix that. (I might talk about that in another post.)
But, at the same time, like it or not (and I hope you like it) the greatest composers––Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, go down a long list––happen to have been born WEMs. (The D came later.) There simply can’t be any argument. Musicians the world around love that repertoire with a passion. The same with listeners. It’s beautiful. It’s glorious. So much of it is absolute genius. And it seems to have the capacity to instill itself into the very core of our beings. (I know I’m speaking for myself here when I say “our beings” but that has been my experience with other musicians and music lovers for my 71 years.) If the Lacrymosa from Mozart’s Requiem doesn’t move you, then, okay, you’ve proved me wrong.
More than that, though, contemporary composers would be well-advised to learn, and learn a lot, from Tchaikovsky’s Sixth: His self-restraint regarding musical form and harmonic structure, which, though on a broader scale, is not all that different from Mozart’s; his controlled but brilliant use of instrumentation; his attentiveness to timing and architecture; and, perhaps most of all, his unsurpassed melodic gift––Is there anything more heartbreakingly beautiful than the last movement?–– are all aspects of composition that would benefit any composers looking to make a name for themselves.
There is a reason why I loved performing Tchaikovsky’s Sixth at Tanglewood the other night, and why it’s performed as often as it is by every major orchestra in the world. And it’s a damned good reason. It’s great music.
Getting ready to perform Tchaikovsky’s Sixth.
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