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Russian Composers

Russian composers are often mentioned in history as the most influential in the world.   With style unlike any other, Russians are able to capture mood through a unique ability to capture exactly what they feel.   Exactly how the Russians are able to do this is unknown, though through this, the greatest composers have turned out to be Russian.   Tchaikovsky,   Rachmaninoff and Shostakovich are all able to write and portray the most detailed feelings and moods, and it is to them that we owe the advancement of all music.
Tchaikovsky is one of the most beloved composers in history. An inspired craftsman of melody, orchestration and tonal color, he wrote in an astonishing variety of musical forms, from symphonies to ballet scores to concertos (Sadie, 94). His life and work are the stuff of legend, and his personal struggles are almost as well recorded today as the methods by which he created his music (Osborne, 77).
      He was born in Votkinsk, Russia in 1840, and was initially trained in music by a French governess (Mason, 70).   At ten, he moved to St. Petersburg, where he studied law and enrolled in jurisprudence school (Ewen, 72).   After his graduation in 1859, he briefly held a job as a government clerk, but soon threw out that career in favor of his musical pursuits' (Osborne, 77).   Tchaikovsky entered the St. Petersburg Conservatory in 1861 and studied composition with Anton Rubinstein, then the most famed pianist and composer in Russia.   Graduating in 1856, he found a position as a teacher at the Moscow Conservatory and began to write minor overtures, quartets and a larger symphonic work (Sadie, 94).
    In 1876, Tchaikovsky entered into a relationship, which would dominate most of his career as a composer. A wealth widow, Nedezhda von Meck, had heard that Tchaikovsky was in financial straits and without ever meeting the young musician, commissioned several works from him with pricey fees attached. Soon, she put the composer on a fixed allowance, which...