Re-composing Tchaikovsky Today
Tchaikovsky is remarkably of current interest in our present time. His works are more than frequently performed in classical concerts as well as used in film and popular culture. His life and legacy are constantly under discussion, both in terms of aesthetics, and politics (Raku 2014; Morrison 2024). In this context, Tchaikovsky’s music is inevitably reflected in the work of contemporary composers. For some of them, it seems to be sewn into ‘genetic memory’, while others perceive it in a detached way, re-composing and rediscovering it.
The most recent examples of the compositional reception of Tchaikovsky’s music are the works by Anton Svetlichny (b. 1982): The Swan Died (2021) and Taruskin (2022). Already in the 1960s and 1970s, “rehabilitated” by postmodernism (Citron 1993), Tchaikovsky’s themes were incorporated by Schnittke, Pärt, and Zimmermann into the fabric of their musical texts. Svetlichny goes further – instead of treating Tchaikovsky’s themes as a kind of sonic ready-mades, he uses them as the base material for his compositions. However, in The Swan Died, for synthesizer and electronics, the recognizable elements of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake do not immediately reveal themselves. They are reborn from fragmented particles, to die again and dissipate into virtual chaos. Svetlichny defines his experiments with Tchaikovsky’s work as “deconstruction, distancing, change of the context, re-mythologization, peeling back the layers of kitsch, minus-composition, decomposition…” (Pospelov 2020). Is there anything left of the original Tchaikovsky after that?
In the suite Taruskin, for chamber ensemble and soundtrack, Svetlichny features longer and distinguishable excerpts from Tchaikovsky’s works as well as those by other 19th-century Russian composers. The key technique for dealing with the borrowed material here is distortion. Fragments from the Slavonic March, the overture 1812, and the cantata Moscow are subjected to modifications in tempo, dynamics, and timbre, as well as applying various electronic sound effects. The explicit distortions symbolize the hidden perceptual misrepresentations that have accompanied the famous masterpieces. But the same distortions may paradoxically serve as a metaphor for listening to them objectively. Conversely, the subjective aspect is represented by Richard Taruskin’s texts, which are recited against music. The selection of themes by Tchaikovsky and statements by Taruskin outlines a range of ideas, including musical nationalism and imperialism, as well as social perception and the ethical responsibility of music. Being a work in memoriam of the great scholar, who particularly specialized in Russian music, Svetlichny’s piece invites us to recall some of Taruskin’s thoughts, as well as the musical works on which they were expressed, and to critically re-evaluate them all from the modern-day perspective.
This paper discusses the compositional reception of Tchaikovsky’s music in the first quarter of the 21st century, focusing on the two recent works by Svetlichny. Referring also to other works by Svetlichny and his colleagues, it proposes to examine the phenomenon of contemporary composers’ retrospective dialog with Tchaikovsky. Regardless of one’s attitude, complimentary or skeptical, the latter seems to remain more than relevant today.
Keywords: Tchaikovsky, contemporary music, re-composition
Biography
Kirill Smolkin is a doctoral candidate at Heidelberg University, Germany. In 2022 he graduated summa cum laude in Musicology at Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory. Alongside his studies, he also gained professional experience as an editor of the online encyclopedia on Tchaikovsky directed by State Institute for Art Studies, Moscow (SIAS). His current PhD project, funded by German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and supervised by Prof. Christoph Flamm, is devoted to the reception of Tchaikovsky’s work in subsequent classical music and mass culture. His other research interests include interdisciplinary music studies, painting and music, and word and music studies.
Heidelberg University, Germany – kirillsmolkin95@gmail.com