Tchaikovsky

As we speak, I'm listening to the a webcast of the UT symphony playing Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony.

I have very mixed feelings about Tchaikovsky. There is no denying that the man was a fount of absolutely gorgeous melodies -- this symphony has several of them, my favorite being the tearjerker in the second movement. The short-term development of that first theme is fantastic, culminating in the most wonderful moment in the whole symphony. But why not save that for the climax in the recapitulation, or better yet, the coda? The same is true of many of his other pieces, most notably the First Piano Concerto.

There's an incongruity here. Why does Tchaikovsky have such a good ear for musical momentum and drama in the short term but not in the long term? When he starts developing his themes, things fall apart. The energy dissipates. He, pardon the pun, peters out.

At the risk of opening myself up to a barrage of criticism, I think you can place composers on a continuum. People like Tchaikovsky and Dvorak write the most incredible melodies but often fail to develop them properly. Their tunes often get lost in the muddle or become trite after being repeated ad nauseam. (There are, of course, exceptions in both of these cases, in the form of certain masterpieces by both of these composers.) On the other hand, composers like Brahms or Beethoven often wrote banal or square themes that can be easily justified by their masterful development.

When both of these characteristics -- short term thematic bliss and long term structural integrity -- meet, in my opinion, a masterpiece is born.