Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893) was a Russian composer of the
Romantic era. He wrote some of the most popular concert and theatrical
music in the current classical repertoire, including the ballets Swan
Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker, the 1812 Overture, his
First Piano Concerto, seven symphonies, and the opera Eugene Onegin.
Against the wishes of his family he chose to pursue a musical career,
and in 1862 entered the St Petersburg Conservatory, graduating in 1865.
This formal, Western-oriented training set him apart, musically, from
the contemporary nationalistic movement embodied by the group of young
Russian composers known as "The Five", with whom Tchaikovsky sustained
a mixed professional relationship throughout his career. As his style
developed, Tchaikovsky wrote music across a range of genres, including
symphony, opera, ballet, instrumental, chamber and song. Amid private
turmoil Tchaikovsky's public reputation grew; he was honored by the
Tsar, awarded a lifetime pension and lauded in the concert halls of the
world. His sudden death at the age of 53 is generally ascribed to
cholera, but some attribute it to suicide. Although enduringly popular
with concert audiences across the world, Tchaikovsky has at times been
judged harshly by critics, musicians and composers. However, his
reputation as a significant composer is now generally regarded as
secure.
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyotr_Ilyich_Tchaikovsky>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1346:
King David II of Scotland was captured in the Battle of Neville's
Cross.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Neville%27s_Cross>
1604:
Kepler's Star: German astronomer Johannes Kepler observed an
exceptionally bright star which had suddenly appeared in the
constellation Ophiuchus.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SN_1604>
1860:
The Open Championship, the oldest of the four major championships in
men's golf, was first played at Prestwick Golf Club in Prestwick, South
Ayrshire, Scotland.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Championship>
1961:
In Paris, the French police under the Prefect of Police Maurice Papon
attacked a peaceful but illegal demonstration of some 30,000 who were
protesting the Algerian War, killing anywhere between 40 and 200
people.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_massacre_of_1961>
1989:
A 6.9 Mw earthquake struck California's San Francisco Bay Area, killing
63 people, injuring 3,757, leaving at least 8,000 homeless, and forcing
the postponement of Game 3 of Major League Baseball's World Series.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loma_Prieta_earthquake>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
tranquil (adj):
1. Free from emotional or mental disturbance.
2. Calm; without motion or sound
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tranquil>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
There's too much of an attempt, it seems to me, to think in terms of
controlling man, rather than freeing him. Of defining him rather than
letting him go. It's part of the whole ideology of this age, which is
power-mad.
--Arthur Miller
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Arthur_Miller>