Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto, probably had been my favorite of his works up until last night.

Not being familiar much with Tchaikovsky's symphonies, I went to a live performance last night, featuring Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 2 "Little Russian". WOW!!! It was amazing! I love that symphony, it has such an energy to it. I will indeed need to get this symphony into my collection soon.

That's great ChamberNut!

I personally love each one of Tchaikovsky's symphonies. It's a shame that the famous 4, 5 and 6 overshadow the first three... Although less mature, they still represent the composer expressing himself honestly.

Also, the VC is definitely my favourite concerto ever .

Master of melody and craftsman of catchy tunes, Tchaikovsky is certainly one of my favourites. He also wrote some of the best waltzes, IMHO.

Glad you had enjoyed the performance, Ray. His symphonies are a must

Hear, hear. (well, almost) Although I wouldn't dare give the title of "Favourite Concerto Ever" to one particular work, it's definitely my favourite among violin concerti. It's the one that made me realise my liking for music from the Romantic era.

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Navneeth


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I absolutely agree, Tchaikovskiy has been my favourite for a long long time and is still leading. One of my favourite works is Tchaikovkiy's Piano Concerto No. 1 (performed by Evgenia Rubinova) - why by her? because I just happened to listen to the entire work when she was performing it (I think it was on Leeds International Piano Competition), and since then just fell in love with it.

Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings is really great. I luvs it!

Ephemerid I concur with you. Serenade is the music that started my interest in classical...of course hearing/seeing it played live by the London Mozart Players whilst sitting two rows from the orchestra certainly influenced me. They could have been playing anything and I would have been hooked

Love the 4,5,6 trio of symphonies as well as that first piano concerto.

And all of them together overshadow the fantastic Orchestral Suites.

There's no denying that Tchaikovsky was a great composer. For some reason I have an affinity towards Russian composers more so than other nationalities. Their music has a depth to it and their massive chords are so ornate. I love his 1812 Overture, Marche Slave, Piano Concerto No. 1, Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, etc., etc..

Rachovsky, what are some other Russian composers that you like? (i just realized that this is probably the wrong thread to ask you this, since its dedicated to Tchaikovsky...)

In my opinion, Tchaikovsky was one of the greatest tunesmiths of all time. He solved the mystery of what makes a good tune. The only area where he lacked was in the structure of music. That's why the ballet was the best medium he could have worked in because it's just a production line of tunes, one after the other.

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"Too many notes!"

Do you have any idea just how hard that is to play, though?

Symphony No. 6 and the Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture. Great, great stuff!!

That is my favorite Tchaikovsky piece, but I love the triumphant Horowitz version. I'll have to check out the Rubinova, though...

I figured out the chords and the "big tune" of the opening part a couple years ago and used to play along with the recording... until the piano solo, of course

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Take a look at the Bandit's blog, The Classical Corner.

I have heard Dmitri Hvorovstovsky sing songs written by Tchaikovsky in recital. Tcaikovsky's personal favorite was "Souvenier of Florence" which is a chamber work and is quite beautiful. He also wrote several operas of which I have seen "Queen Of Spades" by The Dallas Opera and listened to "Eugen Onegin" by the Met. While not all of his music was great, his best works hold their own with any composer. He may have written the finest melodies of all. He wrote many works which are not performed often but many of these are excellent.