Orthodox Sacred Music Reference Library
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Tchaikovsky, Peter
TCHAIKOVSKY, Peter (1840-1893) — Tchaikovsky's position among Russian choral composers was nothing short of seminal. Widely successful in the realm of secular music, Tchaikovsky influenced Russian Orthodox church music of his time in ways that cannot be underestimated. When he composed his Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom in 1878, the Imperial Chapel's censorship of church music was severely hampering the willingness of the rising school of Russian nationalist composers to write for the church. Tchaikovsky's Liturgy was promptly banned by the Director of the Imperial Chapel, Nikolai Bakhmetev, an action that in turn led Tchaikovsky's publisher, Jurgenson, to sue. The Russian Senate's ruling in favor of Tchaikovsky and Jurgenson broke the grip of censorship and opened the possibility for successive generations of Russian composers to compose sacred choral works without subjecting them to bureaucratic review. Although stylistically Tchaikovsky's music for the Liturgy was not in any way radical or innovative, the very fact that he composed new, freely invented music for most of the liturgical components shaped the approach taken by nearly every composer who subsequently undertook to write musical settings of this service, most notably, Gretchaninoff, Ippolitov-Ivanov, Chesnokov, and Rachmaninoff.
A few years after the Liturgy, in 1882, Tchaikovsky again broke new ground with his All-Night Vigil, op. 52, becoming the first major Russian composer to draw upon the traditional unison chants of the Russian Orthodox Church as the basis for composing an entire liturgical cycle. Again, Tchaikovsky's polyphonic treatment of the pre-existing chant material was in no way extraordinary, but his recognition of this long-neglected wellspring of national Russian melos made a mark. It is hardly coincidental that more than 30 years later, Sergei Rachmaninoff used many of the very same chant melodies in his monumental All-Night Vigil. op. 37.
After his two major liturgical cycles, Tchaikovsky, encouraged by Emperor Alexander III himself to write more sacred music, produced ten more liturgical choruses in which he pioneered some additional compositional and stylistic traits that would come to characterize the "new Russian choral school" of the early twentieth century: rich, and colorful choral textures with divisi, the invention of quasi-chant melodies, and the use of chant-like motives in melodic part-writing.
By virtue of his stature as a Russian musician, Tchaikovsky was contributed to the course of Russian church music in other ways. In the years between his Liturgy and Vigil, he edited the complete sacred choral works of Dmitry Bortniansky (1751-1825) for Jurgenson's Publishing House. He compiled A Concise Textbook of Harmony Intended to Facilitate the Reading of Sacred Musical Works in Russia (1875). And, perhaps most significantly, as a member of the Supervisory Council of the Moscow Synodal School of Church Singing, he secured the appointments of his students, the choral conductor Vasily Orlov (1858-1907) and the composer Alexander Kastalsky (1856-1926), to faculty positions at that institution. Together with the musicologist Stepan Smolensky (1848-1909), Orlov and Kastalsky, following Tchaikovsky's precepts, would shape the Moscow Synodal School and its Choir into a crucible for the creation and nurturing of one of the largest and substantive bodies of sacred choral music in modern times.
Tchaikovsky's contributions to secular choral repertoire cannot be overlooked, either. In addition to the extensive and vivid use of choruses in his numerous operas, he composed several occasional cantatas (the most prominent of which is Moscow, written in 1883 for the coronation of Alexander III), and several part songs for mixed, women's, and men's choir.
56 results found
Hymn to the Mother of God at Paschaltide
N.O.N.
Hymn to the Mother of God at Paschaltide
SdivAdivTdivBdiv
PJu #31585 n.d. posthumous
First printed edition
5
Ta043
-
MR Ta043
-
MR Ta043
Blagosloven griadyi, vo imia Gospodne
Blessed is He that Comes
SATB
No. 220, pp. 297 in vol. Notnyi sbornik pravoslavnogo russkogo tserkovnogo peniia, vol. 1: Bozhestvennaia Liturgiia, London: 1962
Printed edition
1
Sb-LonBL-220
Deviat' dukhovno-muzykal'nykh sochinenii
Nine sacred musical works
N.O.N.
SATB(div)
First printed edition
Link to composer’s autograph: https://www.culture.ru/catalog/tchaikovsky/ru/item/archiv/devyat-duhovno-muzykalnyh-sochineniy-dlya-smeshannogo-hora
42
Ta034-042
-
MR Ta034
-
MR Ta035
-
MR Ta036
4
Hymn of the Epiklesis
N.O.N.
Melody from the Obikhod notnago peniia
Hymn of the Epiklesis
SATB
3
Ta037
-
MR Ta037
-
MR Ta038
-
MR Ta039
7
Communion Hymn for the Departed
N.O.N.
Communion Hymn for the Departed
Ps. 64[65]:5; 101[102]:13
SdivAdivTdivBdiv
4
Ta040
-
MR Ta040
8
Prokeimenon at Liturgy of Pre-Sanctified Gifts
N.O.N.
Prokeimenon at Liturgy of Pre-Sanctified Gifts
Ps. 140[141]:2-4
SSA Trio and SATB Chorus
5
Ta041
-
MR Ta041
9
Cherubic Hymn from Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts
N.O.N.
Cherubic Hymn from Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts
SdivAdivTdivBdiv
5
Ta042
-
MR Ta042
It Is Truly Fitting
From John Chrysostom Liturgy
SATB
No. 164, pp. 228-229 in vol. Notnyi sbornik pravoslavnogo russkogo tserkovnogo peniia, vol. 1: Bozhestvennaia Liturgiia, London: 1962
Printed edition
2
Sb-LonBL-164
Gimn v chest’ Svv. Kirilla i Mefodiia
Non-liturgical spiritual verse
N.O.N.
Arrangement of old Slavic folk melody
Non-liturgical spiritual verse
SATB
PJu #6700 18--
First printed edition
4
Ta045
-
Musica Russica Ta045
-
MR Ta045
-
MR Ta045
Gospodi, spasi blagochestivyia i Trisviatoe
O Lord, save the pious and Trisagion
SSATTBB
No. 41, pp. 43-44 in vol. Notnyi sbornik pravoslavnogo russkogo tserkovnogo peniia, vol. 1: Bozhestvennaia Liturgiia, London: 1962
Printed edition
2
Sb-LonBL-41
The Cherubic Hymn
SSAATTB
No. 105, pp. 131-133 in vol. Notnyi sbornik pravoslavnogo russkogo tserkovnogo peniia, vol. 1: Bozhestvennaia Liturgiia, London: 1962
Printed edition
3
Sb-LonBL-105
Liturgiia Sv. Ioanna Zlatoustago
Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom
Op. 41
SATB(div)
PJu 1878
First printed edition
62
Ta001-015
1
Litanies and Responses
Op.41, No. 1
Litanies and Responses
SdivAdivTdivBdiv
3
Ta001
2
No. 2 - Slava Ottsu i Synu [i Edinorodnyi Syne]
Troparion after the Second Antiphon
Op.41, No. 2
Troparion after the Second Antiphon
SATB
5
Ta002
-
MR Ta002
3
No. 3 - Priidite poklonimsia [i Sviatyi Bozhe]
Hymn of the Little Entrance and the Trisagion Hymn
Op.41, No. 3
Hymn of the Little Entrance and the Trisagion Hymn
SdivATdivBdiv
5
Ta003
-
MR Ta003
4
No. 4 - Posle chteniia Apostola
Litanies and Responses
Op.41, No. 4
Litanies and Responses
SdivATdivBdiv
2
Ta004
5
No. 5 - Posle chteniia Evangeliia
Litanies and Responses
Op.41, No. 5
Litanies and Responses
SATB
3
Ta005
-
MR Ta006
7
No. 7 - Posle Kheruvimskoi pesni
Litanies and Responses
Op.41, No. 7
Litanies and Responses
SATB
1
Ta007
-
MR Ta008
9
Anaphora (Eucharistic Canon)
Op.41, No. 9
Anaphora (Eucharistic Canon)
SATB
4
Ta009
-
MR Ta009
-
MR Ta010
11
Hymn to the Mother of God
Op.41, No. 11
Hymn to the Mother of God
SATB
4
Ta011
-
MR Ta011
12
No. 12 - Amin’. I so dukhom tvoim. Gospodi, pomilui.
Litanies and Responses
Op.41, No. 12
Litanies and Responses
SATB
1
Ta012
-
MR Ta013
-
MR Ta014
15
No. 15 - Blagosloven griadyi, [Videkhom... Da ispolniatsia]
Hymn at the appearance of Communion and Hymns of Thanksgiving
Op.41, No. 14
Hymn at the appearance of Communion and Hymns of Thanksgiving
SATB
8
Ta015
A Mercy of Peace
SATB
No. 134, pp. 186-188 in vol. Notnyi sbornik pravoslavnogo russkogo tserkovnogo peniia, vol. 1: Bozhestvennaia Liturgiia, London: 1962
Printed edition
3
Sb-LonBL-134
The Lord's Prayer
SATB
No. 188, pp. 253-254 in vol. Notnyi sbornik pravoslavnogo russkogo tserkovnogo peniia, vol. 1: Bozhestvennaia Liturgiia, London: 1962
Printed edition
2
Sb-LonBL-188