Tchaikovsky on Don Giovanni

Tchaikovsky, later in his life, reflected on hearing Mozart's Don Giovanni as a boy:

The music of Don Giovanni was the first to conquer me completely.  It awoke an ecstasy in me of which the consequences are known.  It gave me the key to the spheres of pure beauty in which the greatest geniuses soar.  Up to then I had known only Italian opera.  That I vowed myself to music is due to Don Giovanni … In this opera Mozart has put on stage an objectively tragic character, the most powerful and the most hallucinatory music ever created – Donna Anna. I simply cannot express what I felt when I saw this proud beauty appear, tragic and vengeful.  When she at last discovers Don Juan, the murderer of her father and her seducer, when her anger flares out in a recitative of genius followed by the slightest whisper of the orchestra, I shiver with horror, I want to cry aloud, to weep, to throw myself about, overcome by the strength of the impression given by the Master.

Cited in: Hanson, Lawrence & Elisabeth (1965) Tchaikovsky, London: Cassell & Company, p.30.

Posted

in

by

Greg

Tags:

, ,

Featured Content

Widerstehe doch der Sünde (J. S. Bach)
Title: Widerstehe doch der Sünde (from Cantata BWV 54)Composer: Johann Sebastian BachArranger: Greg SmithInstrumentation: PianoProduct medium: PDF score Sample:
Loneliness versus solitude
“Language has created the word loneliness to express the pain of being alone, and the word solitude to express the glory of being alone.” – Paul Johannes Tillich, German American theologian and philosopher
Debussy on pedalling in Chopin
Despite my respect for Saint-Saëns’ age, what he says about Chopin’s pedalling isn’t entirely true. I have very clear memories of what Mme Mauté de Fleurville told me. He (Chopin) recommended practising without pedal and, in performance, not holding it on except in very rare instances. It was the same way of turning the pedal […]
Communicating one’s dreams
“Whoever communicates to his brothers in suffering the secret splendour of his dreams acts upon the surrounding society in the manner of a solvent and makes all those who understand him, often without their realisations, outlaws and rebels.” Pierre Quillard (symbolist poet), 1892.
The nature of music
“A verbal art like poetry is reflective; it stops to think. Music is immediate, it goes on to become.” – W. H. Auden, English Poet Auden, Wystan Hugh ‎(1988) The Complete Words of Auden, Princeton University Press, vol. 3, p. 251.
Big Business
Title: Big Business (silent film soundtrack) Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano Product medium:PDF score (31 pages) BACKGROUND: Film:     Directors: James W. Horne & Leo McCarey     Starring: Stan Laurel & Oliver Hardy     Year of release: 1929     Synopsis: Two salesmen are trying to sell Christmas trees in california. The customers, however, are not so keen. Who would […]
Gershwin’s playing (and sense of humour)
The composer Burton Lane describes George Gershwin’s playing: You could feel the electricity going through the room when he played.  He could transpose into any key with the greatest of ease.  He had total command of what he was doing.  Musical surprises, unusual changes of keys.  He was one of the few composers who had […]
Blue Flemingo
Title: Blue Flemingo Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano Product medium: PDF score SAMPLE:
You can’t own the tuning
This account of a bizarre law suite on May 6 at Bow St. against the Associated Board of Musical Examinations appeared in the English journal The Musical Times (June 1932).  The board was accused of obtaining money under false pretences: Mr. Lennox Atkins, F.R.C.O., asked on behalf of the Equal Temperament Committee for a process […]
Start from scratch every time
Benjamin Appl on working with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau: When people ask me about what I learned from Fischer-Dieskau, that’s what I always come back to: of course I could say a hundred things about technique and his reputation, but what I found most inspiring was how he created everything afresh. Whenever he was teaching he’d prepare […]