The celesta or celeste, also called a bell-piano, is a struck idiophone operated by a keyboard. It looks similar to an upright piano, albeit with smaller keys and a much smaller cabinet, or a large wooden music box (three-octave). The keys connect to hammers that strike a graduated set of metal plates or bars suspended over wooden resonators. Four- or five-octave models usually have a damper pedal that sustains or damps the sound. The three-octave instruments do not have a pedal because of their small "table-top" design. One of the best-known works that uses the celesta is Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" from The Nutcracker.
Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov was a Russian composer, music teacher, and conductor of the late Russian Romantic period. He was director of the Saint Petersburg Conservatory between 1905 and 1928 and was instrumental in the reorganization of the institute into the Petrograd Conservatory, then the Leningrad Conservatory, following the Bolshevik Revolution. He continued as head of the Conservatory until 1930, though he had left the Soviet Union in 1928 and did not return. The best-known student under his tenure during the early Soviet years was Dmitri Shostakovich.
Anton Stepanovich Arensky was a Russian composer of Romantic classical music, a pianist and a professor of music.
Amédée-Ernest Chausson was a French Romantic composer who died just as his career was beginning to flourish.
The Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74, also known as the Pathétique Symphony, is Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's final completed symphony, written between February and the end of August 1893. The composer entitled the work "The Passionate Symphony", employing a Russian word, Патетическая (Pateticheskaya), meaning "passionate" or "emotional", which was then (mis-)translated into French as pathétique, meaning "solemn" or "emotive".
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Op. 36, was written between 1877 and 1878. Its first performance was at a Russian Musical Society concert in Moscow on February 22, 1878, with Nikolai Rubinstein as conductor. In Middle Europe it sometimes receives the nickname "Fatum", or "Fate".
Eduard Francevič Nápravník was a Czech conductor and composer. Nápravník settled in Russia and is best known for his leading role in Russian musical life as the principal conductor of the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg for many decades. In that capacity, he conducted the premieres of many operas by Russian composers, including those by Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov.
Lera Auerbach is a Soviet-born American classical composer and concert pianist.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 3 in D major, Op. 29, was written in 1875. He began it at Vladimir Shilovsky's estate at Ussovo on 5 June and finished on 1 August at Verbovka. Dedicated to Shilovsky, the work is unique in Tchaikovsky's symphonic output in two ways: it is the only one of his seven symphonies in a major key ; and it is the only one to contain five movements.
The Voyevoda, Op. 3, is an opera in 3 acts and 4 scenes, by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky with a libretto written by Alexander Ostrovsky and based on his play The Voyevoda .
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 3 in E-flat major, Op. posth. 75, was originally begun as a Symphony in E-flat. The composer ultimately abandoned this symphony, but, in 1893, started to rework it into a piano concerto, before abandoning all but the first movement, which he completed as a concert piece for piano and orchestra. It was published posthumously, in 1894, as a single-movement Allegro Brillante. The Symphony No. 6 Pathétique was the last of Tchaikovsky's compositions to be performed in his lifetime, but the Allegro Brillante, now known as the Piano Concerto No. 3, was his last completed composition.
The Andante and Finale is a composition for piano and orchestra that was reworked by Sergei Taneyev from sketches by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky for the abandoned latter movements of his single-movement Piano Concerto No. 3 in E-flat, Op. 75.
Alexander Prior is a British composer and conductor who studied at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. He is currently the conductor for the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra.
The Storm, Op. 76, is an overture in E minor composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky around June and August 1864. The work is inspired by the play The Storm by the Russian playwright Alexander Ostrovsky. The same play also inspired Leoš Janáček's opera Káťa Kabanová.
Anna Karenina is a ballet choreographed by Boris Eifman, based on the 1877 novel Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. The première took place in Saint Petersburg on Saturday, 2 April 2005. The music is by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and includes excerpts from:
While the contributions of the Russian nationalistic group The Five were important in their own right in developing an independent Russian voice and consciousness in classical music, the compositions of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky became dominant in 19th century Russia, with Tchaikovsky becoming known both in and outside Russia as its greatest musical talent. His formal conservatory training allowed him to write works with Western-oriented attitudes and techniques, showcasing a wide range and breadth of technique from a poised "Classical" form simulating 18th century Rococo elegance to a style more characteristic of Russian nationalists or a musical idiom expressly to channel his own overwrought emotions.
Konstantin Saradzhev was an Armenian conductor and violinist. He was an advocate of new Russian music, and conducted a number of premieres of works by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Modest Mussorgsky, Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Prokofiev, Nikolai Myaskovsky, Dmitri Shostakovich, and Aram Khachaturian. His son Konstantin Konstantinovich Saradzhev was a noted bell ringer and musical theorist.
Dream on the Volga is an opera in four acts composed by Anton Arensky. The libretto was adapted by Arensky from Alexander Ostrovsky's melodrama Voyevoda. The opera premiered on January 2, 1891 at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow with Arensky conducting.
Scherzo fantastique, op. 3, composed in 1908, is the second purely orchestral work by Igor Stravinsky. Despite the composer's later description of the work as "a piece of 'pure', symphonic music", the work was inspired by Maurice Maeterlinck's 1901 essay "La Vie des Abeilles", as is made clear in a letter of 18 June 1907 from the composer to his teacher Rimsky-Korsakov. Ten years later, Léo Staats adapted it as a ballet for the Opéra Garnier, with the title Les Abeilles, which was objected to by Maeterlinck.
