Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky : NPR

Classics in Concert

Janine Jansen's Supercharged Tchaikovsky

American Public Media

September 8, 2009 • The young Dutch violinist was once known as much for her good looks as for her good playing. Today, she turns heads with a fearless approach to music and excellent technique. Hear Jansen play Tchaikovsky's classic Violin Concerto with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto

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The NPR Classical 50

Mravinsky's Supercharged Tchaikovsky

August 25, 2009 • No one possessed the nerve, or ability, to perform Tchaikovsky's final symphonies with as much dark and passionate intensity as the Russian conductor Evgeny Mravinsky.

Ted Libbey And Fred Child Recommend Symphonies 4-6 by Tchaikovsky

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The NPR Classical 50

Van Cliburn's Classic Tchaikovsky

June 2, 2009 • Hear the lanky Texan's iconic 1958 recording of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1, made on the heels of his historic victory at the very first International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.

Ted Libbey Recommends Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1

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Perilous Passion: Tchaikovsky's 'Mazeppa'

May 8, 2009 • Historic upheavals, a perilous romance, a father's death and a daughter's madness are all wrapped up in one of Tchaikovsky's most intimate, and passionate operas.

Tchaikovsky's 'Mazeppa'

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Music Interviews

Insults And Praise On The Classical Campaign

October 23, 2008 • Commentator Miles Hoffman offers a classical variation on a political theme: insults and endorsements among the great composers. Invectives hurled at their colleagues and competitors were effective means of shaping public opinion. Whether positive, negative or the all-too-common flip-flop, classical-music criticism, just like political commentary, is little more than biased opinion in time.

Insults And Praise On The Classical Campaign

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Music

Rejection Revisited: 'Eugene Onegin'

September 12, 2008 • Tchaikovsky combined a personal, romantic entanglement with a passionate story by Pushkin to create Eugene Onegin, a fiery drama that soon became the composer's most popular opera.

Teatro Carlo Felice on World of Opera -- 'Eugene Onegin'

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Favorite Sessions

Wu Han Plays Tchaikovsky, Month by Month

American Public Media

June 30, 2008 • In 1876, Tchaikovsky composed musical snapshots of each month of the calendar year for publication in a St. Petersburg magazine. Pianist Wu Han performs the entire cycle, and discusses the music with Performance Today host Fred Child in NPR's studio.

Herbert von Karajan's Symphonic Obsessions

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Music Interviews

Herbert von Karajan's Symphonic Obsessions

April 4, 2008 • Karajan shot to the top of the classical music scene in the 1950s, remaining supremely powerful until he died in 1989. He left a legacy of gorgeous recordings, as well as a fair amount of controversy.

Herbert von Karajan's Symphonic Obsessions

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Driveway Moments

Van Cliburn: Treasuring Moscow After 50 Years

March 1, 2008 • Fifty years ago, a tall 23-year-old Texan shook up the music world by winning the first Tchaikovsky Competition, in Moscow at the height of the Cold War. Van Cliburn reminisces about his victory and his unconventional career.

Van Cliburn: Treasuring Moscow After 50 Years

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Fishko Files

How Van Cliburn Took Moscow

WNYC Radio

February 29, 2008 • Fifty years ago, a classical pianist from Texas took advantage of a thaw in the Cold War and left for the first International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in the Soviet Union. He came back to a ticker-tape parade in New York.

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Music

Tchaikovsky's 'The Queen of Spades'

January 4, 2008 • Pushkin's grim tale of greed and obsession gets even darker in Tchaikovsky's opera, The Queen of Spades. Renowned tenor Neil Shicoff is the love-obsessed Hermann and soprano Martina Serafin plays his victim, at the Vienna State Opera.

Music

Tchaikovsky's Maid of Orleans

June 8, 2007 • Not many 70-year-old sopranos could score a box office hit portraying a teenage heroine, but Mirella Freni did it as Joan of Arc, the title character of Tchaikovsky's The Maid of Orleans, at the Washington National Opera.

Interview with Mirella Freni

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Last but Definitely Not Least (Great Finales)

December 28, 2006 • For the final Morning Edition broadcast of the year, music commentator Miles Hoffman plays some of the greatest finales of classical music.

Last but Definitely Not Least (Great Finales)

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Best CDs of 2006

2006's Top 10 Classical-Music Discoveries, from WGUC

December 12, 2006 • Cincinnati-based WGUC plays classical music 24 hours a day, reaching out to the genre's newcomers and longtime aficionados alike. WGUC music director Kent Teeters compiled this list of the 10 best classical CD discoveries of 2006.

Music

Soukhovetski: Tchaikovsky in Style

October 19, 2006 • Russian pianist Konstantin Soukhovetski weighs in with an opinion on the importance of style and fashion in the classical-music world, and he plays Tchaikovsky in concert. We're at Lincoln Center in New York to hear Soukhovetski play "June: Barcarolle" from Tchaikosky's suite The Seasons.

Soukhovetski: Tchaikovsky in Style

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