''The Storm'', Op. 76 (TH 36) (, ''groza''), is an

overture Overture (from French ''ouverture'', "opening") is a music instrumental introduction to a ballet, opera, or oratorio in the 17th century. During the early Romantic era, composers such as Beethoven and Mendelssohn composed overtures which ...

(in the context of a

symphonic poem A symphonic poem or tone poem is a piece of orchestral music, usually in a single continuous movement, which illustrates or evokes the content of a poem, short story, novel, painting, landscape, or other (non-musical) source. The German term ( ...

) in

E minor E minor is a minor scale based on E, consisting of the pitches E, F, G, A, B, C, and D. Its key signature has one sharp, on the F. Its relative major is G major and its parallel major is E major. The E natural minor scale is: Change ...

composed by

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer during the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music made a lasting impression internationally. Tchaikovsky wrote some of the most popula ...

around June and August 1864. The work is inspired by the play '' The Storm'' by the Russian

playwright A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes play (theatre), plays, which are a form of drama that primarily consists of dialogue between Character (arts), characters and is intended for Theatre, theatrical performance rather than just Readin ...

Alexander Ostrovsky Alexander Nikolayevich Ostrovsky (; ) was a Russian playwright, generally considered the greatest representative of the Russian realistic period. The author of 47 original plays, Ostrovsky "almost single-handedly created a Russian national repe ...

. The same play also inspired

Leoš Janáček Leoš Janáček (, 3 July 1854 – 12 August 1928) was a Czech composer, Music theory, music theorist, Folkloristics, folklorist, publicist, and teacher. He was inspired by Moravian folk music, Moravian and other Slavs, Slavic music, includin ...

's opera ''

Káťa Kabanová ''Káťa Kabanová'' (also known in various spellings including ''Katia'', ''Katja'', ''Katya'', and ''Kabanowa'') is an opera in three acts, with music by Leoš Janáček to a libretto by the composer based on ''The Storm (Ostrovsky), The Storm'' ...

''.

History

''The Storm'' was Tchaikovsky's first substantial work for orchestra, written when he was only 24. He was spending the summer at the family estate of Prince Aleksey Vasilievich Golitsyn at Trostinets, near

Kharkov Kharkiv, also known as Kharkov, is the second-largest List of cities in Ukraine, city in Ukraine.

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

, and wrote the overture as a vacation exercise. He did not consider it worthy of publication, and it was never performed in his lifetime. This opinion may have been influenced by

Anton Rubinstein Anton Grigoryevich Rubinstein (; ) was a Russian pianist, composer and conductor who founded the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. He was the elder brother of Nikolai Rubinstein, who founded the Moscow Conservatory. As a pianist, Rubinstein ran ...

, who disapproved of it, and by Herman Laroche, who said it represented "a museum of antimusical curiosities". In the summer of 1865–66, Tchaikovsky reworked the opening of the piece as the ''Concert Overture in C minor''. This was also not performed or published in Tchaikovsky's lifetime. ''The Storm'' was first performed, posthumously, in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

on March 7, 1896, conducted by

Alexander Glazunov Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov ( – 21 March 1936) 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 i ...

. It was published by Mitrofan Belyayev, as Op. 76. The "Poco Meno Mosso" section of the piece is also used as the main theme for the second movement of his Symphony No. 1 in G Minor "Winter Dreams". The ''Concert Overture in C minor'' did not have its first performance until 1931, in

Voronezh Voronezh ( ; , ) is a city and the administrative centre of Voronezh Oblast in southwestern Russia straddling the Voronezh River, located from where it flows into the Don River. The city sits on the Southeastern Railway, which connects wes ...

, under the baton of Konstantin Saradzhev.John Warrack, ''Tchaikovsky'', p. 42

Notes

External links

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Tchaikovsky Research
Symphonic poems by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Concert overtures 1864 compositions Compositions in E minor Compositions in C minor Compositions by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky published posthumously Overtures by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky {{classical-composition-stub