Tchaikovsy's Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty suites, Riccardo Muti and The Philadephia orchestra


Tchaikovsky was born into a middle-class family. His education prepared him for a career as a civil servant, despite the musical precocity he had demonstrated. Against the wishes of his family he chose to pursue a musical career, and in 1862 entered the St Petersburg Conservatory, graduating in 1865. This formal, Western-oriented training set him apart, musically, from the contemporary nationalistic movement embodied by the group of young Russian composers known as "The Five", with whom Tchaikovsky sustained a mixed professional relationship throughout his career.

As his style developed, Tchaikovsky wrote music across a range of genres, including symphony, opera, ballet, instrumental, chamber and song. Although he enjoyed many popular successes, he was never emotionally secure, and his life was punctuated by personal crises and periods of depression. Contributory factors were his suppressed homosexuality and fear of exposure, his disastrous marriage, and the sudden collapse of the one enduring relationship of his adult life, his 13-year association with the wealthy widow Nadezhda von Meck. Amid private turmoil Tchaikovsky's public reputation grew; he was honored by the Tsar, awarded a lifetime pension and lauded in the concert halls of the world. His sudden death at the age of 53 is generally ascribed to cholera, but some attribute it to suicide.

Riccardo Muti, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI[1] (born July 28, 1941) is an Italian conductor. In May 2008 he was appointed the 10th music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, effective with the 2010-11 season.

With Philadelphia, his recordings include the first Beethoven Symphony Cycle made for compact disc, the symphonies of Johannes Brahms and Alexander Scriabin, selected works of Tchaikovsky and Sergei Prokofiev, as well as less-known works of composers such as Giacomo Puccini and Ferruccio Busoni.

Muti is considered one of the world's greatest conductors of the operas of Giuseppe Verdi. He also led a series of annual performances of opera in concerts including the works of Verdi, Puccini, Mozart, and Wagner. In 1992, Muti conducted performances of Ruggero Leoncavallo's Pagliacci with Luciano Pavarotti. A recording was also made of these performances.

At La Scala, Muti was noted for exploring lesser-known works of the Classical- and early Romantic-era repertory such as Lodoiska by Luigi Cherubini and La Vestale by Gaspare Spontini.


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