Beethoven & Haydn: Philharmonie Austin [CD]

When, in the summer of 1869, the 29-year-old Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) received the suggestion from Mily Balakirev (1837-1910) to compose an overture to Romeo and Juliet, he was coming into his mature years, and was still a somewhat newly minted professor at the Moscow Conservatory. Like many of history's great composers, he was intended for the legal profession, and had from the age of 14 pursued that path rigorously in Saint Petersburg, eventually securing a job with the Ministry of Justice (1859-1862). Yet, from early childhood, he had shown a strong musical intuition, and an especial affinity for Mozart, whose music it was Tchaikovsky's 'sacred delight' to hear. When it was announced that the Russian Musical Society would open a conservatory in Saint Petersburg in 1862, Tchaikovsky enrolled, abandoning his legal career and maturing extraordinarily quickly under the guidance of Anton Rubinstein. From his mentor he absorbed the compositional process he would employ throughout his career: to sketch quickly to the end of the work before scoring, and to view his calling as a sacred responsibility.