Tchaikovsky's 2nd Symphony: You've Had your Cake and Listened to It

It has been an entire year since I started this blog as a project to, for every week that goes by, share my thoughts about a piece of music that I think deserves a listen. Just a little slice of musical cake for your week, as it were.

And although I haven't posted on the dot every week, I have in fact successfully managed to post a piece FOR every week that has gone by, with 51 pieces discussed on this blog so far - and this post will take it to 52. 

Some blog posts have been of better quality (and frankly of better effort) than others, but I have particularly enjoyed contributing to this page as the year has gone by. In fact, especially since writing some reviews of recent opera production in Leeds, this project has helped me to realise that writing and blogging is something I want to pursue in the future. And to that end, I have recently set up a new website with more details of me as a musician on it. From the 1st January, blogging on this website will stop and be transferred over to there:

www.benjaminpjackson.com/blog

It will still be the same blog, with the same title (and you may have noticed I have copied across some of my favourites from the past year already) and I will continue to provide a slice of musical cake, but I'm also interested in seeing what will happen when I broaden the scope of the blog a little and write about more personal musical experiences as well as hopefully writing more reviews of live musical events, and seeing what else might come my way in 2018.

I'd like to genuinely thank everyone that's not only read this blog but supported me in its creation and encouraged me - it's been one of the most beneficial things I've ever done. I hope you've enjoyed it and I hope to see you on the new website very soon.

It took me a while to work out what piece to use as a send-off for this blog in the form that it's in - but the answer was obvious when I worked it out. Tchaikovsky's 2nd Symphony 'The Little Russian' brings the music in this blog full-circle as it embodies the Russian traditional spirit that 'The Snow Maiden', my very first post did, as well as coming from possibly my favourite classical album of the year in which Vasily Petrenko takes the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra to new heights in what is possibly the most exciting set of Tchaikovsky recordings ever made.

Tchaikovsky was not a nationalist composer in the same way that Rimsky-Korsakov was, but this piece in particular found favour with 'The Five' of which Rimsky-Korsakov was a part, and Tchaikovsky explicitly uses Russian and Ukrainian folk music in the symphony. One of my favourite features of this symphony especially is the 'theme and variation' style that comes from these traditional tunes, exploring the same theme in a number of fun, exciting and often emotional ways. If anything, this piece is represents pride in what humans share between themselves, which is why I thought it a really fitting way to end this project.

There is a lot of classical music out there (way more than 52 pieces) but the theme that I've found recurring throughout every one I've looked into, listened to and written about is humanity. Humans creating sounds about humanity, in fact. Either to explain their emotions, tell stories about them, revisit ideas long left behind by them, to challenge them, for one another, for themselves, for love, for hate, for pride, because they're scared, because they don't know how they're feeling, and for so many other reasons. Music comes from our most human traits, and I'm looking forward to exploring those even more as I continue something that's been part of my very human life and hopefully will continue to be in the years to come.