Pyotr Il’ich was just attempting to earn his crust and the people with money were more amenable to the German forms. He slipped in a lot of Russian themes, but the upper class expected certain things in a certain way.
Most people forget that things can get extremely hidebound, even in the Arts. The tyranny of the “three B’s” lasted a very long time.
]]>German influence on Chaikovski’s music notwithstanding, German influence on the disciplines of musicology and music theory is overwhelming beyond most people’s awareness; that’s how the ‘T’ got there in the first place. Thirty years ago when I studied music in grad school, the work of German music theorists and music historians was so dominant (yes, pun intended) that music grad students in America were strongly encouraged to study the German language if they didn’t already at least read it.
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