ABSTRACT

Tchaikovsky's worldview had a strong overtone of idealism. As an artist, he believed in the high ethical mission of arts and he perceived his own mission as a worthy contribution. Tchaikovsky passionately desired to create the symphony' that would convey some great humanistic idea philosophical or ethical. Renan's famous statement that Death adds perfection to the most perfect man; it frees him from all defect in the eye of those who have loved him Renan, The Life of Jesus, was more than familiar to Tchaikovsky. However, despite changing the emotional axis of the symphony genre, Tchaikovsky was not ready to diminish its socio-cultural significance as a medium to address masses. Pietism, with its accent on feeling, mediates the process whereby the God-centered Orthodox vision gradually gives way to the anthropocentric vision of Lutheran Enlightenment. The universality of compassion as an absolute human value, which I have sought to show in Tchaikovsky's work, reveals some similarity to Picander Bach's approach.