Music with Ease > Classical Music > Concert Guide: Nationalist Era > Suite, "Mozartiana" (Tchaikovsky)

The "Mozartiana" written in 1887, is the fourth of Tchaikovsky’s orchestral suites. In the following note, appended to the score, the composer states its general character:

"A large number of the more admirable small compositions of Mozart, for incomprehensible reasons, are very little known, not alone to the public, but even to a large proportion of musicians. The author of the arrangement of the suite, having for its title ‘Mozartiana,’ desires to give a new impulse to the study of the little master works which in succinct form contain incomparable beauties."

To carry out this scheme Tchaikosvky has arranged four pieces from Mozart’s least known works, a Gigue, Minuet, Prayer, and Theme and Variations for full orchestra except heavy brasses, which would have been incongruous, and has elaborated them with the highest skill, which changes them from their original graceful simplicity into tone pictures full of a novel charm and color.