Editing Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (section)

====Harmony====
Harmony could be a potential trap for Tchaikovsky, according to Brown, since Russian creativity tended to focus on inertia and self-enclosed tableaux, while Western harmony worked against this to propel the music onward and, on a larger scale, shape it.<ref>Brown, ''The Final Years'', 422, 432–434.</ref> [[modulation (music)|Modulation]], the shifting from one key to another, was a driving principle in both harmony and [[sonata form]], the primary Western large-scale [[musical form|musical structure]] since the middle of the 18th century. Modulation maintained harmonic interest over an extended time scale, provided a clear contrast between musical themes, and showed how those themes were related to each other.<ref>Roberts, ''New Grove (1980)'', 12:454.</ref>

One point in Tchaikovsky's favor was "a flair for harmony" that "astonished" Rudolph Kündinger, Tchaikovsky's music tutor during his time at the School of Jurisprudence.<ref>As quoted in Polyansky, ''Eyes'', 18.</ref> Added to what he learned at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory studies, this talent allowed Tchaikovsky to employ a varied range of harmony in his music, from the Western harmonic and textural practices of his first two string quartets to the use of the [[whole-tone scale]] in the center of the finale of the Second Symphony, a practice more typically used by The Five.<ref name="brown_ng18628" />