Tchaikovsky's Gay -- ahem -- Music

[dirac]

This appeared in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine. Dirk Olin talks to music scholars about the composer's music and status in the canon, and, of course, his sex life:

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/08/magazine...ne/08CRASH.html

[Mel Johnson]

Gee, if Tchaikovsky's music is inherently gay, I wonder if Brahms' music is inherently misogynist, or Beethoven's inherently deaf, or Mendelssohn's inherently hemorrhagic?;)

[dirac]

My thoughts, exactly.

[Leigh Witchel]

Do click on the link though. I don't think Olin writes from one camp or the other, he seems to present both sides of that issue and the broader one of Tchaikosky's reputation among composers. It's interesting to come from ballet, where Tchaikovsky is loved (Balanchine's Tchaikovsky by Simon Volkov is a fascinating read - Balanchine's projection of the ethos of an artist as craftsperson onto Tchaikovsky) and read about modern musicians' disdain for him. I think there's a lot to admire in his work, more than just his orchestration skill, which they seem to admit grudgingly. How many composers can actually write music that not only convers drama but can support theater or dance? It's a painfully underrated skill. Milton Babbitt may loathe Tchaikovsky, but I don't know if I could sit through a full evening Milton Babbitt ballet.

[Alexandra]

I think in the real world -- the nonballet world, That Other World -- Tchaikovsky has been Out in a big way for years. At least since I was in college. Total scorn, total disdain. Not as bad as Rachmaninoff, but close. Glazunov, now he's so Out he's Cool, but Tchaikovsky is just plain OUT. Maybe thinking of him as The Gay Composer is an attempt to rehabilitate him!

[Mel Johnson]

Back in the 50s, it was the Thing to Do to knock Tchaikovsky "because all he was, was LOUD!" The humorist Gerard Hoffnung, creator of the Hoffnung Concerts at Festival Hall in London, took up this challenge and provided a medley of Tchaikovsky melodies (The introduction to Symphony #5, the scherzo of #6, and the march from Overture 1812. It was played by the Dolmetsch ensemble, on recorders and other ancient (read mellow) instruments. In the 1812 sequence the cannon effects were provided by cork popguns.

[dirac]

I didn't intend to imply that Olin thinks Tchaikovsky's music is inherently gay. It's plain from the article that he's soliciting opinions.

Tchaikovsky has actually been The Gay Guy for quite awhile, and some think that it hurt his reputation. Not that critics would state right out, "He's a homo and therefore bad," but they would use adjectives like "neurotic," "hysterical," etc. Taruskin writes about this somewhere, I think.

[Mel Johnson]

Or as Eric Idle put it one time on "Monty Python", "Tchaikovsky - tortured genius, suffering to obtain his art, or was 'e just an old pouf who wrote tunes?"