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Tchaikovsky - Any GOOD books on his life???


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I just read a rather lengthy review on the book "Tchaikovsky: Quest For the Inner Man" by Alexander Poznansky - the book, as far as from my research on the net, is hailed by many to be the most revealing on the great composer.

I myself judge a biography on how much truth and even specualtive information is given by the author - I want to know all avenues of conjecture, all theories, etc. in realtion to ALL of the facts...but I do not want to read any lies.

I also read in this same review that there exsists the un-edited memoirs of Modest Tchaikovsky.....as well what of Pyotr's own un-edited memoirs?

So with this in mind, can any of our learned BalletTalkers reccomend a GOOD bio on the composer? Has anyone read "Tchaikovsky: Quest For the Inner Man" by Alexander Poznansky, and does anyone know any iteresting info on it?

Edited by Solor
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I haven't read Poznansky yet, Solor, but I'm planning to -- he knows more about Tchaikovsky than anybody else writing in English. He's had access to Tchaikovsky's archives, many things that were not known, or would not have been publishable under Soviet censorship, he's brought to light -- and he obviously loves Tchaikovsky.

He also knows a vast deal about life in 19th Century Russia -- one small but important example, that it was not a major problem to be homosexual in high society, where it was not particularly frowned upon. That was a problem for the Soviets, but not for the Tsars. (If you look at the wonderful SOviet bio-movie of Tchaikovsky, you'll find in 3 hours NO mention of his homosexuality.)

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I haven't read Poznansky yet, Solor, but I'm planning to -- he knows more about Tchaikovsky than anybody else writing in English. He's had access to Tchaikovsky's archives, many things that were not known, or would not have been publishable under Soviet censorship, he's brought to light -- and he obviously loves Tchaikovsky.

He also knows a vast deal about life in 19th Century Russia -- one small but important example, that it was not a major problem to be homosexual in high society, where it was not particularly frowned upon. That was a problem for the Soviets, but not for the Tsars. (If you look at the wonderful SOviet bio-movie of Tchaikovsky, you'll find in 3 hours NO mention of his homosexuality.)

I have heard of that, concering Tsarist Russia and homosezuality. I have always believed, even though I never really studied it, that the great composer's melancholy had a great deal to do with him having a problem excepting who he was :) its to bad to, because its such a waste of energy.........but still, had he not been that way (melancholy i mean) he never would have created such glorious work!

Edited by Solor
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Oh, I don't know about that, Solor. While there's no doubt that his music reflects his persistent blue moods, the man's gifts were what they were, and a more contented soul might also have composed important and lasting works, but of a different character.

Then, the sadness may have been inborn, independent of his sexuality. Of course, the reasons we have become the people we are are sometimes obvious, but more often deeply mysterious, even to ourselves.

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I have always believed, even though I never really studied it, that the great composer's melancholy had a great deal to do with him having a problem excepting who he was :) its to bad to, because its such a waste of energy.........but still, had he not been that way (melancholy i mean) he never would have created such glorious work!

The latest Opera News (March 2006) has an article on T's opera Mazeppa by Grant Hayter-Menzies. The article draws parallels between T's feelings about his sexuality and popular and historical memories of the Ukrainian Cossack leader.

For example: "...the Mazeppa myth's melange of fact and fiction played right into Tchaikovsky's method of working out his own secret traumas on the brightly lit stage of the symphony hall and opera theater. In T's hands, Mazeppa becomes very much a cri de coeur, a dramatized confession of a love that strays outside the rules, as T knew it and struggled with it all his life."

This is all hypothesis, but it might be one of your starting points.

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So with this in mind, can any of our learned BalletTalkers reccomend a GOOD bio on the composer? Has anyone read "Tchaikovsky: Quest For the Inner Man" by Alexander Poznansky, and does anyone know any iteresting info on it?

Please read Poznansky. It's a good biography. However don't expect any info on the ballets or music.

Poznansky doesn't shed much light on Tchaikovsky's work.

The latest Opera News (March 2006) has an article on T's opera Mazeppa by Grant Hayter-Menzies. The article draws parallels between T's feelings about his sexuality and popular and historical memories of the Ukrainian Cossack leader.

For example: "...the Mazeppa myth's melange of fact and fiction played right into Tchaikovsky's method of working out his own secret traumas on the brightly lit stage of the symphony hall and opera theater. In T's hands, Mazeppa becomes very much a cri de coeur, a dramatized confession of a love that strays outside the rules, as T knew it and struggled with it all his life."

This is all hypothesis, but it might be one of your starting points.

This sounds like the standard British take on Tchaikovsky, making him into the Russian equiv of Oscar Wilde, with those "secret traumas" etc. So if Mazeppa was "really" about the composer's homosexuality, what about all those other passionate cri de coeur operas by straight composers - where did they get their "secret" material from?

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Oh, I don't know about that, Solor. While there's no doubt that his music reflects his persistent blue moods, the man's gifts were what they were, and a more contented soul might also have composed important and lasting works, but of a different character.

Then, the sadness may have been inborn, independent of his sexuality. Of course, the reasons we have become the people we are are sometimes obvious, but more often deeply mysterious, even to ourselves.

OOOOOOH...... :dunno: BAD WORDING ON MY PART!....I meant that he wouldnt have had that as a source of insperation, though I didnt mean that it was all of his insperation - I was thinking along the lines of symph. #6, or 5........even parts of his operas......even the good ole white adage from swan lake act 2 - i dont care how many times i have heard it, its very moving in a tragic way. yes I understand exactly what you mean carbro...particularly what you stated about inborn sadness.

[For example: "...the Mazeppa myth's melange of fact and fiction played right into Tchaikovsky's method of This sounds like the standard British take on Tchaikovsky, making him into the Russian equiv of Oscar Wilde, with thos "secret traumas" etc. So if Mazeppa was "really" about the composer's homosexuality, what about all those other passionate cri de coeur operas by straight composers - where did they get their "secret" material from?

indeed! I agree.....people and stupid "hypothesis" over all things done by a homosexual artists really upsets me :)

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Solor, I agree with you about the tragic feeling in the White Swan adage (and feel that way about the lakeside scene in general).

On the other hand, Tchaikovsky DID have "secret traumas," and his music isfull of sudden affrights and tremendous alarums -- the first movement of hte Pathetique has subsided into incredibly deep tranquility when suddenly all hell breaks loose. In Mravinsky's great recording, there are passages so shattering I'm always shaking afterwards.

Tchaikovsky certainly DID try to kill himself in the late 1870s after his marriage failed.... ANd no less a pundit than Nadia Boulanger used to ridicule him for being hysterical. If he did not go through Oscar Wilde's trials, the parallel is not very good anyway -- Wilde was not given to hysteria.

Back in the 80s, when the Soviet scholar Aleksandra Orlova's contention was believed -- that Tchaikovsky killed himself in 1893 because he had been ordered to by some secret court, to prevent his homosexuality from becoming a scandal -- a parallel to Wilde's suffering after his trial was very plausible. Poznansky controverted that effectively, but not until the late 1990's, and the suicide story had become official, even making it into the Grove (the encyclopedia ofmusic). Volkov says Balanchine believed it (Mr B died before Poznansky's criticisms were published). Indeed, the Tchaikovsky Festival seems to have come not too long after Orlova's article was published in 1980. And some scholars believe it still.

Not all queers are insecure, but Tchaikovsky's insecurity seems to go way back -- there was something painfully wrenching about his separation from his mother -- with which Balanchine sympathized (if Volkov can be believed, and -- though that's a wonderful book -- Volkov's veracity has been hotly contested re his book about Shostakovitvh).

Nobody doubts that Tchaikovsky WAS profoundly unhappy about the instability of his intimacies....

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Nobody doubts that Tchaikovsky WAS profoundly unhappy about the instability of his intimacies....

But chances are he would have been the same had he been straight. Just look at the kind of subject matter he was most interested in (Hermann in Queen of Spades falling in love with a girl the moment she got engaged; Onegin falling madly in love with Tatiana as soon as he's discovers she doesn't need him anymore) and you'll see it's the old desire-meets-unattainability crunch, which is just as accessible to straight as gay folk.

A major thing with Tchaikovsky and his supposed unhappiness is quite simply this: He had this habit of using his diaries and letters as a distress vent. Had he burned those diaries the picture would have looked quite different. However he did not and this way he left plenty of ammo to scholars who want to prove that Tchaikovsky = gay = insecure = hysterical.

I'd say someone who has been as stunningly productive as Tchaikovsky was - composing and scoring Sleeping Beauty in three months as I recall, or Iolantha and Nutcraker for a double bill program - may have had his little tics and obsessions, but they sure didn't keep him from doing what he wanted to do.

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I want to know all avenues of conjecture, all theories, etc. in realtion to ALL of the facts...but I do not want to read any lies.

Give up reading. Biographers generally have a better feel for the humanity of their subjects, but most often fail as armchair psychologists. Actual mental health workers will tell you that attempting a diagnosis on an absent subject is nigh on impossible. When it comes to history, speculation and conjecture might as well be lies, but the upside is that there is nobody who can be actually hurt by error.

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Essential reading because of their attention devoted to Tchaikovsky the musician are the massive biographies by David Brown and André Lischké (only in French I fear). Even if Brown finds a lot to say about Tchaikovsky's emotional life, it is his detailed musicological analysis which makes his book an outstanding read. Lischké also gives a very thorough analysis of Tchaikovsky the composer.

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