Tchaikovsky and His World

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Summary of Tchaikovsky and His World

These new revelations say less about Tchaikovsky than about the public's changing attitudes. Older biographers, like the one by distinguished English critic and scholar Edwin Evans, now out of print, attributed Tchaikovsky's depressive, melancholy tendencies to his Slavic heritage and the early loss of his mother. They found no evidence of his sexuality in his music, unlike some contributors to this volume. Leslie Kearney, for example, in her analysis of Tchaikovsky's opera The Maid of Orleans, argues that the movingly human heroine of Schiller's play attracted him because he identified with her "androgynousness."

However, the book's primarily musical articles are interesting and rewarding. Leon Botstein, president of Bard College and a Renaissance man of boundless erudition, explores nationalism versus cosmopolitanism in Tchaikovsky's music and the paintings of his day, with many beautiful reproductions. The essay is fascinating, but it fails to explain its basic concept--psychological realism in music. There is a meticulous analysis of an orchestral suite; an impenetrably abstruse one of the Fourth Symphony in a terrible translation; a delightful account of three ballet productions; and more. --Edith Eisler

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