Suchet - Tchaikovsky

TCHAIKOVSKY:

THE MAN REVEALED

Pegaus Books Ltd

148 West 37th Street, 13th Floor

New York, NY 10018

Copyright 2018 by John Suchet

First Pegasus Books hardcover edition June 2019

Designed by James Collins

Text permissions: Tchaikovsky by Anthony Holden. Published by Bantam Press, 1995. Copyright Anthony Holden. Reproduced by permission of the author c/o Rogers, Coleridge & White, 20 Powis Mews, London W11 1JN; Tchaikovsky: The Quest for the Inner Man by Alexander Poznansky, reproduced by permission of the author; Tchaikovsky: The Man and his Music by David Brown, reproduced by permission of Faber & Faber Ltd; Tchaikovsky: A Biographical and Critical Study, Vol. 1, The Early Years, 187074 by David Brown and Tchaikovsky: A Biographical and Critical Study, Vol. 2, The Crisis Years, 18741878 by David Brown, published by the Orion Publishing Group: attempts at tracing the copyright holder of these two titles were unsuccessful.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connection with a review in a newspaper, magazine, or electronic publication; nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other, without written permission from the publisher.

ISBN: 978-1-64313-7

ISBN: 978-1-64313-170-2 (ebook)

Distributed by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

For my Dad, for making me learn the piano at the age of nine.

For my Mum, who let me buy a Tchaikovsky biography at the age of seventeen.

For my darling wife Nula, who was with me every step of the way.

If I am in a normal state of mind, I can say that I am composing every minute of the day, whatever the circumstances. Sometimes I observe with curiosity that unbroken labour which... goes on in that region of my head which is given over to music. Sometimes this is some preparatory work... while on another occasion a completely new independent musical idea appears and I try to retain it in my memory. Whence all this comes is an impenetrable secret.

Tchaikovsky

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

When I began presenting the flagship morning programme on Classic FM back in 2011, I intended to write a single composer biography, Beethoven: The Man Revealed. That was published in 2012. In the intervening years I have published four more, on Johann Strauss II, Mozart, Verdi, and now Tchaikovsky, thanks to the encouragement of the former Managing Director of Classic FM Darren Henley, and his successor, Managing Editor Sam Jackson.

It is my good fortune that Classic FMs publisher of choice during this whole period has been Elliott & Thompson. A small independent publisher, they pride themselves on producing books that look good, feel good, and above all are a good read. This means editors and designers at the top of their game, and I am indebted to each of them, all names familiar from my previous books. This consistency has led to a collection of books that complement each other, that stand as a set.

Director and commissioning editor has been Olivia Bays, whose advice has been offered and accepted at every stage. Pippa Crane, senior editor, was also involved in editing, and once again sourced all the illustrations. Jill Burrows was copy editor and Sarah Steele proof-read the finished product. I never cease to marvel at how no inconsistency, however small, escapes unnoticed. The finished product is incomparably better than it would have been without the careful attention of each of them.

This book looks as handsome as it does, and matches the others so well, thanks to Tash Webber, who again designed the cover, and James Collins, who again designed the pages.

My gratitude to my team is boundless, and I hope I may be forgiven for feeling a considerable amount of pride in seeing the five books alongside each other on my shelf.

The town of Votkinsk, where Russias most famous composer was born on 25 April 1840, sits on the banks of a picturesque lake in the Urals. Yet all is not as it seems. The lake is not a lake but a huge reservoir, 11 kilometres wide and 15 kilometres long, dug by a labour force of more than a thousand people in the mid-eighteenth century, and held by a dam built for the towns ironworks.

The town of Votkinsk was not a town when Tchaikovsky was born there. It was a settlement created entirely for employees of the state-run ironworks, who numbered as many as ten thousand. The house occupied by the Tchaikovsky family was one of the largest and best furnished of any in the area, sitting on the banks of the reservoir. It came with the job of ironworks manager.

After he was appointed to the position, Ilya Tchaikovsky moved to Votkinsk on his own. He made some renovations and wrote endearingly to his wife:

The house we are going to live in is very good and spacious... The furniture has been placed, the pictures have been hung, the house has become really nice and I think you will kiss me when you come, and your kiss is better than any medal or a rank for me.

Ilyas position brought him both status and respect. There were not many who could boast, as Ilya could and most certainly did, that a future tsar had stayed under his roof.

The bedroom that the infant Pyotr shared with his elder brother Nikolay looked out over the reservoir, on which swans were said to swim in the nineteenth century. Fanny Drbach recalled that Pyotr would kneel at the window gazing out over the water. Could it have been an early inspiration for the future much loved ballet? Perhaps.

Tchaikovskys birthplace is now a museum.

The room in which he was born.

The Tchaikovsky childrens play room.

What most certainly did begin on the banks of the reservoir was Tchaikovskys lifelong love of Russian folk music. Fishermen would pass the hours in song, before they and the Tchaikovsky family enjoyed what Fanny described as the best sunset she had ever seen, the dying rays spreading across the water from the opposite bank.

The house in which Tchaikovsky spent the happiest years of his life a sentiment echoed by Fanny fell into disrepair in the early twentieth century, housing different government organisations that paid scant attention to its musical heritage, bar a memorial plaque that hung outside between 1909 and 1917.

It was renovated in 1940, five years after Votkinsk was granted the status of a town, and opened as a museum commemorating its famous resident with the title Museum of Happy Recollections. The rooms and outbuildings have been restored, and a visitor today can feel the comfort, almost opulence, of the surroundings in which Pyotr spent his idyllic childhood.