A masterful new biographical work on Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky—composer of some of the world's most popular orchestral and theatrical music.
Tchaikovsky is famous for all the wrong reasons. He is portrayed as a desperate romantic, a gloomy melancholic, or a dark obsession, while the reality of the Tchaikovsky we know is a shadow of his thrilling world. It's all too easy to forget that he composed an empire of music and navigated the imperial Russian court with great success.
In this iconoclastic biography, acclaimed author Simon Morrison recreates the complex world of Tchaikovsky. His life and art were framed by Russian national ambition, and his work was the manifestation of an imperial subject: colorful, expansive, cosmopolitan, decentralized.
Morrison re-evaluates the relationship between Tchaikovsky's music, personal life, and politics; his support of Tsars Alexander II and III; and his engagement with the cultures of the imperial peripheries, in Ukraine, Poland, and the Caucasus. Tchaikovsky's Empire overturns what we thought we knew—and offers us a vivid new appreciation of Russia's most popular composer.
Pages: 384, Year of Publication: 1007, Dimensions: 15.6x15.6cm
