Tabloid Tuesday: Tchaikovsky

It’s that day again! This week is Tchaikovsky’s Tabloid Tuesday. I’m extra excited about this week for three reasons: 1. Tchaikovsky is one of my favourite composers; 2. He had a radical and fascinating life; and 3. I love alliteration!

As many people know, it is widely recognized that Tchaikovsky was homosexual. As a public figure in the nineteenth century, this makes his story especially fascinating and dramatic.

Of course his sexual orientation didn’t keep Tchaikovsky from attempting to fit in with the rest of his heteronormative society. But after failing to marry singer Desiree Artot when she suddenly married a Spanish baritone in 1869, it might have seemed a good time to stop trying to be something he wasn’t, but society demanded he be.

Yet Tchaikovsky was not completely deterred from the idea of a heterosexual marriage. In 1877, a woman named Antonina Milyukova wrote to him, and in subsequent letters threatened to kill herself if he would not meet her. A week after their meeting, Tchaikovsky proposed to her on the terms that there could be no physical component to their relationship.

Disclaimer: this method of flirtation is not always as effective as it was for Antonina; use at your own discretion.

As soon as they were engaged then married, Tchaikovsky promptly ran off to compose a few more masterpieces elsewhere – far away from his new wife. That September, Tchaikovsky was forced to return to his Antonina, which proved to be too much stress for our composer. So a few days later he made a feeble attempt at suicide.

He arranged to go back to St. Petersburg for October 7^th, and consulted a specialist who suggested he never see his wife again. His brother then arranged a separation.

For years Antonina made poor Tchaikovsky’s life unbearable by alternatively accepting then refusing a divorce.

At one point Antonina actually moved into the apartment above Tchaikovsky, just to make his life miserable, and for ease of tormenting. I can just imagine it now – wake up, have breakfast, go downstairs to harass her estranged husband. The situation almost seems to be perfectly inspired by the drama from which Tchaikovsky drew from for many of his compositions, which included Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and Lord Byron’s Manfred.

Luckily this all worked out in the end for our favourite Russian composer: in 1881 it was discovered that Antonina had birthed an illegitimate child, which gave Tchaikovsky legitimate grounds for divorce. I know, this sounds suspiciously like a Shakespearean comedy. It has movement from imperfect social order, to absolute disaster with both excessive and funny elements (see Act IV, scene V of Taming of the Shrew), finally settling on a renewed and balanced order in which wrongs are righted. Though this comedy, instead of ending in marriage, ended in a happy divorce.

But still, Antonina could reveal at any time Tchaikovsky’s refusal to engage in sexual acts with women. He worried that it may become public at any moment, and so spent a great deal of time out in seclusion in the countryside.

And here is where the comedy switches to tragedy; the ghosts take the place of the wood nymphs.

Ultimately, in 1893, he committed suicide. It seems that the reason is because of an affair the composer had with an aristocrat’s nephew. There was a court of honour to decide how to dispel the scandal, and it was decided that the composer should kill himself.

Even though Michel Foucault, renowned theorist and critic says in his History of Sexuality that the Victorian Era (roughly 1837-1901) is the time that “the homosexual became a species,” it is clear that though distinct, this minority group was far from accepted in Tchaikovsky’s time.

Tchaikovsky struggled his entire life with what his society believed were unnatural desires. There are many rumours and bits of information, none of which I am completely convinced, that I’ve come across regarding the composer’s personal life.

Some sources say that he was surrounded by a close community of men who supported his differences.

Some even say that he was fairly open about his sexuality and frequently engaged in sexual acts with men, but felt shameful about it.

Whatever the truth was about his personal life, it is completely indisputable that Tchaikovsky was a musical genius. And, as some critics suggest, much of the wonderful passion in his music came from his inability to fully express himself in his personal life. So ultimately, his misery led to some of the greatest musical masterpieces we know today.

This season you can hear music by Tchaikovsky performed by the Kingston Symphony on April 13^th, 2014 in Brahms, Schumann & Tchaikovsky.