The Tchaikovsky Papers: Unlocking the Family Archive by Kostalevsky Marina (review)

Abstract

SEER, 97, 3, JULY 2019 550 komicheskaia. Sarti wrote the music for the settings of poetry by Lomonosov as well as a chunk of Euripides, offering a ‘stylized representation of Ancient Greek music’ in the four solemn choruses of Act V which were ‘conceived as the artistic apex of the entire work’ (Bella Brover-Lubovsky, ‘The Early Reign of Oleg: Catherine the Great, Giuseppe Sarti, and the musica antica revival’, in A. Sitarz (ed.), Early Music: Context and Ideas 2, Kraków, 2008, p. 275). Contemporary commentators Matthew Guthrie and N. A. L´vov wrote of the affinity between Russian art and that of Ancient Greece. In combining the two elements of Russian and Byzantine culture within Oleg and presenting it on a grand Baroque scale (which was by 1790 an extravagance both musically and financially), Catherine makes an imperious statement of intent regarding her Greek project. Conversely, in its return to the artistic principles of Ancient Greece, Oleg is also forward-looking, anticipating the clean classical lines of late Gluck and early Mozart which ended the hegemony of opera seria. Opera Settecento, London Miranda Houghton Kostalevsky, Marina (ed.). The Tchaikovsky Papers: Unlocking the Family Archive. Translated by Stephen Pearl. Adapted from the Russian edition, compiled and edited by Polina E. Vaidman. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT and London, 2018. xix + 297 pp. Illustrations. Music examples. Chronology. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $45.00: £35.00. This compilation of materials relating to Chaikovskii’s life contains much that was previously unknown to English readers. Drawn from his archive in Perm´, it consists of six main sections. The first is of correspondence between the composer’s parents, very much in the sentimental manner of the times. The second, letters from Fanny Dürbach (1822–1901), governess to Chaikovskii and his brothers for four years in Votkinsk, later to meet him again after some fifty years. From here we can learn about his early reading, although there are no great surprises. The composer’s own letters, which form the third and largest section, are likely to be the most interesting part of the book for the majority of readers, as they fill in the gaps left by both tsarist and Soviet censorship. The latter took exception to Chaikovskii’s respect for the royal family and Orthodox Church, whilst both were uncomfortable with his occasional obscenities and transparent references to homosexuality. Several Soviet ideological distortions of his works will be well-known to his admirers, such as the somewhat inept replacement of the tsarist anthem at the end of one of his least favourite works, the 1812 Overture by the ‘Glory’ chorus from Glinka’s A Life for the Tsar (itself, of course, to be renamed by the Soviet censor). The composer’s REVIEWS 551 working practices and concerns also emerge clearly from the letters, including his intense restlessness when without creative activity, and his serious doubts about some of his weaker works, as well as disgust at the incompetence of proof readers; other major themes in this section are money and health, both relating to his relatives and servants. Another interesting part of the book is entitled ‘Musical Souvenirs’, comprising messages and jokes sometimes destined for albums or as lively letters and squibs to friends, revealing a sense of humour that is rare but not completely absent in his mostly passionate and emotional or gently sentimental work. The book’s next section, entitled ‘Key Documents’, begins with his birth certificate and continues with documents relating to his ‘personal and professional life in the administrative, economic and political context of the time’ also shedding ‘new light on the composer’s public image and social status in Imperial Russia’ (p. 199). Finally, a brief Chronology will help readers to follow the considerable peregrinations of Chaikovskii and his family. This composer’s great popularity has survived waves of snobbery in the twentieth century and continues strongly more than a century after his death. It must therefore be assumed that all aspects of his musical and personal heritage will be of interest not only to musicologists but also to a far wider public. This English-language version of the ground-breaking original Russian text has been prepared...