It was the American cultural historian Simon Morrison who disinterred the ‘happy ending’ with which Sergey Prokofiev first intended to conclude his Romeo and Juliet ballet. Once again, expectations of a tragic denouement are confounded in this unconventional, work-based study of the man Morrison bills as ‘Russia’s greatest composer’. One would expect nothing less from an inveterate scrutineer of archives, long-sealed or unconsulted, whose iconoclastic list of publications includes Mirror in the Sky: The Life and Music of Stevie Nicks (UC Press: 2022) as well as The Love and Wars of Lina Prokofiev (Harvill Secker: 2013). That speculative appreciation of the composer’s first wife was a curious mix of scholarship and popular biography, a formula applied more subtly here.

As with any life of Tchaikovsky one is tempted to turn to the final chapter to see how it ends. Only the death kicking off this concluding segment is that of poet and pederast Alexei Apukhtin, a sometime collaborator of the composer who studied together with him at the School of Jurisprudence. Morrison points out that the particular morbidity of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No 6 in B minor was not initially perceived as such; its Pathétique branding came later. And we have a misattributed photograph to thank for the commonly held mental picture of a prematurely aged composer. Even as Tchaikovsky falls victim to cholera the narrative remains essentially upbeat, the style informal, as if determined to celebrate the music in the context of his public career rather than lamenting its end. This was after all an age in which early death was the norm. Elaborate suicide theories given credence by rival commentators are simply ignored. A literary Cossack namesake with Mazeppa-ish tendencies goes on to take his own life, ‘not, let’s be clear’ our Pyotr.

In similar fashion, the doomily romantic tone of some of Tchaikovsky’s own correspondence is re-evaluated as an attempt to satisfy the expectations of a Germanophile recipient like Nadezhda von Meck (or Mekk as she is rendered here). When writing to his brothers rather than to his patron he could be camp and funny as well as informative.

The revisionism rarely lets up. Where Prokofiev’s submission to the cultural conventions of Stalin’s Russia seems to rile the Princeton-based polymath, Tchaikovsky excites his approval as an establishment professional attuned to the aspirations of the state with arch-reactionary Tsar Alexander III on side. Jumping forwards to the twilight of Imperial Russia, the book addresses the paradox of Tchaikovsky’s mix of conservatism and irreverent innovation, relishing as ever his ability to transcend the desperate and the humdrum. ‘Through music.’

We are given due warning that this will not be a biography like the rest, the aim being to eliminate the stockpile of distorting lenses. Morrison is surely right to query Western critical formulae that allow this unparalleled master craftsman to be attacked for perceived technical defects and errors of taste. More generally, with Tchaikovsky’s immediate social milieu rethought as tolerant of discreet homosexuality, there’s less temptation to portray him as a frail neurasthenic with only one vein of authentic self-expression, the neuroticism of the outcast. Morrison’s Tchaikovsky is a rationalist who rather enjoys himself and aspires to a Mozartian poise and finish. His music – ‘an empire’s worth’ – can be both directly expressive and self-controlled, rustic and posh.

Old hands will find some peculiar inequities nonetheless. Of the four orchestral suites, it is the masterly No 3 in G major that attracts least attention. The eccentricity extends to a useful, at times opaque index, filing the First and Fourth of those suites under ‘F’, the Second under ‘S’ and so on. Symphonies are treated the same way rather than being conventionally grouped.

After an agenda-setting introduction the book divides into four chunks rather than smaller chapters. An anorakish tendency to skate over acknowledged masterpieces in favour of the overlooked and unappreciated is in fact part and parcel of the chosen method. Lesser works that have a part to play as biographical building blocks get more space than masterpieces that don’t. Much space is given to dramatico-musical projects and their ramifications. An examination of Tchaikovsky’s first opera, The Voyevoda, becomes a disquisition on Soviet cultural appropriation and misrepresentation. Technical jargon, largely avoided, bursts forth in some unlikely quarters as when the Souvenir de Florence is subjected to harmonic exegesis. Substantial scholarly notes are appended to (mostly) chattier body text. Traditionalists may find all this a bit cranky.

Endpaper images of Tchaikovsky in company are undeniably seductive. Otherwise there’s just one gathering of 16 illustrations, plus an unobtrusive map of Mother Russia in its late imperial phase. This too is very much ‘Tchaikovsky’s Empire’: the arguments look set to continue on multiple fronts. 

This article originally appeared in the October 2024 issue of Gramophone magazine. Never miss an issue – subscribe to Gramophone today