Tchaikovsky's Empire

A thrilling new biography of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovskycomposer of some of the worlds most popular orchestral and theatrical music Tchaikovsky is famous for all the wrong reasons. Portrayed as a hopeless romantic, a suffering melancholic, or a morbid obsessive, the Tchaikovsky we think we know is a shadow of the fascinating reality. It is all too easy to forget that he composed an empires worth of music, and navigated the imperial Russian court to great advantage. In this iconoclastic biography, celebrated author Simon Morrison re-creates Tchaikovskys complex world. His life and art were framed by Russian national ambition, and his work was the emanation of an imperial subject: kaleidoscopic, capacious, cosmopolitan, decentred. Morrison reexamines the relationship between Tchaikovskys music, personal life, and politics; his support of Tsars Alexander II and III; and his engagement with the cultures of the imperial margins, in Ukraine, Poland, and the Caucasus. Tchaikovskys Empire unsettles everything we thought we knewand gives us a vivid new appreciation of Russias most popular composer.