Tchaikovsky

(I like how you think you have to explain to us who Tchaikovsky is, OP...)

I haven't read it yet, but "Tchaikovsky - The Quest for the Inner Man" by Alexander Poznansky seems to be considered the best biography.

Why did you think you need to explain to us who Tchaikovsky is? Anyone who is familiar enough with him to recommend a good biography probably knows that he's the composer of "The Nutcracker", "Swan Lake", et al.

I wasn't trying to explain, just advertise his greatest hits.

You can hear his voice in this fascinating audio clip (he's the one talking at 0:29, 0:43 and 1:00). He sounds totally different from the way I always imagined.

Here you go, OP. Just watch the movie.

It is everything you wanted. And more!

I don't know what the current thinking is but for years the rumor went around that he was threatened with being outed and told to do the "honorable thing." So he committed suicide by deliberately drinking disease contaminated water.

Eldergay who hasn't kept up here. Is this theory still seriously considered?

He was so handsome.

With a "Y" at the end of his name instead of an "I," would he likely have been cut or uncut?

R4, wow, Russian gayvoice!

R6 here. I'll answer myself. Here is an excerpt from his current Wikipedia article:

[quote]While Tchaikovsky's death has traditionally been attributed to cholera from drinking unboiled water at a local restaurant,[114] there has been much speculation that his death was suicide.[115] In the New Grove Dictionary of Music, Roland John Wiley wrote that "The polemics over [Tchaikovsky's] death have reached an impasse ... Rumors attached to the famous die hard ... As for illness, problems of evidence offer little hope of satisfactory resolution: the state of diagnosis; the confusion of witnesses; disregard of long-term effects of smoking and alcohol. We do not know how Tchaikovsky died. We may never find out ...".[116]

r3, you left out Symphonies #4, #5, and (especially) #6 (at the end of which he is alleged to have drunk the poison that killed him).

I love Tchaikovsky’s work, though I’ll have to admit that it’s also because he was gay.

R6, R10: the forced suicide theory has been heavily criticized by Alexander Poznansky and generally has the air of a tabloid conspiracy theory. Suicide theories have existed for longer (Klaus Mann has his version of Tchaikovsky kill himself, in his 1935 biography) but are also flawed.

R8: the Y is just translation convention. Most other Russians whom I can think of also have a -sky ending in English translation and not -ski.

Who is Tiecowski - some Emo trap gutter rat?

Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский

That's his name. Anyone arguing here about the merits of a particular transliteration is an idiot.

Cannily, Ken Russell cast a closeted gay actor as Tchaikovsky. Chamberlain does romp in bed with the delectable Chistopher Gable to indicate the composer was "hommosectual."

The 2007 documentary/drama Tchaikovsky didn't shy away from showing his homo relationships.

Agreed r7 he was hot.

R5 That film scarred me for life. Seeing Glenda Jackson's hairy ginger pussy when I was 12 was too extra.

Translating names from non-latin scripts is so annoying because they look different in each language; depending on where you're from you may either know him as: Tschaikowski, Chaikovski, Ceaikovski, Čajkovski, Csajkovszkij, Tjajkovskij, Tšaikovski, Tsjajkovski, Čaikovskis, Czajkowski, Çaykovski...

There was rumor that Tchaikovsky was having a affair with a closeted Romanov Grand Duke and that he was eliminated conveniently.

Piotr Ilitch Tchaïkovski - when in doubt, defer to French spelling, comme il faut.

R21 Tchaikovsky was actually fluent in Froggy and he always signed his French letters as: "Pierre Tschaïkowsky".