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Tchaikovsky's Empire: A New Life of Russia's Greatest Composer

By (author) Simon Morrison

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normal price: R 964.95

Price: R 867.95

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A thrilling new biography of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovskyâ€”composer of some of the worldâ€™s most popular orchestral and theatrical music Â â€œA lively, argumentative and thoughtful reflection on one of the 19th centuryâ€™s most important musical figures.â€â€”Michael Oâ€™Donnell, Wall Street Journal Â 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 empireâ€™s worth of music, and navigated the imperial Russian court to great advantage. Â In this iconoclastic biography, celebrated author Simon Morrison re-creates Tchaikovskyâ€™s 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. Â Morrison reexamines the relationship between Tchaikovskyâ€™s 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. Tchaikovskyâ€™s Empire unsettles everything we thought we knewâ€”and gives us a vivid new appreciation of Russiaâ€™s most popular composer.