A giant in the pantheon of 19th century composers, Tchaikovsky continues to enthrall audiences today. From the Nutcracker--arguably the most popular ballet currently on the boards--Swan Lake, and Sleeping Beauty, to Eugene Onegin and Pique Dame, to the Symphony Pathetique and the always rousing, canon-blasting 1812 Overture--this prolific and beloved composer's works are perennial favorites. Now, John Wiley, a renowned Tchaikovsky scholar, provides a fresh biography aimed in classic Master Musicians style at the student and music lover. Wiley deftly draws on documents from imperial, Soviet, and post-Soviet era sources, providing a more balanced look at recent controversies surrounding the marriage, death, and sexuality of the composer. The author dovetails the biographical material with separate chapters that treat the music thoroughly and fully, work-by-work, with more substantial explorations of Tchaikovsky's most familiar compositions. These analyses present new, even iconoclastic perspectives on the music and the composer's intent and expression. Several informative appendices, in the Master Musicians format, include an exhaustive list of works and bibliography.
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"Roland John Wiley has written a masterful re-evaluation of Tchaikovsky's life and work. He uses sources critically and discusses the music as serious art, worthy of inclusion in the Western canon on its merits. No other biography of Tchaikovsky surpasses his achievement." Robert W. Oldani, Arizona State University
"It is a formidable challenge to present a comprehensive life-and-works study of Tchaikovsky in one volume, but the author has risen to it with aplomb. He presents us with a great deal of new information from previously censored, as well as neglected sources, and his approach throughout is refreshingly clear and objective." Rosamund Bartlett, Chekhov: Scenes from a Life (Simon and Schuster/Free Press, 2004)
"...an intrepid scholar...Wiley's knowledge of primary and secondary sources is extraordinary...tremendously useful..."-Opera News
"...the rare volume that ought to satisfy professional musicians and general readers alike...a smart, questing and refreshingly clear-sighted companion to the man and his work."-The Washington Post
"Offers straightforward, concise synopses, along with analyses of the musical highlights...A valuable research resource."--Opera News
"The reader is granted a more detailed picture of Tchaikovsky's day-to-day life than has been achieved in any single-volume biography of the composer to date...The book is prodigiously well documented and annotated, and can be profitably read as a guide to the vast secondary literature." --Music & Letters
About the Author
Roland John Wiley is Professor of Music at the University of Michigan and is the author of Tchaikovsky's Ballets.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Crisp Prose, Objective Scholarship, and a Fun Read!,
By Lee O. Stokowski "Real Live Musician" (Houston, Texas) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Tchaikovsky (Master Musicians Series) (Hardcover)
In a volume that has brought forth criticism of "turgid, plodding, and pointless" from a News Junkie, one wonders what The Spare Bedroom Press has brought forth on the public. Well, quite simply what's been done here is a soundly researched and intelligently voiced biography of a composer who desperately needs it. So florid is the usual writing about Tchaikovsky that it's difficult not to think that the writer is trying to imitate the character of the music itself, rather than the person who composed it.
It a forthright, exceptionally well researched and purposefully well mixed scholarly and popular melange of prose, Roland John Wiley has managed to bring off a first rate volume. Would that this kind of dedication and puckish humor extended beyond the confines of his preferred specialities of Russian music to a larger canon of 19th century Beethovinian, Schubertian, or Chopinesque repertoire. We would all be the richer for it.
1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Ho-Hum...,
By Sébastien Melmoth (Hôtel d'Alsace, PARIS) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Tchaikovsky (Master Musicians Series) (Hardcover)
*
Since Thucydides, the composition of historiography has entailed two primary facets: evidence and entertainment. The best histories are those which combine meticulous documentation of facts with engaging lyricism of prose--(otherwise you have a chronicle and not an history): the classic historians from Ranke and Mommsen to Chateaubriand and Michelet, to Macaulay and Carlyle, have all exercised this dual principle. Withal, it is especially sad to see an historian who does the hard work of research, documentation and citation, but is simply not gifted with the ability to write in an engaging and entertaining manner: this is the case with R.J. Wiley in his tome on Pyotr Il'ich Chaykovskiy. The mechanics of the book are faultless: Wiley's bibliography runs to 418 sources, and he uses a modified APA citation methodology which eliminates the necessity of tedious footnotes of the old CM style--(although some scholars prefer the Chicago Manual style's precision). But Wiley's major fault as an historian is his regrettable inability to vivify the historical personages he treats in his book: they all appear desiccated and two-dimensional. Indeed, the whole atmosphere of Wiley's book is airless and suffocating: even as a musicologist Wiley doesn't seem to have much enthusiasm for Tchaikovsky's music--at least he doesn't write very enthusiastically about it. As mentioned, Wiley's facts are admirable: we get that Tchaikovsky had a `feminine soul' and was doubtless (since childhood) a practicing invert throughout his life; we get the likelihood he had syphilis; we get he married Antonina Milyukova for her money and as a `beard' for his career; and we get that his rather sudden death was unexpected. Wiley mentions most of Tchaikovsky's works, but in a very tepid (nearly frigid) manner. Lastly however, like a chancre under clean linen, there is a lovely surprise under the dust jacket: the book boards are done in an attractive dual green motif, reminding us of green carnations and `that curious love of green, which in individuals is always the sign of a subtle artistic temperament, and a laxity, if not a decadence of morals'. Four stars for lack of a better alternative. * Tchaikovsky: The Symphonies Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake (complete ballet); Wolfgang Sawallisch; Philadelphia Orchestra Sleeping Beauty Pytor Illych Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker - Complete Ballet Tchaikovsky - Eugen Onegin / T. Allen, Freni, von Otter, Shicoff, Burchuladze; Levine Tchaikovsky - Eugene Onegin / Hvorostovsky · Focile · Shicoff · Borodina · Arkhipova · Orchestre de Paris · Bychkov Tchaikovsky: Pique Dame [The Queen of Spades] Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 2; Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 Peter Tchaikovsky/Alexander Glazunov: Violin Concertos *
0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
excellent biography,
By Miriam White (USA) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Tchaikovsky (Master Musicians Series) (Hardcover)
It's an excellent biography and a real page-turner.
It also was shipped on time and came in an excellent condition.
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