Tchaikovsky
had the courage to be open from the bottom of his heart
- Yuri Termikanov, Music Director, St Petersburg Philharmonic
Yes,
and it is so, implicit in Tchaikovsky’s melodic, dramatic
music that speaks directly to our hearts and spirits. It
is this appealing directness, appreciated especially when
we are starting to learn about classical music, which has
led some commentators to dismiss his music as inferior. Not
so. As his biographer, David Brown, sagely comments in this
documentary:
“I
set out to write a one-volume book on Tchaikovsky over
four years, I ended up by writing four books over sixteen
years: I simply hadn’t realised how great a composer he
was.”
David
Brown makes a major contribution to this film and yet he
is scarcely credited in the wholly inadequate one page sleeve
for this DVD. But, enough, I have complained about NVC Arts
packaging on too many other occasions!
Much
of the film was shot in St Petersburg. The constant close-ups
of the Tchaikovsky-loving St Petersburg tram driver is rather
disconcerting – one would have liked to see more of the City,
exteriors of the Maryinsky theatre and the Conservatoire
for instance. But you do see something of many St Petersburg
locations, places connected with the composer’s career such
as the home of the Imperial Ballet that premiered Tchaikovsky’s
ballets like Swan Lake and the School of Jurisprudence
where the young Tchaikovsky was sent to study law. It was
a hotbed of homosexuality and in all probability nurtured
his own orientation in that direction.
Other
locations filmed include the house outside Moscow where Tchaikovsky
spent the last eighteen months of his life; it has been preserved
just as he left it in 1893; and pictures of his childhood
home are shown. At this point we are reminded of when he
was a small boy complaining of a headache. “It’s the music,
the music. Get rid of it for me!” When he was told that there
was no music playing he continued, “It’s here in my head.
It won’t give me any peace!” Such is the torment of genius
and this film does not shrink from discussing the composer’s
professional struggles and set-backs and his homosexuality,
his tragic marriage of convenience, his strange relationship
progressed only through thousands of letters over many years
with his benefactor Nadezhda von Meck and the controversy
surrounding his death – was it cholera or suicide. No matter;
it is the music that counts.
The
film has some sublime and telling comments from its contributors:
For instance, the lovely and supremely elegant prima ballerina,
Natalia Makarova says: “Some people say Tchaikovsky’s music
is monotonous and boring – I think it is just the opposite.
It is sublime and fulfilling; [to it] somehow my body must
sing.” Mikhail Rudy, who plays the Piano Concerto No. 1,
explains how Tchaikovsky builds up the music “he constantly
changes the music’s accents …he repeats the same pattern
of notes, sequences, higher and higher to build up tension…” The
great violinist, Maxim Vengerov say that he tries, when playing
Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, to identify with the emotions
of the composer’s love for the young male violinist that
inspired the work and comments, “Tchaikovsky created something
very new, quite revolutionary. He used everything, all the
fantastic resources of the violin.” No wonder the work seemed
so daunting to violinists at its outset
The
musical excerpts are well-chosen and performed with polish
and dedication.
An
excellent documentary and a splendid introduction to the
life and music of a grossly underrated genius.
Ian Lace
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Narrated
by: Kenneth Branagh 
[58:00] 
