Klarinet Archive - Posting 000278.txt from 1998/10

From: Roger Shilcock <roger.shilcock@-----.uk>
Subj: Re: [kl] TCHAIKOVSKY AND SKELETONS
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1998 04:00:48 -0400

This seems to be the orthodox opinion on Tchaikovsky's death these days -
but there's very little evidence.
Roger Shilcock
Incidentally, he was of Polish descent. This may also have made him feel
out of place.

On Mon, 5 Oct 1998, avrahm galper wrote:

> Date: Mon, 05 Oct 1998 08:20:57 -0400
> From: avrahm galper <agalper@-----.com>
> Reply-To: klarinet@-----.org
> To: klarinet@-----.org
> Subject: [kl] TCHAIKOVSKY AND SKELETONS
>
> TSCHAIKOVSY AND SKELETONS
>
> Talking about skeletons, I picked up a book at the library, a book of
> anecdotes about the musical world.
> There was a story about Tschaikovsky. We now know that he was gay.
> But in those days it was not that well known.
>
> Apparently he was having some profound influence on a son of the Grand
> Duke (related to the Czar) and the Grand Duke was not happy about it.
>
> Tschaikovsky's former law student friends called him (he studied law
> when he was young) and had a confrontation with him.
>
> The law at the time was: a person discovered to be gay was deprived of
> his citizenship and exiled to Siberia.
>
> They gave him an alternative: commit suicide to avoid this fate.
>
> This is why there is the story of Tschaikovsky drinking unboiled water
> in a restaurant during an epidemic and dying of cholera.
>
> At his funeral, the big named composers looked at the open casket and
> Rimsky-Korsakov was heard saying, "Don't they keep these coffins
> hermetically closed when one dies of cholera?"
>
> The story shook me. I asked a Russian musician living in Toronto about
> it and he said that it was true. Tschaikovsky drank poisin to avoid the
> penalty.
>
> When one listens to the last movement of the pathetique, one can hear
> the depth of grief he must have been subjected to. He may have written
> this before this event.
> Still one of my favorite composers.
>
>
> Avrahm Galper
> THE UPBEAT BAERMANN MELODIC SCALES AND ARPEGGIOS
> http://www.sneezy.org/avrahm_galper/index.html
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>

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