Tchaikovsky: The Man And His Music, by David Brown

'Vodka, more vodka!' - the composer who feared his head would fall off

This book is the distillation of David Brown's prodigious knowledge of Tchaikovsky's life and works, previously presented to scholars in four volumes. This more accessible volume is directed at readers "who may claim little or no musical competence", and can either be read as straight biography (by leaving out descriptions of the works), or used as a listening guide.

Readers looking for biography will find much to fascinate them, but may be frustrated by the tantalising glimpses Brown offers. The author's attitude is encapsulated when he writes: "Tchaikovsky's sexuality has long been... a subject provoking sometimes violent dissent. I therefore leave each reader to draw his or her own conclusions." However, he does offer some insight into the composer's attraction to very young men and his extraordinary decision to marry, followed by his almost instantaneous aversion to his poor wife.

Brown also slips in anecdotes that bring the composer to life. Tchaikovsky never really liked conducting, for instance, fearing that his head might fall off; so he "habitually clutched his chin with his left hand while conducting with his right". Once, on a boat trip on the Volga, he found himself accompanying a young woman performing one of his songs. She, not realising who he was, berated him for not understanding the song: her teacher had been told the correct interpretation by the composer himself. Tchaikovsky, typically, never let on.

When conducting his Fourth Symphony in London, the composer managed to convey the effect he wanted by shouting: "Vodka, more vodka!"

The only real criticism I have of this book is that, in spite of Tchaikovsky and his work being so quintessentially Russian, Russia itself seems curiously absent. The only time the scenery becomes vivid is when the composer is on his way south, to Tiflis (Tbilisi); otherwise, one might be anywhere in Europe. There is, for instance, no mention of the assassination of the tsar- liberator Alexander II in 1881 - merely a remark that two years later the composer was commissioned to produce a work for the coronation of his successor. The only reminder that Tchaikovsky was living in a repressive society comes in the form of a rumour that he was on the verge of being sent to Siberia on the eve of his (possibly self-inflicted) death.

Still, this book made me want to listen to the music again, and that, I think, is the effect the author most desired.