Tenderness Interrupted

2 Ghost sound

I am most happy, to be here, and as a ghost, my heart carries the weight of a funeral march, even in moments of applause.

Interesting analogy, Maestro Tchaikovsky, but could you tell us a bit about your earthly background?

Ah, yes… earthly my background. I was born in 1840, in a small Russian town  nestled in the Ural Mountains. My father was an engineer in the mines, my mother of French ancestry, gentle but distant. Music was not the profession expected of me — Russia had no conservatory system then, no path for a composer. I was meant to become a civil servant, a reliable bureaucrat in the machinery of empire.

What were your feelings about music as a young person?

Ah music… music was in my blood. Even as a boy I could hear it whispering everywhere — in the birch forests, in the peasant songs that drifted on the wind, in the melancholy of Russian church bells. I studied law and served dutifully in the Ministry of Justice, but my heart withered there. When the Saint Petersburg Conservatory opened, I knew I must leave behind the safety of that life and risk everything for composition.

Transcript

Music attributions at the end

George - bold text

Tchaikovsky - bold, italics text

Welcome to Celebrate Creativity episode 493. Our opening music is a portion of the overture from the Nutcracker Suite composed by Tchaikovsky.Today our guest is the ghost - or if you will - the spirit of that composer - Fydor Tchaikovsky.

2 Ghost sound

I am most happy, to be here, and as a ghost, my heart carries the weight of a funeral march, even in moments of applause.

Interesting analogy, Maestro Tchaikovsky, but could you tell us a bit about your earthly background?

Ah, yes…I was born in 1840, in a small Russian town  nestled in the Ural Mountains. My father was an engineer in the mines, my mother of French ancestry, gentle but distant. Music was not the profession expected of me — Russia had no conservatory system then, no path for a composer. I was meant to become a civil servant, a reliable bureaucrat in the machinery of empire.

What were your feelings about music as a young person?

Ah music… music was in my blood. Even as a boy I could hear it whispering everywhere — in the birch forests, in the peasant songs that drifted on the wind, in the melancholy of Russian church bells. I studied law and served dutifully in the Ministry of Justice, but my heart withered there. When the Saint Petersburg Conservatory opened, I knew I must leave behind the safety of that life and risk everything for composition.  But I must point out that such interests were not easy during my earthly existence — in Russia, serious composers were supposed to imitate Germany or Italy. And yet, I was too Russian to ignore my own roots, and too cosmopolitan to write only folk tunes. That duality has haunted me all my life. I am both inside and outside my own homeland.

Maestro, you spoke of basically being torn between Russia and the wider world. How did that shape you as a composer?

It shaped me completely, Mr. Bartley. You see, my heart was always Russian — I wept at folk songs, I adored Pushkin, I felt the melancholy of our winters deep in my bones. And yet… I longed for refinement, for the elegance of France, for the structural discipline of Germany, for the theater of Italy. I never wished to be provincial. This is why my music is sometimes accused of being “too Western” by my countrymen, and “too Russian” by others. (A faint smile.) Perhaps it is only truly myself.

 You mention France. I understand you loved French culture?

 Ah, France! Paris was like a dream to me. The language, the art, the sophistication — it lifted me out of the heaviness of Russian life. I confess, I often thought in French when writing letters. To a Russian soul, France was like sunlight through a frozen window. And yet I never ceased to be Russian. There is always a touch of snow in my melodies, even when I dance in a French waltz.

And your personality? You’ve been described as shy, even fragile.

(softly) Yes, I was not made of iron. I envied those with stronger nerves. Crowds made me tremble, though I conducted before thousands. I could be passionate with my friends, then withdraw into solitude for weeks. The truth, Mr. Bartley, is that I felt everything too keenly — joy, sorrow, fear. That is both the curse and the gift of my music. Without such sensitivity, perhaps I would have lived more comfortably. But without it, would there be a Pathétique Symphony?

Yes I see what you mean, and we will hear a brief portion of that symphony later in this episode.  Now, Maestro Tchaikovsky, Many individuals believe that you left a secure path for music — brave or foolish?

(soft laugh) Both. Bravery and folly look much the same when you stand before the unknown. I suppose I was a coward about some things, proud about others. But to write music is to confess. Better to confess with music than with ink.

Where did you eventually train, and who helped shape your craft?

I studied at the new conservatory in Saint Petersburg, where I learned technique — counterpoint, harmony, the stubborn, useful rules. Later I taught in Moscow for a spell. I admired the great teachers, and I quarrelled with them. One must learn the rules before breaking them, I always say. The conservatory taught me the scaffolding; life taught me melody.

You were sometimes seen at odds with the nationalist circle known as “The Five.” Why?

(a little sad) They loved Russia with a fierce, raw loyalty — Borodin, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Balakirev, Cui. I loved Russia too, but I had also learned French, German ways of shaping sound. They called me too Western; others called me too folkish. I was in between. I wanted both the wild heart of Russia and the polished edge of the West. That made me suspicious to purists — and lonely.

Your relationship with Nadezhda von Meck is famous: a patron, a confidante, and yet you never met. What did that mean to you?

She was a miracle. A wealthy widow who, upon discovering my music, became my benefactor and my friend by letter. For years she provided the means for me to leave teaching and compose freely. And oh, the letters — the solace of correspondence. We exchanged confidences, ideas, quarrels, and comforts for more than a decade — intimate friends who, by mutual decision, never crossed the threshold into meeting. There was a tenderness in that invisibility; she allowed me a private stage for my thoughts.

Did her patronage change your output?

Radically. Stability buys one the time to be audacious. I poured myself into symphonies, operas, ballets. I could travel. Money is crude medicine, but it heals a composer’s practical wounds.

You had a brief and disastrous marriage. Would you speak about that?

(voice tightens) Yes. I married in a panic — young, frightened, and perhaps foolish. My wife, Antonina, was a kind woman in many ways, but our domestic life was a private ruin. I was ill-fitted to the role husbands then demanded; I could not live the public lie. The marriage crumbled, and we separated. It left scars, of course. Some call it scandal; I call it a hard lesson in the cruelty of social expectation.

How did you actually compose? What was your process?

Often the melody arrives like a stray bird. I would catch it, feed it, and then try to build a house around it — a form that will endure the bird’s singing. Sometimes I worked at a desk, sometimes walking in the cold or gazing at a river. I sketched obsessively; many fragments, many notebooks. Rhythm and orchestral color were my pleasures; I loved to imagine which instrument would sigh or triumph. Emotion first, architecture next.

Let’s talk about the big works that people still hum. Where did they come from — the ballets, the symphonies, the concertos?

(brightening) Where else but from the same impulse: to make human feeling visible. The ballets — Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker — were attempts to make the theater and the orchestra speak the same language. The symphonies were my inner confessions. The concertos — the piano and the violin — were my way of letting one instrument speak alone, like a single human voice in a crowded world.

Critics sometimes accused you of sentimentality. How do you respond?

(wry) Sentimentality is a polite word for feeling too much. I prefer to think the music feels honestly. If that moves a listener to tears, I do not apologize. We composers are responsible for the truth of what we feel, not for how critics categorize it.

Your public persona — conducting, traveling — sometimes contradicted your private fragility. How did you manage?

With difficulty. The stage gives a composer an armor: a baton, a music stand. But afterwards the nerves return. I loved conducting because I could shape sound in real time, but crowds unnerved me. I was a social creature who knew the price of sociability was exhaustion.

Maestro, may I ask you about something more personal? Your sexuality. It has been the subject of endless speculation and debate. What would you say, in your own words?

(long pause) Ah, Mr. Bartley, you tread where many historians tiptoe. But I am a ghost — what harm in candor now? Yes, I loved men. Quietly, fearfully, but no less truly. In my Russia, such love was unspeakable, a crime, a scandal, a ruin to reputation and family. So it became a private symphony that could never be played in public. You see, I carried two lives: one for society, another for the soul. Outwardly, the polite composer, the dutiful brother, the teacher, the man of letters. Inwardly, a heart trembling at a friend’s touch, a glance, a shared walk in the gardens. What others might declare openly, I had to encode in silence.

 Did that secrecy affect your music?

How could it not? Every note I wrote carried the weight of what could not be spoken. The sweeping melodies, the sudden storms, the fragile tenderness — they are not mere dramatics. They are my heart under constraint. Listen to my symphonies and you will hear joy breaking free, only to be pulled back by fate. That is the very rhythm of my life.

Did you ever find love, even privately?

Yes, in small ways. Friendships that trembled on the edge of intimacy. Students whose eyes I dared not meet too long. Once, a few brief affairs, always shadowed by fear of discovery. Russia was not Paris. There were no salons where one could live freely. Everything was conducted under a veil — coded letters, furtive meetings, the terror of betrayal. Still, the moments of tenderness, though brief, gave me courage to endure.

Your disastrous marriage to Antonina — was that related to these pressures?

Entirely. It was a desperate attempt to conform, to silence whispers, to prove myself “normal.” But lies, even well-meant lies, are cruel. I felt trapped from the first days, suffocated by expectations I could never fulfill. The collapse of that marriage nearly destroyed me. I fled from it, literally ran. If not for the support of my brothers and the lifeline from Nadezhda von Meck, I might not have survived.

 That must have been unbearably lonely.

(softly) Yes. Loneliness was my lifelong companion. I do not say this for pity. Many people are lonely, each in their way. But mine was sharpened by the knowledge that to reveal myself was to risk ruin. That is why my letters to von Meck, to my brothers, are so raw. Paper became my confessional. Music became my salvation.

So when people hear the passion in your works — is it fair to say some of that passion was directed at the love you could not declare?

Entirely fair. What I could not live, I composed. That is why the love themes in Romeo and Juliet and the yearning in the Pathétique ring with such urgency. They were not abstractions. They were my truths, disguised in orchestration. Listeners may not know the details, but they feel the pulse. Passion cannot be hidden in music, even when the man himself must hide it in life.

Maestro, that gives a whole new light to the emotions in Romeo and Juliet.

"Ah, Gospodin Bartley… you wish to hear about my Romeo and Juliet. Sit a moment, and I shall tell you as if you were in my study, the candle flickering beside me, the notes scattered on the desk. Shakespeare—yes, the great bard—haunted me. I tried, endlessly, to catch the shape of his story in music, to let the orchestra speak what words could not.”

3 Romeo and Juliet - Love Theme

"The love theme—do you hear it in your mind? That soaring, tender line in the strings… it is not merely a melody. It is longing made audible. I gave it everything I had: the trembling of hope, the fear of loss, the pure, fragile delight of two hearts touching. And then the feud—oh, the feud! How harsh it sounded at first, clashing rhythms, stormy brass, the violence that runs like a river through Verona. I wanted it to be felt as an unavoidable force of destiny, not merely background noise. Fate, my friend… that is the cruelest conductor of all."

"I labored over revisions for years. You see, I was never satisfied. Always I heard imperfections in the harmony, in the pacing… and perhaps that was my own restlessness speaking. Some critics, I recall, were confused by my directness; they whispered that it was too emotional, too obvious. But audiences… audiences felt the truth without needing analysis. They wept at the love theme, cheered at the triumphs, shivered at the tension. Ah… how little the world understands the soul of music, yet how instinctively it responds when the heart is present."

"Do you know, dear listener, I often imagined Romeo and Juliet not as figures on a page, but as shadows moving through my own memories? Their joy and suffering reflected mine in a thousand subtle ways. I poured into them the intensity of my own passions, the melancholy of my secret loves, the sense of being an outsider in a world that cannot fully understand me. Perhaps that is why this music endures: it is not only a story of Verona, but of any heart that dares to love and to grieve."

"And so, when you hear the themes entwining, love confronted by hatred, sorrow by hope… know that it is not invention alone. It is the voice of a restless spirit, striving to make sense of what cannot be said. That… is my confession, in sound."

And if you could speak now, freely, to those who face similar struggles?

(gentle but firm) I would say: Do not despise yourself. Do not believe that love is shameful simply because society fears it. Love is never shameful. What is shameful is a world that forces people into silence. My era gave me no choice but to mask myself. Yours, I pray, is braver, kinder. Be who you are without apology — and let art, if nothing else, carry your truth forward.

"Ah… love! How it rises, how it trembles, and how swiftly it can be torn apart. When I wrote the theme for Romeo and Juliet, I tried to catch not only their joy, but the shadow that always follows it. Do you hear how the strings climb, only to fall again? That is life, my dear listener. Even the most radiant happiness carries the seeds of sorrow. You may weep, you may smile, but the music… it remembers all of it, and so must you."

Maestro, let us turn to your final years. How did you feel as your life drew toward its end?

Strangely… I felt both triumphant and exhausted. By the 1890s, I was famous — my music was played across Europe and America, I had conducted in Carnegie Hall itself. Yet inside, I was weary. Life had always been a battle between shadows and light. In those years, the shadows grew heavier.

Maestro, But then came your Sixth Symphony.

 (soft smile) Ah, yes. My Symphony in B minor, the Pathétique.    pah-teh-TEEK}$$
It was my final child, my confession in sound.  I believe this symphony is imbued with tremendous subjective feeling — I love it as I have never loved any of my musical offspring before.

Do you hear it? That heartbeat, that sigh of despair? It is the pulse of my own soul. The second movement, a limping waltz in 5/4, dances awkwardly — a parody of joy. The third, a triumphant march, deceives the audience into applause. And then — the last movement, not a victory, but a descent into silence. That was my farewell.

You conducted its premiere only days before your death. Some have wondered… did you know it was a requiem for yourself?

 (a pause) Perhaps my soul knew what my mind did not. I poured into it the exhaustion of a lifetime of secrecy, yearning, and fleeting triumphs. To create it was both agony and release. When the final chords sounded, I felt a weight lifted, as if I had spoken the unspeakable at last.

Then came your sudden death, at only fifty-three. History still debates it. Was it cholera, as the doctors said? Or something darker?

(soft) The official word was cholera — contaminated water, a tragic ending. People have reveled in other narratives — conspiracies, suicide, the like. I was subject to gossip in life; I am even subject to gossip in death. Historians will argue. Let them. The music remains, and the music has no need of rumor.

Note the music of the adagio of the Pathétique - the slow movement… here, I speak without pretense. The notes stretch and shiver as if each were a sigh escaping from my own chest. I wrote this movement knowing that sorrow, deep sorrow, must be endured, not denied. And yet… in its fragility, there is a strange beauty. Even in despair, the heart can tremble and marvel. Let yourself feel it. That is why I dared to write it."

How would you like listeners today to receive your music?

 As if they met a stranger who tells them his life in a few phrases: listen, and do not be hurried. Let the music be a mirror for your own feeling. If it comforts one ear and hurts another, then perhaps it is doing its job. Some say music must delight, amuse, entertain… but they do not know the weight it can bear. Listen closely to the conflict in the orchestra, the violent clashes of the themes… that is fate, my friend, and all too real. You may wish to look away, but the heart knows better. The tragedy is not in the notes alone—it is in us, recognizing ourselves in them.

Before we close, any practical tips for performers and conductors trying to play your music authentically?

Emphasize singing lines — always make the orchestra sing. Do not use Music to simply show off; use it to reveal emotion. Be careful of the balance: let the inner voices breathe. And above all, mean what you play.

One last personal question — if you could whisper one thing to your younger self, what would it be?

 (after a pause) Be kinder to yourself. The world will judge relentlessly; do not join in its cruelty. Compose with honesty, and forgive your smallness. We are all small in the face of music. (a silence, then a sigh) You may ask. Yes, I loved men. Always quietly, always under the shadow of fear. In the Russia of my century, such love was a crime, a sin, an outrage to society. To be discovered was to invite disgrace, exile, perhaps even prison. So, I lived in two worlds: the outer mask of the respectable composer, and the inner flame of feelings I could rarely reveal.

Did that secrecy shape your music?

It shaped everything. Listen to my symphonies — the sudden waves of joy followed by collapse, the tenderness interrupted by fate. That is the rhythm of a soul that must hide its truth. I could not declare my love in words, but I could let it sing in violins, in cellos, in sweeping melodies that seem to cry out and then fall silent.

 Do you hear it? The surge of passion, then the inevitability of tragedy? That is not just Shakespeare. That is me — a man longing for a love he could not possess.

And yet, you did marry. Antonina Miliukova.

(tight voice) Yes. A catastrophe. I married in haste, in panic. I thought perhaps marriage would silence the doubts of society — perhaps it would even silence the doubts within myself. Antonina was not a cruel woman, but we were utterly mismatched. I felt smothered, trapped. Within weeks, I fled. The attempt nearly destroyed my mind.

So it was less a love match than a desperate mask?

Precisely. A mask that slipped. My brothers rescued me, carried me to safety. For months, I teetered on the edge of collapse. And yet, out of that despair, music still came. 

Maestro, That gives a whole new light to your composition of Romeo and Juliet.

Sometimes I think the Sixth Symphony — the Pathétique — is the sound of that despair turned into form.

But there was another relationship, wasn’t there? One that saved you. Nadezhda von Meck.

Ah, Nadezhda Filaretovna… She was my guardian angel. A wealthy widow who believed in my talent so fiercely that she gave me the gift most artists never know: freedom. Through her patronage, I was able to leave teaching and compose as my true self. But more than the money, it was the letters. Thousands of letters! We poured out our souls to each other, confidences that no one else ever heard. She knew my fragility, my fears, my loneliness.

And yet, you never met her in person?

Never. That was our peculiar pact. Perhaps we feared that meeting would shatter the perfection of our correspondence. On paper, I could reveal myself more fully than face-to-face. She was my confessor, my friend, my mirror. Some might call it strange — but to me, it was one of the deepest bonds of my life.

Ah, the great mystery. I drank a glass of unboiled water — reckless, they said, in a cholera-stricken city. Within days, I was gone. That is the official version. But rumors… rumors whisper of another truth.

The idea of a secret “court of honor,” where you were compelled to end your own life to avoid scandal?

(voice darkens) Yes. It is said that a complaint reached the Tsar himself — that my private life, my love of men, had crossed the line of discretion. That my disgrace might bring disgrace upon the state. A tribunal of former classmates supposedly gathered, and their verdict was death. So the story goes. Did I drink the poisoned chalice willingly? Did I choose my exit to preserve my family’s name? History cannot prove it. But the whispers remain.

And what do you say to those whispers, Maestro?

(after a long pause) Whether cholera or conspiracy, whether accident or sentence, the truth is the same: I was weary, and my time had come. The Pathétique was my epitaph. Let the music answer more honestly than any rumor ever could.

And indeed, that symphony still moves audiences to tears. In a sense, you are more alive in that music than you ever were in life.

(softly) Perhaps that is the destiny of the artist. To live most fully not in flesh, but in sound. My life ended, but my music continues to breathe. Each time the Pathétique is played, I live again — in every sobbing string, in every fading silence. And so, George, if you wish to know the truth of my death… listen, not to the rumors, but to the notes. They are my final heartbeat.

Maestro, let us turn to your final years. How did you feel as your life drew toward its end?

Strangely… I felt both triumphant and exhausted. By the 1890s, I was famous — my music was played across Europe and America, I had conducted in Carnegie Hall itself. Yet inside, I was weary. Life had always been a battle between shadows and light. In those years, the shadows grew heavier.

 But then came your Sixth Symphony.

(soft smile) Ah, yes. My Symphony in B minor, the Pathétique. It was my final child, my confession in sound. I told my brother Modest: This symphony is imbued with subjective feeling — I love it as I have never loved any of my musical offspring before.

Do you hear it? That heartbeat, that sigh of despair? It is the pulse of my own soul. The second movement, a limping waltz in 5/4, dances awkwardly — a parody of joy. The third, a triumphant march, deceives the audience into applause. And then — the last movement, not a victory, but a descent into silence. That, George, was my farewell.

You conducted its premiere only days before your death. Some have wondered… did you know it was a requiem for yourself?

 (a pause) Perhaps my soul knew what my mind did not. I poured into it the exhaustion of a lifetime of secrecy, yearning, and fleeting triumphs. To create it was both agony and release. When the final chords sounded, I felt a weight lifted, as if I had spoken the unspeakable at last.

Then came your sudden death, at only fifty-three. History still debates it. Was it cholera, as the doctors said? Or something darker?

Ah, the great mystery. I drank a glass of unboiled water — reckless, they said, in a cholera-stricken city. Within days, I was gone. That is the official version. But rumors… rumors whisper of another truth.

The idea of a secret “court of honor,” where you were compelled to end your own life to avoid scandal?

(voice darkens) Yes. It is said that a complaint reached the Tsar himself — that my private life, my love of men, had crossed the line of discretion. That my disgrace might bring disgrace upon the state. A tribunal of former classmates supposedly gathered, and their verdict was death. So the story goes. Did I drink the poisoned chalice willingly? Did I choose my exit to preserve my family’s name? History cannot prove it. But the whispers remain.

 And what do you say to those whispers, Maestro?

 (after a long pause) Whether cholera or conspiracy, whether accident or sentence, the truth is the same: I was weary, and my time had come. The Pathétique was my epitaph. Let the music answer more honestly than any rumor ever could.

And indeed, that symphony still moves audiences to tears.

In summary, some say music must delight, amuse, entertain… but they do not know the weight it can bear. Listen closely to the conflict in the orchestra, the violent clashes of the themes… that is fate, my friend, and all too real. You may wish to look away, but the heart knows better. The tragedy is not in the notes alone—it is in us, recognizing ourselves in them.”  So even in the darkest passages, listen… do you hear a spark? A note that refuses to fall, a harmony that lifts ever so slightly. That is hope, subtle, fleeting, almost hidden. I place it there deliberately, for even in despair, life insists on a shimmer. Music is not merely expression—it is salvation, however small, however brief."

Sources include: Asafyev, Boris (1947). "The Great Russian Composer". Russian Symphony: Thoughts About Tchaikovsky. New York: Philosophical Library.
Poznansky, Alexander, Tchaikovsky: The Quest for the Inner Man (New York: Schirmer Books).  And ChatGPT four

Join Celebrate Creativity for episode 494 as we examine the dramatic life of Anton Dvořák and his New World Symphony.

Thank you for listening to celebrate creativity.  And listen to this very creative remix of Music from Tchaikovsky's great Swan Lake - one that might have Tchaikovsky rolling in his grave or maybe dancing!