Role models of greatness.

Here you will discover the back stories of kings, titans of industry, stellar athletes, giants of the entertainment field, scientists, politicians, artists and heroes – all of them gay or bisexual men. If their lives can serve as role models to young men who have been bullied or taught to think less of themselves for their sexual orientation, all the better. The sexual orientation of those featured here did not stand in the way of their achievements.

Thursday, December 26, 2013

Tchaikovsky: Tragic Gay Composer

Until recently, Russian musicologists have long denied that composer Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) was a gay man. He had a string of relationships with men, back from his student days up until his death. Tchaikovsky had a distinct taste for younger men, and his lovers included poets, musicians, servants and other members of the lower classes. Several sources report that when traveling abroad he sometimes used male prostitutes for sexual gratification.

Tchaikovsky was tormented by his suppressed homosexuality and the constant fear of exposure. Although he married one of his students, his attempt at straight family life was disastrous. Even though they remained married, he and his wife had no children and did not live together. Within two weeks of his wedding Tchaikovsky tried to kill himself, hoping to catch pneumonia by plunging himself into the Moscow River. At the urging of his doctor, he fled to St. Petersburg and never saw his wife again, although he continued to support her. She had several children by other men, giving each infant to an orphanage; she spent her final twenty-one years in a home for the certifiably insane.

All of Tchaikovsky’s successes were musical. He enjoyed world-wide fame, and the czar bestowed honors upon him and even granted him a life-long pension. The most significant of these awards was when Czar Alexander III conferred upon him the Order of St. Vladimir, which conveyed hereditary nobility. Tchaikovsky went on to achieve the greatest degree of popularity ever accorded a Russian composer. In 1891 he even conducted the inaugural concert at New York City’s Carnegie Hall.

Modest, his brother, was also gay. In an exchange of letters between the brothers, Tchaikovsky’s homosexuality is confirmed and openly acknowledged. Tchaikovsky had a nephew nicknamed “Bob” – Vladimir Lvovich Davïdov (1871-1906) – to whom he dedicated the Symphonie Pathétique (1893). The photo at left shows Tchaikovsky seated next to his nephew.

Bob, who was thirty-one years his junior, became Tchaikovsky’s lover from the late 1880s. Tchaikovsky was usually homesick during his musical tours abroad, hating the loneliness of large cities; he always longed to get back home to be with his beloved nephew, whom he called “my idol.” Tchaikovsky made Bob his heir, and his letter to Bob from a hotel room in London in May 1893 shows the nature of their relationship: “I am writing to you with a voluptuous pleasure. The thought that this paper is soon going to be in your hands fills me with joy and brings tears to my eyes.” In another letter Tchaikovsky wrote to his nephew, “If only I could give way to my secret desire, I would leave everything and go home to you.”

In late 1893 Count Stenbok-Fermor wrote a letter addressed to Tsar Alexander III complaining of the attentions the composer was paying the Duke's young nephew. Exposure would have meant public disgrace, loss of civil rights and exile to Siberia for Tchaikovsky and for his fellow former students of the School of Jurisprudence. According to some reports, the letter was intercepted, and a court of honor of the “old boys” of the school required Tchaikovsky to kill himself; Tchaikovsky promised to comply with their demand. A day or two later his “illness” was reported (Tchaikovsky poisoned himself in an act of suicide), and official accounts reported a death from cholera (Tchaikovsky’s relatives later confirmed the account of suicide, also relating that Tsar Alexander III was shown the incriminating letter from Stenbok-Fermor after Tchaikovsky’s death). When he died, at fifty-three, sixty thousand people applied for tickets to his funeral, which was paid for by the Tsar; for only the third time in Russian history, a Tsar ordered a state funeral for a commoner.

There are many theories about the actual cause of Tchaikovsky's death – both natural (cholera) and by suicide (poisoning). Conflicting reports arose within days of his death. Suicide would have been a crushing blemish on the reputations of both Tchaikovsky and his countrymen. Nevertheless, Tchaikovsky was adored in his native Russia, and he was perhaps the best cultural ambassador Russia had ever had.

Thirteen years after Tchaikovsky’s demise, his nephew “Bob” tragically took his own life, as well.

9 comments:

  1. Hello!

    Tchaikovsky is one of my all time favorite composers, and as a member of the LGBT community myself, I have always felt personally fond of him.

    That being said, there is a lot of information in here that goes against many facts and recorded documents... (The most obvious being the account of his marriage. They did indeed divorce in 1881 after she bore another man's illegitimate child)

    So perhaps the writer should go through and make sure everything is correct, because there definitely needs to be more articles about Tchaikovsky's life and struggle with his sexuality.

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    1. From your blogger:
      From several books I have read, Tchaikovsky remained legally married until his death. In 1881, the year you mention, Antonina (his wife) gave birth to the first of three children born out of wedlock. All three were given up for adoption. More insight can be determined from the Wikipedia page on Antonina Miliukova. In June 1877, a month before their wedding, Tchaikovsky wrote this description of Antonina..."a woman with whom I am not the least in love."

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  2. Well I am NOT going to kill myself, but Tchaikovsky and I are 113 yrs apart to the date. We both are Gay musicians and like the company of men. (NO SHIT!)

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  3. Tchaikovsky and I were born on the same date: May 7th. We are 113 years apart and he died 60 yrs before I was born. We are Gay and we are both musicians. This is the truth.

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  4. If people didn't have to hide, Earth would truly be Heaven for Humans, rather than the Hell people have made it.

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  5. His ballet music is surely the greatest ever written, especially 'The Sleeping Beauty', and also the 3rd Symphony is gorgeous for Balanchine's 'Diamonds'. I am glad to read that he was the lover of his nephew--slight incest is something I would like to have done as well.

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  6. Just because it's written in a book does not make it true. Tchaikovsky's suicide has been disproven. There is no documentary evidence of a suicide pact, and the School of Jurisprudence was so notorious for the number of homosexual students that it even had a homosexual school song. Why would the school tolerate Tchaikovsky's open relationship with Sergey Kireyev when he was a student, but suddenly bully him into suicide based on sexuality later in life?

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    1. "Tchaikovsky's suicide has been disproven", Bet you read that in a book.

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  7. Ryssland skulle kunna använda en Tchaikovsky idag :)
    Tyvärr skulle den avskyvärda Putin förstöra honom :(
    -Baltijasmodes

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