What: Victoria Symphony (Masterworks): Naked Classics, Tchaikovsky's Path茅tique.
When/where: Sunday, Feb. 2, 2:30 p.m.; Monday, Feb. 3, 8 p.m.; Farquhar Auditorium (University of Victoria Centre).
Tickets: $35 to $58. Call 250-721-8480 or 250-385-6515; online at ; in person at the UVic Ticket Centre and the Victoria Symphony box office (610 - 620 View St.).
Last March, the Victoria Symphony offered the local premi猫re of Naked Classics, a novel performance project in which a single major work is explored in depth, in a multi-media format, and then performed. (On that occasion it was Berlioz鈥檚 Symphonie fantastique.) The project was launched in 2007 by Paul Rissmann, a Scottish-born, London-based composer and writer who specializes in presenting classical music in concert in innovative and accessible ways.
This weekend, Rissmann returns to the Victoria Symphony with a Naked Classics presentation on Tchaikovsky鈥檚 Symphony No. 6 (Path茅tique), to be conducted by the orchestra鈥檚 music director, Christian Kluxen.
The Path茅tique, premi猫red in Saint Petersburg barely a week before Tchaikovsky鈥檚 death there at age 53, belongs on even the most selective list of greatest and most fascinating symphonies. Still, when I heard that Naked Classics was taking up this particular piece, my first thought was: 鈥淯h-oh 鈥︹��
Why? Because Tchaikovsky studies have become a poisoned well, rife with errors, prejudices, rumours, and conspiracy theories, which have been foisted onto a trusting public by commentators incapable of assessing the scholarly record.
You鈥檝e probably heard that Tchaikovsky was tormented by his homosexuality and lived in a state of self-loathing celibacy. You鈥檝e probably heard that he committed suicide, either on his own initiative or on orders from 鈥渁bove.鈥� You鈥檝e probably heard that the Path茅tique, with its slow, bleak finale, was a 鈥渉omosexual tragedy鈥� that expressed his depression and was effectively his suicide note.
It鈥檚 all rubbish.
Tchaikovsky鈥檚 only issue with his homosexuality was concern that public exposure would embarrass his family and friends (hence his hasty, doomed marriage).
He was not tormented by what he called his 鈥渘atural inclinations,鈥� and had an active sex life. To be gay, he wrote, was to be 鈥済uilty of nothing!鈥�
Tchaikovsky died of complications from cholera, a fact confirmed by a mountain of documentary evidence. How he contracted it is not known (drinking water? sexual contact?), but it was then prevalent in Saint Petersburg, among all social classes, though it was widely perceived as a 鈥減oor-man鈥檚 disease.鈥� But we do know the hour-by-hour progress of his symptoms and the treatment he received from four high-ranking doctors, all of this witnessed by many people, with updates regularly posted for the public and reported in the press.
And Tchaikovsky was not mired in despair when the Path茅tique was composed and premi猫red; in fact, this was a particularly happy period for him, in part precisely because of his creation of that great work.
To believe that a tragic symphony could only be composed by a suicidal person is to hold incredibly na茂ve and romantic notions about how professional artists work.
So why all the rubbish? Because some people prefer colourful fiction to monochromatic fact.
(Fortunately, there are some reliable scholarly sources on Tchaikovsky, notably Alexander Poznansky鈥檚 biographical studies, and the website en.tchaikovsky-research.net. Incidentally, the most voluble suicide theorists have all been British 鈥� make of that what you will.)
Alas, the Victoria Symphony and Naked Classics evidently prefer colourful fiction.
The orchestra鈥檚 program note for the Path茅tique is woefully misleading, confidently declaring that the cholera evidence was 鈥渁 fabrication鈥� and retailing a preposterous rumour according to which Tchaikovsky, accused of some homosexual scandal, committed suicide in the wake of a guilty verdict from a 鈥渃ourt of honour鈥� comprising a bunch of old schoolmates.
Rissmann, meanwhile, in a short video on his website, asserts that life for Tchaikovsky was 鈥渟elf-imposed torture鈥� and that 鈥渁 variety of alternative theories have emerged鈥� concerning his death, 鈥渋ncluding suicide, arsenic poisoning, and extermination by order of the czar, though we have little hope of ever uncovering the truth.鈥�
This is shamefully mealy-mouthed. With Tchaikovsky鈥檚 death we are not dealing with a mystery yielding only divergent hypotheses of equal weight. His was probably the most minutely documented death of any major composer, and the documentation all points only to cholera, while the 鈥渁lternative theories鈥� are based on literally no evidence whatsoever, only innuendo and hearsay.
So, by all means, go this weekend and enjoy one of the glories of the orchestral literature. But if presented, beforehand, with a salad of nonsense about the composer and his death, just clap politely and ignore it.
