Tchaikovsky (1840-93) - Symphony No. 4 there’s one way that
Tchaikovsky would have made a good Yorkshireman - he doesn’t
mince his musical words. Like Rachmaninov and Arnold, he speaks
directly and emotively to us. The Fourth Symphony especially is
crammed with belting good tunes, toe-tapping rhythms, vivid
poster-paint orchestration - and packs a punch fit to fell an
ox. regarded it as an “imitation of the basic idea of
Beethoven's Fifth”, and indeed both are “about Fate”. However,
whereas Beethoven the bold, fearless musical pioneer “takes Fate
by the throat”, for Tchaikovsky it’s the other way around. Why?
Because he was insecure, fatalistic, neurotic, introverted?
Perhaps so, judging by what apparently went on just as he
started work on the symphony. The story goes that in 1877 he
married Antonina Ivanovna Milyukova, admirer, moral blackmailer,
and raving nymphomaniac. What made this respectable musician
susceptible to blackmail? His closet homosexuality, with the
inevitable result: a dis-union made in he