# Tchaikovsky's life



## Clouds Weep Snowflakes (Feb 24, 2019)

After my thread questioning the composer's sexual orientation was locked, I was wondering: we have "Amadeus" for a movie on Mozart's life, and we have about Beethoven named "Immortal Beloved"; is there any movie about Tchaikovsky's life? Maybe a book? I have a hard time believing no one wrote a biography on him...anything?


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Not to be unkind, but Google is your friend and biographical books have been mentioned in previous threads about his life, including his intimate personal life, without opening up the subject again on what has already repeatedly been answered with resources. Sometimes it's a matter of taking personal initiative and there are numerous biographical resources available if one simply looks for them. This should be enough to satisfy anyone's curiosity, including his involvement involvement in a homosexual subculture that both attracted and repelled him, and I hope the subject isn't dragged out again. Your community library might even have it.

Tchaikovsky: The Quest for the Inner Man: https://www.amazon.com/Tchaikovsky-Quest-Inner-Alexander-Poznansky/dp/0028718852


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

I found the BBC docu-drama Disvovering Tchaikovsky (Tragic Life of a Musical Genius) to be instructive and interesting. I thought it was put together extremely well, and provided a good overview of his life, works and the times he lived through. Charles Hazelwood was an engaging presenter and the actors did a great job too.


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

Clouds Weep Snowflakes said:


> is there any movie about Tchaikovsky's life?


sure there is, an old Soviet movie, and best of them all on the subject -


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Amadeus may be an excellent film based on an excellent play but I don't think it can be taken seriously as a life of Mozart. I don't think that was ever its intention.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Enthusiast said:


> Amadeus may be an excellent film based on an excellent play but I don't think it can be taken seriously as a life of Mozart. I don't think that was ever its intention.


Salieri! I hates it FOREVER!


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

Zhdanov said:


> sure there is, an old Soviet movie, and best of them all on the subject -


My understanding is that the U.S.S.R and the current Tsar Putin both tried to deny his homosexuality


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Director Ken Russell's take on Tchaikovsky: _The Music Lovers_. Russell has also given us films on Liszt and Mahler.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Music_Lovers


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

Russell's film, "The Music Lovers," is like his other films about composers: questionably accurate historically and generally over the top in terms of exploitation. This one has a lot of focus on Tchikovsky's homosexuality though as I recall there are no explicit lovemaking scenes (it's been years since I saw it last."

Musically it has a wonderful scene of the first piano concerto -- derided immediately afterward -- and Swan Lake, among others.

Richard Chamberlain, the former Dr. Kildare and heartthrob elsewhere, probably wasn't the best choice in the lead.

Russell also made "Mahler" and "Lisztomania" and is probably best known for "Altered States." He made a British television show called "Elgar" about the composer that may or may not be more accurate and less volatile.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Russell's _Lisztomania_ with the Who's Roger Daltry as Liszt is a cartoonish must-see for its over-the-top realizations of some of the bizarre incidents or idiosyncrasies that turn up in some of the biographies of Liszt. One example in the film shows Liszt and Marie d'Agoult in an entranceway of the home of Princess Carolyne Von Sayn-Wittgenstein. Upon the walls are a series of bright, sculptured buttocks which, immediately upon the duo announcing their presence, begin to discharge from their recesses a visible, dense gas enveloping Liszt and his fair companion. Thus Russell depicts Carolyne's real-life "defreshening chamber" where the cigar-smoking princess sought to remove from her visitors any traces of outdoor wholesomeness. Such is the richness of Russell's vision. A Top Ten film.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)




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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

larold said:


> … Richard Chamberlain, the former Dr. Kildare and heartthrob elsewhere, probably wasn't the best choice in the lead.
> ...


Actually, I believe the choice quite appropriate, considering ….


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Triplets said:


> My understanding is that the U.S.S.R and the current Tsar Putin both tried to deny his homosexuality


Whitewash of Tchaikovsky's homosexuality has been an ongoing concern, and my reply to this old thread incorporates some info from the BBC video I mentioned above:

https://www.talkclassical.com/28040-tchaikovsky-not-gay-says.html#post529304

It basically started when Tchaikovsky's brother Modest (himself homosexual) was entrusted with writing the composer's first biography. He was obviously too close to the subject to treat it with any level of objectivity, including issues of sexuality, and this was a factor in influencing later accounts since it was considered to be a primary source.


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## Clouds Weep Snowflakes (Feb 24, 2019)

Sid James said:


> Whitewash of Tchaikovsky's homosexuality has been an ongoing concern, and my reply to this old thread incorporates some info from the BBC video I mentioned above:
> 
> https://www.talkclassical.com/28040-tchaikovsky-not-gay-says.html#post529304
> 
> It basically started when Tchaikovsky's brother Modest (himself homosexual) was entrusted with writing the composer's first biography. He was obviously too close to the subject to treat it with any level of objectivity, including issues of sexuality, and this was a factor in influencing later accounts since it was considered to be a primary source.


As far as I know, Tchaikovsky kept his sexual orientation hidden; did he actually have relations and/or sex with men?
Also not that people often say Homosexual men act/dress like women-this isn't the case here, considering Tchaikovsky's masculine appearance, which is why I was surprised the first time to know he was Homosexual.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

Not again for the third time, this is becoming obsessive.

Was Tchaikovsky a Homosexual?


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## Clouds Weep Snowflakes (Feb 24, 2019)

Rogerx said:


> Not again for the third time, this is becoming obsessive.


What's not interesting in the topic?


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Clouds Weep Snowflakes said:


> What's not interesting in the topic?


Haven't you been provided with the resources that you asked for? (Yes you have.) There's also plenty on his personal life in an excellent wiki article and elsewhere online that you are apparently uninterested in. Have you read it? ( Evidently not.) But you've brought up the subject at least twice already and you're still not satisfied. You've been provided with an abundance of information that you can use to decide for yourself about his private life. Use it! Otherwise it appears that you're either very young and immature or are trying to be an annoying disruptive presence on a subject that has been brought up before and answered.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Clouds Weep Snowflakes said:


> As far as I know, Tchaikovsky kept his sexual orientation hidden; did he actually have relations and/or sex with men?
> Also not that people often say Homosexual men act/dress like women-this isn't the case here, considering Tchaikovsky's masculine appearance, which is why I was surprised the first time to know he was Homosexual.


Hidden as far as his public face was concerned, but known to a small and trusted circle of friends. Tchaikovsky's marriage which was meant as a façade backfired. This was done out of necessity since homosexuality was a crime in those days. Sadly as in Oscar Wilde's case, as long as you didn't get caught it didn't matter. Many in the upper classes where homosexual and there was an underground gay scene in St. Petersburg.



Rogerx said:


> Not again for the third time, this is becoming obsessive.
> 
> Was Tchaikovsky a Homosexual?


That's the essence of this forum, Rogerx. Whatever the topic, including composers who where homosexual, categorising is never a straightforward matter for those who like to argue about such things ad nauseum:

_Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
Philosophy is wondering if that means ketchup is a smoothie_.
- Miles Kington.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

^^^^ 
But if you have one topic closed already, one must think; what am I doing, bringing it up, over and over again.
Besides, who cares, no-one is alive from that time, so its all speculation .


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

Sid James said:


> Many in the upper classes where homosexual


many in Sparta did sex with a man while in the army but would not see themselves as homosexuals.

occasional sex with a person of same sex does not make you a gay unless you carry on and declare it.

these days that a man is married to a man besides other absurdities you no more can judge anything.

because we now live in a chaos forced on the world by politics and for political ends.


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## infracave (May 14, 2019)

Phil loves classical said:


> Salieri! I hates it FOREVER!


Hahaha !
Funny becauses each time I rewatch this movie, I end up siding with Salieri, the hard-working although average composer who do not know how to react when confronted with a genuine genius.


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## Clouds Weep Snowflakes (Feb 24, 2019)

Larkenfield said:


> Haven't you been provided with the resources that you asked for? (Yes you have.) There's also plenty on his personal life in an excellent wiki article and elsewhere online that you are apparently uninterested in. Have you read it? ( Evidently not.) But you've brought up the subject at least twice already and you're still not satisfied. You've been provided with an abundance of information that you can use to decide for yourself about his private life. Use it! Otherwise it appears that you're either very young and immature or are trying to be an annoying disruptive presence on a subject that has been brought up before and answered.


Leave his sexual orientation aside and let's discuss other aspects of his life, OK? Nothing bad, he's just one of my favorite composers...
Also: someone suggested on another thread that Tchaikovsky mostly appeals to younger people as his music is full of emotion; would you agree with that? You mentioned young, so...


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## Clouds Weep Snowflakes (Feb 24, 2019)

Zhdanov said:


> sure there is, an old Soviet movie, and best of them all on the subject -


The links don't work; just give me the name of the movie in English...


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## Bourdon (Jan 4, 2019)

Deleted..........


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

Clouds Weep Snowflakes said:


> just give me the name of the movie in English...


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tchaikovsky_(film)


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Rogerx said:


> ^^^^
> But if you have one topic closed already, one must think; what am I doing, bringing it up, over and over again.
> Besides, who cares, no-one is alive from that time, so its all speculation .


True although there's no rule in having yet another bite at the cherry. Tchaikovsky's still less Sisyphus materiel here compared with anything to do with modernism or Wagner.



Zhdanov said:


> many in Sparta did sex with a man while in the army but would not see themselves as homosexuals.
> 
> occasional sex with a person of same sex does not make you a gay unless you carry on and declare it...


Point 1: I assume homosexuality wasn't a crime in Sparta?

Point 2: My understanding is that homosexual sex by young males is accepted in Thailand as a trial to heterosexual sex. That sort of thing is different from not declaring (as you call it) in order to cover it up.

In any case this is all straying too far from the topic, let alone your subsequent points.


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

Sid James said:


> I assume homosexuality wasn't a crime in Sparta?


there was no homosexuality at the time, and to have sex among persons of the same sex was not seen as something, that is no societal or political meaning was applied to it.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Zhdanov said:


> there was no homosexuality at the time, and to have sex among persons of the same sex was not seen as something, that is no societal or political meaning was applied to it.


So what? It is likely that many ancient Greeks who engaged in homosexual sex might not have done in other times but that doesn't make the act they participated in anything but homosexuality. Society's attitude to it doesn't make that fact go away. But, yes, we would not call someone who engaged in homosexuality in a particular part of their lives homosexuals (otherwise we would call many men who went to British public schools homosexuals). But what does this have to do with Tchaikovsky.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Clouds Weep Snowflakes said:


> Leave his sexual orientation aside and let's discuss other aspects of his life, OK? Nothing bad, he's just one of my favorite composers...
> Also: someone suggested on another thread that Tchaikovsky mostly appeals to younger people as his music is full of emotion; would you agree with that? You mentioned young, so...


Fair enough. But your apparent surprise that he - a favourite composer for you - was gay suggests (perhaps wrongly) homophobia on your part ... and also brings other homophobics out of the woodwork. That's probably what makes these threads heated and best avoided in a music forum.


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## Dima (Oct 3, 2016)

As it was said there is russian film "Tchaikovsky" (I don't know if you could find it in english).
It is the best film of the composers's life (not only Tchaikovsky). It was nominated on Oscar.
There are so many books about him, even very good novel "Pathetic symphony" by Klaus Mann (the older son of Thomas Mann).


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Zhdanov said:


> many in Sparta did sex with a man while in the army but would not see themselves as homosexuals.
> 
> occasional sex with a person of same sex does not make you a gay unless you carry on and declare it.
> 
> ...


Our acceptance today of same sex marriage is not "chaos forced on the world .... for political ends"! Or, at least, that is a very unhelpful and misleading view. Political ends can be about creating a more just and fair society. And, indeed, our coming to accept homosexuality and same sex marriage is a correction of an injustice. Some people are born with sexual desires that are focused on their own sex. That is how they are. They don't harm or coerce people. What they do is consensual and often involves love. They include many famously creative people who have done much to improve our world. You surely don't want to justify the persecution of such people (locking them up for long periods, executing them, chemically castrating them etc)? I don't see chaos in our having corrected the appalling injustices we inflicted on such people. Rather, I see order and harmony.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

Tchaikovsky suffered a lot due to his sexuality. At the very least we know that he was being blackmailed by the woman that he married who threatened to tell all. It is a legitimate question as to whether or not certain works that seem anxiety drenched—the ever popular Fifth Symphony, for one—were influenced by his anxieties about his sexuality and all of the baggage of being discovered and potentially disgraced. I just don’t buy the concept that Music is Music, Notes are just Notes, and Composers are just machines that organize patterns of sound that are completely divorced from their inner psyche. I’m not getting why the OP is being angrily dismissed here and told to quit asking questions. If you think that a thread is redundant, and nothing new can be gain by discussing it, feel free not to participate in the thread, and quit trying to silence those who wish to have a discussion


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

^^^^^
He/ she had one topic closed on the same subject, that should tell you something.


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

Strange Magic said:


> Director Ken Russell's take on Tchaikovsky: _The Music Lovers_. Russell has also given us films on Liszt and Mahler.
> 
> https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Music_Lovers


...and lots of other composers! Ever seen his immensely weird take on Bohuslav Martinu?






Work this one out.....!


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

tried to post a different link to the old Soviet film, doesn't work either, but does if you look it up on Youtube, at least in the UK it does....


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Clouds Weep Snowflakes said:


> As far as I know, Tchaikovsky kept his sexual orientation hidden; did he actually have relations and/or sex with men?
> Also not that people often say Homosexual men act/dress like women-this isn't the case here, considering Tchaikovsky's masculine appearance, which is why I was surprised the first time to know he was Homosexual.


Tchaikovsky seems to have had numerous affairs and sexual encounters with men of all descriptions. Bathroom attendants, cab drivers, anonymous men in clubs and public parks. He played dress-up with a young officer named Verinovsky. Here are a couple of diary entries: "Dinner on balcony. Verinovsky. Dressed him in my clothes." The next day he wrote: "At home. Dinner. Verinovsky. Exchanging clothes." Another finds him in a club known as a meeting spot for homosexuals where he struck up an "unexpected acquaintance" with "two very bold Frenchmen." This latter was in a letter to his brother Modest, who also was homosexual. He had a relationship of several months with a young drozhsky driver named Vanya. "Misunderstanding with Vanya. I find him at the entrance on my return. Very pleasant and happy moment of my life. But then a sleepless night, while the torment of the morning-this I can't even express." The next day he writes: "Sensation of anguish. Searching for Vanya near the hotel … Decrease in amorous feelings. A strange phenomenon, as one would think the reverse." A couple of later entries are short and focus on specific body parts, as in: "Vanyusha. Hands." I think you can probably figure out what that's about.

There is plenty more in his letters and diaries.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

In the late '50s/early '60s Disney did an hour-long Tchaikovsky bio-pic ("The Peter Tchaikovsky Story") for their TV show (then called "Disneyland") as part of the run-up to the release of their animated "Sleeping Beauty" movie. As an incredibly young music lover I watched it and got absolutely nothing of it except that his marriage was a disaster for unspecified reasons, the premier of Swan Lake was a failure for unspecified reasons, and when he was a kid he had music running around in his head so obsessively that he broke a window rapping out a rhythm with his hand (that may have been the invention of the screenwriter). It was worse than useless.

(Also, neither Amadeus nor Immortral Beloved were intended as true biographies.)

(Also also, the Ken Russell movies previously mentioned, are almost the definition of "camp," per another thread.)


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Triplets said:


> I just don't buy the concept that Music is Music, Notes are just Notes, and Composers are just machines that organize patterns of sound that are completely divorced from their inner psyche.


There are some composers which would substantiate your point. Sometimes the phrase that goes with them is "they wear their heart on their sleeves". Tchaikovsky did at times and that's one reason why performers must be very careful how far they push the emotional heat, lest the performance begin to wallow in hysteria, become tasteless and vulgar. The greatest recordings of the 6th Symphony are clear-headed and keep the music to the front.

There were many composers whose lives were even more a of struggle than Tchaikovsky's: Schubert for example. Yet his life-affirming, beautiful music doesn't give a hint of misery. Then there's Allan Pettersson....


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Zhdanov said:


> there was no homosexuality at the time, and to have sex among persons of the same sex was not seen as something, that is no societal or political meaning was applied to it.


I'm of similar thinking on this as Enthusiast in his initial response. The Spartans probably had little or no religious or moral qualms about homosexuality and so didn't attach any labels to it. Neither did they see it as an illness, another label that was to be attached to it later.


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

Enthusiast said:


> many ancient Greeks who engaged in homosexual sex might not have done in other times but that doesn't make the act they participated in anything but homosexuality.


no such thing as 'homosexuality' ever existed. Greeks, pagans & heathens used to see no difference in who or what they make sex with, same-sex or not... it is only since Judaism, Christianity & Islam have arrived - the Gods have ordained to curb pleasures of man, so that he becomes godlike and solemn; thus only sex between males & females was left him, in order to continue mankind, not for pleasure though.



Enthusiast said:


> Our acceptance today of same sex marriage


our? are you sure? how many have accepted it?



Enthusiast said:


> Political ends can be about creating a more just and fair society.


yeah? at what price? that mankind ends up a total mess?



Enthusiast said:


> Some people are born with sexual desires that are focused on their own sex.


believe it or not, some folks are even born desiring the opposite sex, how ever weird it may seem.



Enthusiast said:


> They include many famously creative people who have done much to improve our world.


you bet... hence the Tchaikovsky topic, btw, for they simply want to drag him into all this.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Zhdanov said:


> our? are you sure? how many have accepted it?
> 
> yeah? at what price? that mankind ends up a total mess?


Of all the "liberal reforms" that have been introduced in much of Western Europe (and the US, I think) the ones legalising gay sex and same sex marriage have been the least contested and have often been introduced by conservative governments. This is because there are quite simply no losers from the changes - an easy win for the politicians. There are, of course, some societies where this isn't possible yet and a lot of people are persecuted or, more commonly, at risk of persecution for this reason. Governments in such countries could not possibly prosecute all but are content to force gay sex underground (with the cost of exacerbating the HIV epidemic as people who are hiding cannot be easily reached by public health services) and to only use prosecution for oppressive political reasons.



Zhdanov said:


> believe it or not, some folks are even born desiring the opposite sex, how ever weird it may seem.


I don't get your point here. Perhaps a mild insult is intended? Of course, hetero desires are the norm with only a substantial minority being most attracted to their own sex.



Zhdanov said:


> you bet... hence the Tchaikovsky topic, btw, for they simply want to drag him into all this.


Oh dear. Your hero was a homo and all you can do is deny the evidence. You could, of course, grow: adjust your bigoted views and allow your hero to show you that people can be heroes and gay.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Clouds Weep Snowflakes said:


> After my thread questioning the composer's sexual orientation was locked, I was wondering: we have "Amadeus" for a movie on Mozart's life, and we have about Beethoven named "Immortal Beloved"; is there any movie about Tchaikovsky's life? Maybe a book? I have a hard time believing no one wrote a biography on him...anything?


I don't know if this is what you're looking for, but there's the *Tchaikovsky Research website*: this is a very complete site with a lot of info about Tchaikovsky, including his personal views, letters, relations and thoughs with/about this or that person (including other famous composers), places where he has been and much, much more. I regard myself as a fervent admirer of the russian and am always coming back to this site as a valuable source of free and reliable information. I hope you like it.


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## Clouds Weep Snowflakes (Feb 24, 2019)

Allerius said:


> I don't know if this is what you're looking for, but there's the *Tchaikovsky Research website*: this is a very complete site with a lot of info about Tchaikovsky, including his personal views, letters, relations and thoughs with/about this or that person (including other famous composers), places where he has been and much, much more. I regard myself as a fervent admirer of the russian and am always coming back to this site as a valuable source of free and reliable information. I hope you like it.


Perfect, thanks!


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