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- [00:00]
Tom Holland
If you want more from the show, join the Rest is History Club. And with Christmas coming, you can also gift a whole year of access to the history lover in your life. Just head to therestishistory.com and click Gifts. This episode is sponsored by Hive. Britain revolutionized the future with the might of industrial power. But now you can transform your own energy future and take control of with the power of Hive.
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Dominic Sandbrook
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Tom Holland
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Dominic Sandbrook
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Tom Holland
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Dominic Sandbrook
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Tom Holland
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Dominic Sandbrook
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- [01:15]
Tom Holland
History of power, Hive helps you finally know yours. Head to hivehome.com to find out more. Subject to survey and suitability Hive app compatible with selected technology Paid for surplus Requires SEG Tariff this episode is brought to you by US Bank. They don't just cheer you on, they help every move count. With US Bank's smartly checking and savings account to help you track your spending and grow your savings, your finances can go through further. Because when you have the right partner on your side, there's no limit to what you can achieve. That's the power of us. Visit usbank.com today to learn more. Member FDIC Copyright 2025 U.S. bank this episode is brought to you by Mint Mobile.
- [02:11]
Dominic Sandbrook
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- [02:33]
Tom Holland
Shop Mint unlimited plans@mintmobile.com history, terms and conditions apply. See mintmobile.com. Hello everyone and I hope you had a wonderful Christmas. Now we have two festive treats coming up for you today and on Thursday. And these are two halves of a show that we recorded at the Royal Albert hall on the 4th of May this year with a full orchestra and professional opera singers. And it has to be said, me so like last year's episodes on Mozart and Beethoven, these episodes will be accompanied with music. The first episode, today's episode is on Tchaikovsky and Thursday's episode will be on Wagner. Enjoy. So welcome or welcome back to the Res History Live with orchestra. We have the amazing Philharmonia Orchestra here with us. And today we're playing probably my two favorite composers, Tchaikovsky and Wagner. So here to tell you more about them are Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook.
- [07:10]
Dominic Sandbrook
Hello, kensington gore, and welcome to the rest is history.
- [07:20]
Tom Holland
Dominic, it's fantastic to be back at the Royal Albert hall, isn't it? And thank you so much everyone for coming and wow. Do we have a show this evening?
- [07:30]
Dominic Sandbrook
We do indeed. So we will be talking about not just two of Oliver's favorite composers, but two of the greatest composers who have ever lived their lives. A brilliant window into the surging passions of the 19th century. So we'll be in Russia under the czars. We'll be in Germany in the age of Bismarck world of romantic idealism, of sexual secrets, of Tom. Some very pungent politics.
- [07:59]
Tom Holland
Very pungent.
- [07:59]
Dominic Sandbrook
We do like pungent politics. On the Rest Is History. This show really does have it all.
- [08:04]
Tom Holland
It really does. And you've already had a flavour of the music we're going to be hearing this evening. So that, of course, was the opening of Tchaikovsky's ballet, Swan Lake, first performed in 1877, and as Ollie said, played by the Philharmonia Orchestra and conducted by the equally brilliant Oliver Zeffman.
- [08:31]
Dominic Sandbrook
And we should start by paying tribute to Oliver, because these shows were his idea. He literally put the band together. And as you will find out, and as you've already discovered with that wonderful performance of Swan Lake, he's not half bad at conducting either.
- [08:47]
Tom Holland
Not bad at all. But let's get right into our first story. And this is the life of perhaps the most romantic and certainly the most flamboyantly Russian of all the great composers.
- [09:00]
Dominic Sandbrook
Right, Exactly. So this whole show that we have for you this evening is very much a 19th century affair. And we're going to kick off in the year 1840, because that is the year that a young Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born in a little iron making town called Vodzhinsk, which is about 600 miles east of Moscow in the foothills of the Urals. So we are deep in the heart of Russia. We're in a classic Russian landscape, the kind of churches with their golden domes, the vast fields, the deep birch and beech forests.
- [09:36]
Tom Holland
It's the kind of landscape that is familiar if you've read Tolstoy or Dostoevsky or any of the great Russian novelists.
- [09:43]
Dominic Sandbrook
Exactly, exactly. So to give you a bit of context, Russia at the time is an autocracy ruled by the Romanov czars and it's got this vast population of serfs and peasants. Now it's often described as a backward country, but that's not necessarily true in every respect. Russia has been expanding at a colossal rate. By 1840, when Tchaikovsky's born, it's a vast continental empire all the way from Finland and Poland to the Caucasus and the Pacific.
- [10:12]
Tom Holland
And Tchaikovsky's family is doing well out of the Russian Empire, isn't it? So his father manages the local ironworks, they've got servants and actually shocking detail. Dominic Tchaikovsky's mother's family are actually French. They are Huguenots who fled to Russia as refugees. So we're not holding that against him.
- [10:33]
Dominic Sandbrook
No, we don't hold that against him. So he even actually had a French governess. And we know a few details about Tchaikovsky's early life from the French governess. She said he was a bright boy, but incredibly sensitive. She said he was as brittle as porcelain, a child of glass. And Tom, very much like our goal hanger stablemates, we actually have Rory Stewart with us in the audience. And nobody would ever say Rory was as brittle as porcelain, would they?
- [10:56]
Tom Holland
Of course not. So the Tchaikovsky's, they're not a tremendously musical family actually, as it happens. I mean, they do have a piano, but basically everyone who's middle class in the 19th century has a piano. And none of them are very good at playing it.
- [11:12]
Dominic Sandbrook
No, they're not terribly good at it. But then one day, Piotr's father, Ilya, comes home from St Petersburg. He's been on a business trip and he has this kind of barrel organ called an orchestrion. And the point of this machine is that would basically mimic the sound of an entire orchestra.
- [11:28]
Tom Holland
So we wouldn't actually need the philharmonia if we could only invest in one of those.
- [11:32]
Dominic Sandbrook
Oliver's life would be so much easier. So this is how the young Tchaikovsky falls in love with music. Basically you feed a sheet into this thing and you turn it. It could be, you know, Mozart's greatest hits and away you go. And actually it's Mozart that Tchaikovsky really falls in love with. Mozart becomes his great hero. So in the next few years, the family move around quite a bit, sort of. They see the cities, St. Petersburg and Moscow, they go to different places in the Urals. And I often wonder whether this is the fact that they move around, whether this gives Tchaikovsky one of his defining traits, which is an extraordinary affinity with the people and landscape of Russia, this intense sense of patriotism. Much later on in life, he wrote, I have never come across anyone more in love with Mother Russia than me. I love Russian people, the Russian language, the Russian way of thinking. I love the sacred legends of the dim and distant people past. I love it all.
- [12:32]
Tom Holland
But I mean, kind of almost the paradox of this is that even as it's very Russian, it's also very European, isn't it? Because European culture is still very marked by romanticism, by the cult of landscape, the cult of sensibility and I guess above all the cult of nationalism. So all sorts of writers and composers across Europe, not just in Russia, are fascinated by, by folk traditions and history and ancient myths and legends. And we will be coming on to someone else who is interested in myths and legends in the second half.
- [13:05]
Dominic Sandbrook
We will indeed. But at the time when he was growing up, I think to his family, the idea that Tchaikovsky would be the great Russian musical vehicle for all this would have seemed relatively unthinkable. Because although they have a piano, most Russians, as you said, have a piano. Most Russian middle class families. But in Russia, middle class boys don't go on to become musicians. So when they go to the opera house or the concert hall, the musicians they hear playing are touring Western European musicians. It's not seen as a proper thing for someone like Tchaikovsky to do.
- [13:37]
Tom Holland
So to begin with, Tchaikovsky doesn't pursue a musical career. He pursues a much more glamorous profession, which is to become a civil servant. And I'm not joking when I say that because I mean, anyone who's read a Russian novel will know that to be a civil servant is really quite something. Very prestigious vocation, very difficult to get into.
- [13:57]
Dominic Sandbrook
Right? It is difficult to go into. So when he's 12 years old, his parents send him to a boarding school in St Petersburg, which is called the School of Jurisprudence. That's where you learn to become an official. So he wears a military uniform. He has to swear an oath at the age of 12 to God, throne and motherland. And he has to work every day from 6 o' clock in the morning until 10 o' clock at night. And that is the routine, Tom, that we have replicated with our own producers, Theo and Tabby.
- [14:27]
Tom Holland
I think, Dominic, you are flattering Theo there, who is never knowingly up before midday, but nice. Sweet of you to say that.
- [14:35]
Dominic Sandbrook
So Tchaikovsky is there in this school until he is 19 and then he becomes an administrative assistant at the Ministry of Justice. But all this time he's been into his music, he's been Writing waltzes and songs and things. And unlike most civil servants, he becomes a real dashing sort of swashbuckling man about town.
- [14:52]
Tom Holland
And I have to say, his dad is very impressive at this point. So he's about 21, and his dad sits him down and says, this civil servant thing, it's obviously not you. Why don't you go for music? Why don't you try it? And so Tchaikovsky says, well, if Dad's saying that, I might as well. And he does. And the timing is perfect, because the following year, in 1862, St Petersburg's first musical conservatory opens its doors. And Tchaikovsky is there.
- [15:21]
Dominic Sandbrook
Right. He's one of the very first students. And like a lot of students, he reinvents himself. He grows his hair long, he wears much more sort of raffish clothes.
- [15:29]
Tom Holland
It's a kind of quaint kind of Carnaby street in the 60s.
- [15:32]
Dominic Sandbrook
Well, as we will discover slightly more San Francisco in the 60s.
- [15:34]
Tom Holland
Yes, of course, yes.
- [15:36]
Dominic Sandbrook
So he's sort of turning himself into an artist with a capital A. And eventually he gets a job in Moscow teaching music at the new conservatory there. So now he really has become a proper kind of working musician, a working composer. He teaches students, he writes songs, he writes little operatic pieces, a first symphony, and all the time he is developing this intensely romantic style, sometimes grand and sweeping, but sometimes very kind of delicate and intimate.
- [16:07]
Tom Holland
Yeah. And we're going to hear an example of that right now, aren't we? And Dominic, it's a song he wrote in 1869. But because I don't speak Russian, and because you are the master of tongues.
- [16:18]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, thank you.
- [16:19]
Tom Holland
Perhaps you'd like to give the Russian title first before we come on to the English translation.
- [16:23]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah. Close your ears, please, Oliver. It is nyet cholko tod ktolznau. What is it you heard, you all heard? Which Tom, as you will know, translates as none but the Lonely Heart.
- [16:40]
Tom Holland
And a great favourite of Frank Sinatra, who recorded it four times. And sadly, Frank can't be with us this evening, but it doesn't matter, because we have an even better singer than Sinatra, and that is Marta Fontenal Simmons, who is going to perform none but the Lonely Heart for us.
- [16:55]
Dominic Sandbrook
Now, Sam ram.
- [18:12]
Tom Holland
You.
- [18:38]
Dominic Sandbrook
Sam. Sa. Sam.
- [20:34]
Tom Holland
You see, who needs Frank Sinatra? That was Marta Fontenelle Simmons and the Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Oliver Zeffman. Absolutely wonderful.
- [20:43]
Dominic Sandbrook
Now, Tom, I know your Russian is absolutely perfect, so you won't need me to translate any of those lyrics. But just in case, for everyone else. Yeah, for everybody else. None but the lonely heart can know my sadness Alone and parted far from joy and gladness. And they capture something, I think, that is central to Tchaikovsky's reputation, the great secret drama of his life, which is, of course, his love life. So Tchaikovsky probably first fell in love when he was a teenager at the School of Jurisprudence. And his love object was another student, a young man called Sergei Kiriev, who was about four years younger than himself. Now, probably wasn't a physical relationship, probably a case of adoration from afar. But then Tchaikovsky fell for another young man, Alexei Apuktin, who ended up becoming a poet. And this probably was a physical relationship. And it was the first of many in Tchaikovsky's life.
- [21:40]
Tom Holland
And I think it would be fair to say that the vibe of Russia in the 19th century isn't massively kind of gay friendly, is it? So we are doing a series starting tomorrow actually, on Peter the Great. And he had decreed the death penalty for any hint of homosexuality in the army back in 1706. And then in 1832, Nicholas I, another Tsar, had declared that any civilian convicted of homosexual behavior would be packed off to Siberia, which, to be fair, basically seems to be the response of Russian czars to almost anything. But most of these punishments were never carried out. And I think that's because in 19th century Russia, homosexuality, it didn't kind of define you. It wasn't an identity. It was seen as just being a taste. And so if you had money and if you had connections, the chances of prosecution, let alone conviction, were actually very, very small, weren't they?
- [22:43]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, they were small. It's really, it's really interesting. So, as you said, homosexuality is condemned as a vice by the Orthodox Church. But it's fascinating that in all Tchaikovsky's life, there is only one tiny hint of scandal or public criticism, and that's a newspaper article in 1878 that was sort of muttering darkly about the teacher's love affairs at the Moscow Conservatory. And even though Tchaikovsky visited gay brothels, he went cruising in parks, he made no secret of his affection for handsome young men. That was really the only tiny hint of public scandal in all his life.
- [23:20]
Tom Holland
But that hasn't stopped Tchaikovsky's biographers since from kind of basically tearing each other to shreds over the question of whether he felt haunted by his sexuality or whether he was completely mellow about it.
- [23:33]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah. So in the Soviet Union, this was a big problem for historians and biographers of Tchaikovsky, and they went out of their way to play down his sexuality. And in fact, Soviet historians effectively went into the archives to erase material that they thought presented him in a bad light. But in the west particularly, I have to say, in Britain, people tended to play it up. So in the 20th century, Tchaikovsky became, in Western scholarship, he was seen as the gay composer. So first of all kind of condemned as a hysterical neurotic and then held up as a kind of as a hero of gay rights.
- [24:12]
Tom Holland
But I mean, not saying that he's a historical neurotic, but there are hints that he struggled with his sexuality, aren't there? I mean, he finds it hard to sleep at times. He seems to become depressed. He has kind of nervous breakdowns occasionally.
- [24:28]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yes, but that said, most recent writers point out that he led a very active and indeed very colorful love life. In fact, I think we can safely say a little too colorful for 21st century taste, because he almost always fell for men who are a lot younger than himself.
- [24:45]
Tom Holland
Boys.
- [24:46]
Dominic Sandbrook
Well, he was particularly drawn to boys of about 14 or 15, which a lot of people may find very unsettling.
- [24:51]
Tom Holland
So, I mean, he's kind of the Russian Oscar Wilde, maybe in that sense. So a kind of a great gay icon. But a lot of his gay relationships are with people who are much younger than him. And so inevitably there is a kind of power differential.
- [25:07]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah, I think that's fair to say. I think it's a pattern you see again and again in Tchaikovsky's life. So there's a musical prodigy called Vladimir Shilowski, who's 14. Then there's a 15 year old, a music student called Eduard Zack. And Tchaikovsky had a real passion for him. And Zach actually ended up taking his own life a few years later. And a lot of this story is very murky because it was effectively erased by Soviet censors. So it's very hard to say what exactly happened between them. But what we do know is that Tchaikovsky was absolutely devastated afterwards. And one of his biographers says you sense the presence of a complex and intense psychodrama that is almost entirely hidden from view.
- [25:52]
Tom Holland
And hidden from view, presumably because Tchaikovsky himself is trying to bury it. And so there's doubly a kind of darkness at the darkness that Tchaikovsky wants to bury the memory of this in, but also a kind of personal darkness that Tchaikovsky is feeling, kind of element of self hatred, perhaps almost depression.
- [26:11]
Dominic Sandbrook
I think that's fair to say. I mean, after Zack's death, he goes into this deep, deep depression. And then as so often, he emerges with a great burst of energy. So it's 1875, he comes out of this depression and he's commissioned to write a ballet and that became the piece we heard at the beginning, Swan Lake, one of the most beloved pieces in the whole canon. And then a year after that, he falls in love again with a violinist called Joseph Kotek, who was then 21. When for hours on end I hold his hand in my own passion rages within me with unimaginable force. My voice shakes like that of a youth and I speak a load of.
- [26:50]
Tom Holland
Nonsense and Dominik, that is Tchaikovsky, not you.
- [26:52]
Dominic Sandbrook
That's not me on. No, right, that's not me talking about Theo, Tom. Yeah, that's Tchaikovsky talking about this bloke, Kotak. So this is a letter that he writes to his brother Modest, his younger brother Modest, who is also gay, and they would talk quite openly about all of this, which leads me to think that Tchaikovsky is probably not quite as tortured and as repressed as we often assume.
- [27:14]
Tom Holland
I suppose another issue is. I mean, honestly, I mean, who ultimately cares? Does this matter? Of course, in the immediate aftermath of Tchaikovsky's death, there are lots of people who feel it does matter. So Tchaikovsky dies and Tolstoy, who by this point is about 810, he writes, there is always something not quite clear about him, more as a man than as a musician, which I'm guessing is a reference to his sexuality. And certainly in the decades that follow Tchaikovsky's death, there are critics who condemn his music as neurotic and effeminate. And presumably they are saying that because they're not really talking about his music at all, they're talking about his posthumous reputation.
- [27:55]
Dominic Sandbrook
Right. But I think with all of this stuff, it's important not to sort of blow it out of proportion. So there's a great music critic, the 20th century, called Richard Taraskin, and he wrote a brilliant, brilliant essay on all this, which actually Oliver, our conductor, put me onto. And Taraskin said, look, we should stop saying, seeing Tchaikovsky as this angst ridden, guilt ridden, kind of neurotic artist. By and large, this is somebody who is very successful, who has loads of fun, actually loads of money, and is generally pretty happy. All of that said, Tom, you are right that there are issues, shall we say, because in 1876 he does basically the most unexpected and implausible thing you could possibly imagine.
- [28:36]
Tom Holland
I mean, so unexpected, so implausible that I think we should probably have a bit of music beforehand to brace ourselves for it. And what we're going to hear now is a piece he wrote in 1878, amid the Great emotional crisis of, spoiler alert, Tchaikovsky's Marriage. And that is what we will be coming to in a moment. But first, the third movement of his violin concerto played by our soloist, the brilliant Lea Zoo. Enjoy. Sa.
- [33:47]
Dominic Sandbrook
It.
- [40:02]
Tom Holland
This episode is brought to you by the Philharmonia Orchestra who are turning 80 this year. And to celebrate they're giving away 80 free tickets for first timers for every concert in their 2025, 2026 London season.
- [40:16]
Dominic Sandbrook
Now if you've never booked with the Philharmonia before, you can choose any concert in their London season. They're all at the South Bank Centre. You can get two tickets completely free. There is no catch, just world class music live.
- [40:30]
Tom Holland
So the Philharmonia's first concert was in 1945 and ever since then they have been a part of Britain's cultural fabric, constantly evolving and always ambitious.
- [40:41]
Dominic Sandbrook
They have scored more than 150 film soundtracks and video game soundtracks. They've collaborated across all kinds of genres. Classical icons, jazz, they've even done heavy metal. I mean this is not just orchestral, it is adventurous.
- [40:55]
Tom Holland
So this is your chance to experience one of Britain's great orchestras and some of the world's top soloists in one of the world's great venues.
- [41:03]
Dominic Sandbrook
To book, head to philharmonia.co.uk free tickets that is philharmonia.co.uk Free tickets come for the music.
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Tom Holland
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Dominic Sandbrook
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Tom Holland
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- [43:34]
Dominic Sandbrook
This episode is brought to you by Ancestry.
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Tom Holland
Hello, James Holland here, joined by Al Murray from Goal hangers World War II podcast. We have ways of making you talk these are those odd days between Christmas.
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Dominic Sandbrook
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Tom Holland
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Dominic Sandbrook
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Tom Holland
It's the perfect time to sit close, share family stories and think about people.
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Dominic Sandbrook
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Tom Holland
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Dominic Sandbrook
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Tom Holland
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Tom Holland
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Dominic Sandbrook
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Tom Holland
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Dominic Sandbrook
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Tom Holland
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Tom Holland
Ancestry's memberships and start your family history journey today. I can't tell you what a privilege it is to be actually on the stage listening to such virtuosity, such an honor. So thank you, Lea. Just amazing.
- [45:03]
Dominic Sandbrook
So.
- [45:11]
Tom Holland
Dominic Tchaikovsky's marriage, I think we've established he's very much not the marrying kind of a guy. So what's going on there? I mean, does he think it's his duty? He's got to lie back and think of Russia? What's going on?
- [45:29]
Dominic Sandbrook
Tchaikovsky felt the pressure of social expectation, basically. I think he felt that he ought to get married, that it was the thing to do, whether he wanted to or not.
- [45:38]
Tom Holland
So already in 1868 he had proposed to a soprano called Desiree Arto, which I think is a sensational name for a soprano. And she says, yes, yes, she did.
- [45:51]
Dominic Sandbrook
But it very quickly, I think, much to his relief, fizzled out and she married somebody else. But then in 1877, he started getting letters from a young woman called Antonina Miliakova. And she had very briefly been a student of his, a music student. Now, Tchaikovsky had completely forgotten her, but she had certainly not forgotten him. She had developed this great crush on Tchaikovsky, and she basically starts sending these letters. She's a super fan, I suppose, and he agrees to meet her. And at the second meeting, I think very recklessly, he asks her to marry him. And immediately she says, oh, yes, brilliant. And Tchaikovsky thinks, I have made a huge mistake.
- [46:35]
Tom Holland
And so the wedding, when it happens, is not 100% the kind of wedding that a bride dreams of, is it? Because they get married in Moscow in July 1877, and when the priest says to Tchaikovsky, you may kiss the bride, Tchaikovsky responds by bursting into tears.
- [46:55]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yes.
- [46:56]
Tom Holland
Yeah.
- [46:56]
Dominic Sandbrook
So the wedding night's not a bundle of laughs either, because as soon as they reach the hotel, Tchaikovsky, in desperation, takes a massive sedative and goes straight to sleep. And poor Antonina has no idea what's going on. But it's fair to say nothing much is going on, because a few days later, Tchaikovsky writes to his brother and he says, look, I find my wife.
- [47:18]
Tom Holland
Absolutely repulsive and Tchaikovsky capable of great charm, but not on this occasion.
- [47:24]
Dominic Sandbrook
Not on this occasion. So he's very miserable. He's made a terrible mistake. He thinks about throwing him himself into the river Moskva, but in the end, he basically flees to the countryside and leaves Antonina behind.
- [47:35]
Tom Holland
And not just the countryside, right? I mean, he basically goes on a massive European holiday. So he goes to Paris, to Florence, to Rome, to Vienna, desperately trying to think of ways to avoid her.
- [47:48]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah.
- [47:49]
Tom Holland
And then in the middle of all this, I mean, it should really have been his honeymoon. His great love interest, Yo. If Kotak pitches up in Switzerland to see him, which I imagine doesn't help with his kind of, I should really get back with my wife.
- [48:05]
Dominic Sandbrook
So you may remember from a few moments earlier that we said Kotek was a violinist. So this is actually the moment that inspires Tchaikovsky to write the piece that we have just heard, the Violin Concerto.
- [48:15]
Tom Holland
And when you listen to it, you can feel there's this kind of incredible sense of excitement. So, I mean, musicologists must hate this kind of. But perhaps there's a sense there of the frenzy of passion that he's feeling for Kotak, but also it's a little bit Mad, isn't it? And maybe that's the effects of his marriage.
- [48:33]
Dominic Sandbrook
Well, here's a really mad thing. So the mad thing is that that piece that we've just heard played so brilliantly got one of the worst reviews in the history of classical music from the great Viennese critic of the day, Edouard Hanslick. Hanslick said that listening to that was like being in hell. He said, tchaikovsky has proved for the first time the hideous notion that there can be music that stinks to the ear.
- [48:59]
Tom Holland
I mean, that is mad.
- [49:01]
Dominic Sandbrook
Well, I mean, Thomas, we often tell rival podcasters, rival history podcasters, you should never let the critics get you down.
- [49:07]
Tom Holland
So true. So, Dominic, just two questions, and I'm guessing the answer to this, to both these questions is no. Did they ever consummate the relationship?
- [49:17]
Dominic Sandbrook
They did not.
- [49:18]
Tom Holland
And did they ever get back together again?
- [49:20]
Dominic Sandbrook
They did not. So he went back to Russia, he asked Antonina for a divorce, she said no. They separated, but they didn't divorce. He did give her financial help later in life and they did sometimes meet, but he was always, I have to say, very cold and almost a little bit cruel when they met. And actually, by and large, when people talk about the great composers, they always overlook or indeed are downright rude about the wives. So perhaps we should spare a thought for Antonina. She had a really rough time, through no fault of her own, she actually ended up going mad and ended up in a lunatic asylum. So it's a very sad story.
- [49:55]
Tom Holland
And there's kind of sense that meeting Tchaikovsky isn't always great for your long term mental stability here, isn't there? And I wonder, Dominic, whether it was worse for Anthony precisely because she had been such a fan. And they, they separate. Just as Tchaikovsky is about to embark on the kind of, you know, the absolute pinnacle of his career, so the 1880s, he's become a massive national, actually an international celebrity, and people are comparing him to Mozart and saying that he can turn his hand to anything. Well, I mean, not anything, obviously, not marriage, but symphonies, concertos, ballets, you name it. Basically, Tchaikovsky can do it. Very Mozart.
- [50:33]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yeah. And this is not just a question of Tchaikovsky's genius, it's also a question of the context. So in the 1880s, Russia obviously has some pretty, pretty major political issues which culminate in the Russian Revolution. But culturally it's a very rich and self confident and sophisticated place. Now the Tsar at the time, Alexander iii, is a massive reactionary and he is very keen on the idea that Russia is distinct from the rest of Europe, that it's sort of set apart by its Slavic history and identity. And so for Alexander and his court, the idea that Tchaikovsky is a distinctly Russian composer with a distinct Russian style, borrowing from traditional folk melodies and songs and whatnot, that becomes really, really important.
- [51:18]
Tom Holland
To them, despite the fact that this is exactly the kind of thing that is going on in countries across Europe. So Sibelius is. Is doing it. Vaughan Williams, in due course, will do it. So what does the Tsar say to that?
- [51:29]
Dominic Sandbrook
But the Tsar doesn't give a damn about that, I think it's fair to say. So the Tsar to the Tsar, he doesn't give a damn what Sibelius is doing. All that matters to him is that Tchaikovsky is a sort of authentic Russian hero. So in 1884, he invites Tchaikovsky to St Petersburg to receive the Order of St Vladimir, Extraordinary honor for a composer. He gives him a ring as a personal presentation. And he also gives him a lifetime pension, which is a sign of just how much Tchaikovsky is valued.
- [51:57]
Tom Holland
So putting the marriage to one side, yes, his life is pretty good. So he's got. He's got his pension, he's got his kind of honor, he's very popular, he's kind of famous and he has even has a kind of very well, actually the kind of perfect patron who's a woman called Nadezhda von Meck. And she's the perfect patron because they never meet, but she just chucks loads of money at him, Right?
- [52:19]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yes.
- [52:20]
Tom Holland
And also, he's a massive star in America, isn't he?
- [52:22]
Dominic Sandbrook
Right. So he's actually very like us. He goes to New York in 1890, he conducts at Carnegie Hall. He loves it. The thing he loved most when he came back and he couldn't stop talking about it was the telephone in his hotel. He was amazed by this telephone and he kept ringing the reception just to kind of try out the phone. Very like Theo Young Smith on our American tours, ringing for room service.
- [52:47]
Tom Holland
He was never off the telephone, was he? And then when he gets back home from America, he gets to work on one of the most joyous and celebrated things that he ever wrote. And that is his ballet, the Nutcracker. And the good news, Dominic, ladies, gentlemen, is that we are now going to hear two of its most glorious moments. Right. Now, the sad news is that we are not going to dance to it. But you can't. You can't have everything. So that, of course, was the dance of the Chickaplum Fairy and the Russian Dance, both from the Nutcracker. And Dominic, it's starting to feel A lot like Christmas, isn't it? Because, of course, the Nutcracker, the story of a wooden nutcracker doll that comes to life at Christmas.
- [56:55]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yes. And that was first performed in St. Petersburg in December 1892. So at the time, Tchaikovsky was 52 years old. He was at the peak of his powers, the peak of his popularity, and he's probably got, what, 20 years ahead of him, writing unimaginable masterpieces. But just a year later, his story takes a tragic twist. So on 10 October 1893, Tchaikovsky arrives in St. Petersburg by train, and he's planning to stay with his younger brother, who we've already mentioned, Modeste and Dominic.
- [57:32]
Tom Holland
We're going to be talking about the history of St. Petersburg in a couple of weeks on the podcast, because, of course, we're doing Peter the Great. And St. Petersburg is founded by Peter the Great on very marshy, very boggy land, a lot of mosquitoes. And so it is notoriously unhealthy, isn't it?
- [57:50]
Dominic Sandbrook
Right. It's always been plagued by cholera outbreaks, one of which is raging in the autumn of 18 1993, and all the restaurants have been told by the authorities that they have to boil their water before giving it to the customers. But ten days into his stay, the 20th of October, Tchaikovsky goes out with his mates on the Nevsky Prospect, and they go into a restaurant and he asks for water, and the waiter says, we've just run out of all the boiled water. If you hold on a little while, we'll get you some more. Tchaikovsky says, I don't want to wait. I'm very thirsty. I'm sure it's fine. Just bring me a glass of unboiled water. You can probably guess what's coming. The next day, he complains of feeling unwell. He says, don't call a doctor. I'm sure it'll be fine. Three days later, by the time they do call a doctor, it's obvious it's not fine. And so it is that at three in the morning on the 25th of October, 1893, Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky died of kidney failure.
- [58:50]
Tom Holland
Or did he? Because, Dominic, you know I love a mad conspiracy theory.
- [58:57]
Dominic Sandbrook
You do.
- [58:58]
Tom Holland
And it's fair to say that even at the time, there were people who were skeptical of this whole unboiled water story, and they said that Tchaikovsky would never make such a stupid mistake, and therefore there must be a more sinister explanation. And actually, you've said how Mozart was Tchaikovsky's great hero. There are elements here, aren't there? Of the rumors that start to spread around Mozart's death. The possibility that perhaps he'd been murdered. And aren't there historians who kind of dabble in these kind of waters about Tchaikovsky?
- [59:30]
Dominic Sandbrook
There are indeed, as it were, yes, who dabble in these murky waters. So a very good example is an eminent British historian, biographer called David Brown. And he suggested that Tchaikovsky had taken poison, that he had killed himself under pressure from his old schoolmates. He said basically his schoolmates had convened this court of honour and they had handed down their verdict that Tchaikovsky must either take the decent way out or they would expose the secrets of his sex life.
- [59:59]
Tom Holland
And what credibility do you give to this theory?
- [60:04]
Dominic Sandbrook
You know my methods, Tom. I find this very unconvincing. You see, first of all, Tchaikovsky doesn't strike me as a man who is haunted by guilt or anxiety or fear. In the autumn of 1893, actually, he's on cloud nine. He's just finished his sixth symphony. He's in very good form, actually. I think behind all this, people struggle with, I think the idea that a superstar, an international celebrity of this kind, an artist, artist, could be cut down by something so random and so meaningless and banal. And I think people also struggled at the time, especially with the idea that cholera, which was a disease that afflicted the kind of urban poor, the starving masses, could have carried off such a great man. I think they found that very hard to reconcile. Now, for me, I think probably he did have cholera. I think the boiled water story, as bizarre as it is probably true anyway, what we do know is that his funeral was a massive deal. It was the first commoner's funeral ever to be held at the Kazan Cathedral in St Petersburg. And it's a sign of his celebrity and his importance that 60,000 people applied for tickets.
- [61:12]
Tom Holland
So that's Tchaikovsky, not just dead, but now buried. And Dominic, I wonder, can you give us your verdict on Tchaikovsky? Where does he stand in the history of music?
- [61:22]
Dominic Sandbrook
So a lot of people would see him. Well, he's undoubtedly Russia's most beloved composer. I think there's a very good argument that he's Russia's greatest composer. There have always been critics who have dismissed him as a bit lightweight or a bit easy, as a bit of too audience friendly. I don't think that's a bad thing, by the way, being audience friendly.
- [61:39]
Tom Holland
I know you don't.
- [61:42]
Dominic Sandbrook
The comparison with Mozart, I think, is a good one. I think nobody, since Mozart could do so many different things so quickly and so skillfully. And more broadly, Tchaikovsky has Come to represent the idea, the musical idea of a Russian soul, the idea of Russia itself, sort of torn between Europe and Asia, east and west, all of that stuff.
- [62:02]
Tom Holland
And he would have loved that, wouldn't he? Because he was a massive patriot. His country meant so much to him. What was the thing he was saying about? He said that I've never come across anyone who loved Mother Russia more than I. Right, exactly. So basically, he is to Russia what you are to Britain.
- [62:17]
Dominic Sandbrook
Oh, Tom, love it. Thank you. That's very kind. That's kind.
- [62:21]
Tom Holland
You're welcome. You're welcome.
- [62:23]
Dominic Sandbrook
Well, to capture that, there is one work, of course, above all, and this is the work that really captures, I think, his Russian patriotism. And it was commissioned in 1880 for the opening of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow.
- [62:36]
Tom Holland
And this cathedral had been commissioned years before, hadn't it? And it was designed to serve as a memorial to the sacrifices made by the Russian people in their defeat of the invasion by Napoleon, which had happened in 1812. Napoleon had occupied Moscow, but had been defeated by the Russian strategy. And by the winter and had been forced to retreat in terrible circumstances, had ended up kind of getting frostbite in and eating frozen horses and all kinds of things. And you look gutted at this failure of French strategy, Dominic.
- [63:11]
Dominic Sandbrook
Absolutely devastating, as regular listeners to the rest of this issue will know, is littered with French catastrophes. And this is one of the most purely enjoyable. Anyway, Tchaikovsky, he agreed to write a short piece of music for the opening ceremony. And this piece captures the whole story of the 1812 campaign. So you get the kind of melodies of the Russian Orthodox Church, you get folk tunes, you get Tom, the strutting bombast of the Marseillaise.
- [63:39]
Tom Holland
Strutting bombast.
- [63:40]
Dominic Sandbrook
You get bells, you get gunfire, you get celebrations and you even get cannons.
- [63:46]
Tom Holland
So it's literally a banger, ladies and gentlemen, by far Tchaikovsky's most popular work. And I think there is no better piece with which to close his story. And this half.
- [63:58]
Dominic Sandbrook
Right, well, before we have the music, let me just remind you that we were back after the interval in the second half with the life of Richard Wagner. Now, can I just ask, are there any members here of the rest is history club. Well, that's very good to know. And as always, the good news for you club members is that you can hear that second half right away. You don't have to wait ad free, but I'm afraid the rest of you will have to wait until after the interval.
- [64:32]
Tom Holland
It's such a bargain, isn't it, Dominic? It's such a bargain. But for now, we leave you with Oliver Zeffman, with the Philharmonia orchestra and with Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture.
- [76:22]
Dominic Sandbrook
It.
- [80:02]
Tom Holland
Thanks so much for listening. We will be back On Thursday in 2026, our first episode of the year. And that will be with the second half of that show that we recorded at the Royal Albert Hall. And the focus of the show will be the most controversial of all classical composers, Richard Wagner. I hope you enjoy it. Bye bye.
- [80:21]
Dominic Sandbrook
Bye bye.
- [80:29]
Tom Holland
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Dominic Sandbrook
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Tom Holland
Limu is that guy with the binoculars watching us.
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Dominic Sandbrook
Cut the camera. They see us.
- [80:51]
Tom Holland
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Dominic Sandbrook
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Tom Holland
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Dominic Sandbrook
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Tom Holland
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Dominic Sandbrook
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Tom Holland
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Dominic Sandbrook
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Tom Holland
Hello, I'm Professor Hannah Fry. And I'm Michael Stevens, creator of Vsauce. We thought we would join you for a moment completely uninvited. We are not going to stay too. Unless you want us to. Of course. We're here to tell you about our brand new show. The rest is science. Every episode is gonna start with something that feels initially familiar. And then we're gonna unpick it and tear it apart until you no longer recognize it at all. You know how banana flavor doesn't taste like bananas? Yeah. What is that about? So it is supposed to taste like an old species of banana that was wiped out in a banana apocalypse. And now you will only find it in botanical collections in the gardens of billionaires.
- [82:11]
Dominic Sandbrook
Wow.
- [82:12]
Tom Holland
Banana candy is actually the ghost of a long extinct banana. So if you like scratching the surface thinking a little bit deeper or weirder.
- [82:22]
Dominic Sandbrook
Yes, definitely.
- [82:23]
Tom Holland
That too. You can join Michael and I every Tuesday and Thursday wherever you get your podcasts.