Tchaikovsky's Last Days: A Documentary Study
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Very good
Jacket: Very good
Pages: Good
Few mysteries in classical music have captivated scholars and enthusiasts alike as profoundly as the final days of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and Alexander Poznansky's Tchaikovsky's Last Days: A Documentary Study confronts this enduring enigma with meticulous scholarly rigour. Drawing on a rich archive of primary sources — letters, diaries, eyewitness testimonies, and medical records — Poznansky meticulously reconstructs the week leading up to the composer's sudden death in November 1893, systematically dismantling the long-held theory that Tchaikovsky was forced to take his own life by a secret court of honour convened to suppress a homosexual scandal. Poznansky argues with compelling authority that the evidence unambiguously supports death by cholera, challenging generations of speculation and myth that had obscured historical fact. His forensic approach to musicological biography sets a new standard for the field, transforming what might have been a sensationalist account into a model of restrained, evidence-based historical inquiry. Written with the precision of a legal brief and the narrative clarity of a fine biography, this landmark study leaves the reader to ponder not only the truth of Tchaikovsky's death, but the very nature of how history is constructed — and how easily it can be distorted by rumour and romanticism.
Author: Alexander Poznansky
Format: Hardback
Published: 1996, Clarendon Press - Oxford
Genre: Music
Condition remarks:
Book: Very good
Jacket: Very good
Pages: Good
Few mysteries in classical music have captivated scholars and enthusiasts alike as profoundly as the final days of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and Alexander Poznansky's Tchaikovsky's Last Days: A Documentary Study confronts this enduring enigma with meticulous scholarly rigour. Drawing on a rich archive of primary sources — letters, diaries, eyewitness testimonies, and medical records — Poznansky meticulously reconstructs the week leading up to the composer's sudden death in November 1893, systematically dismantling the long-held theory that Tchaikovsky was forced to take his own life by a secret court of honour convened to suppress a homosexual scandal. Poznansky argues with compelling authority that the evidence unambiguously supports death by cholera, challenging generations of speculation and myth that had obscured historical fact. His forensic approach to musicological biography sets a new standard for the field, transforming what might have been a sensationalist account into a model of restrained, evidence-based historical inquiry. Written with the precision of a legal brief and the narrative clarity of a fine biography, this landmark study leaves the reader to ponder not only the truth of Tchaikovsky's death, but the very nature of how history is constructed — and how easily it can be distorted by rumour and romanticism.