Tchaikovsky: The Man and His Music

This is the valedictory work of British music professor Brown, a reduction to manageable length of his own massive and magisterial four-volume study of the composer and his work—superbly crafted for a general reader. Brown's style is easy and confiding, managing to be knowledgeable and illuminating about the music without burying it in technical jargon, and he has devised an excellent scoring system to guide his readers through the key works and explain why he has chosen these above all others. (His personal favorites, incidentally, are, rather surprisingly, Eugen Onegin , The Sleeping Beauty and the Sixth Symphony .) It is hard to imagine the works, especially the lesser-known ones, better described and evoked than here; Brown would be wonderful at concert notes or CD booklets. About the life he has little that is new to add, but offers some remarkable insights from Tchaikovsky himself on his working methods and the nature of his inspiration. The story of his ghastly marriage and his bizarre relationship with Nadezhda von Meck is given in great and sympathetic detail. On the vexed question of the composer's mysterious death—did he deliberately drink unboiled water and poison himself so as not to bring dishonor on his old school because of a homosexual liaison?—Brown is noncommittal but, as usual, thorough in setting forth what is known and what only surmised. The book is a triumph of biographical and musical scholarship. (Apr.)