THE GREAT Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893) was renowned throughout the world by the time of his death. His major works, including the First Piano Concerto, the Violin Concerto, Romeo and Juliet, the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, the opera Eugene Onegin, and the ballets Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker, were lauded in Russia, Europe, England, and the United States. Some of these compositions were directly influenced by his intense romantic and sexual life with men and boys, many of whom are known to history.
Tchaikovsky’s early homosexual experiences occurred during the period from 1850 to 1859, when he attended the Imperial School of Jurisprudence in St. Petersburg. In these formative years, he fell deeply in love with a younger student, Sergey Kireyev (1844–1888). In an unfinished manuscript for his autobiography, Tchaikovsky’s brother Modest, who was also homosexual, wrote that the composer’s feelings for Kireyev were “the strongest, most durable, and purest amorous infatuation of his life.” Little is known about Kireyev, but he and Tchaikovsky saw each other several times after their graduation, and the composer’s early song “My Genius, My Angel, My Friend” from the late 1850s is dedicated to him. During the same period, Tchaikovsky began a significant relationship with Aleksey Apukhtin (1840–1893), whose poetry he often set to music, including the songs “He loved me so much” and “Frenzied Nights.” The two were exact contemporaries and remained lifelong friends.
After a stint as a clerk in the Ministry of Justice, Tchaikovsky decided in 1862 to devote himself fully to music. Building on his early piano training, he studied composition and instrumentation with Anton Rubinstein at the St. Petersburg Conservatory and a few years later was appointed teacher of harmony at the Moscow Conservatory. In 1868 he became engaged to an accomplished Belgian soprano, Désirée Artôt, five years his senior. When he notified his brother Modest, he wrote: “It seems to me that our inclinations are the biggest and most insurmountable obstacle to our happiness, and that we must fight against our natures with all our strength.”
This engagement was the first of two ill-fated attempts to cover up Tchaikovsky’s homosexuality at a time when it was illegal in Russia and could lead to the loss of civil rights and possibly exile to Siberia. The second attempt was his unconsummated marriage in 1877 to Antonina Milyukova, who threatened to expose his homosexuality before they eventually divorced. This led to a period of nervous collapse and the composer’s attempted suicide in September 1877 while working on the emotionally intense Fourth Symphony.
Tchaikovsky’s strongest romantic feelings may have been for Eduard Zak (1854–1873), whose love was a main inspiration for the composer’s first great work, Romeo and Juliet. Tragically, Zak died by suicide at age nineteen. Tchaikovsky was bereaved even fourteen years later, when he wrote in his diary: “I still recall the sound of his voice, the way he moved, but above all the way he used to look at me. I believe I have never loved anyone as much as him.”
Tchaikovsky also was intimately involved with Vladimir Bibikov (born 1834), who worked in the Office of Petitions to the Czar and may have inspired one of the composer’s most famous songs, “None but the Lonely Heart.” References to his sexual relationship with Bibikov—and with many others—were censored by Soviet authorities in later editions of the composer’s correspondence, but the contexts of these cuts allow us to at least identify the partners.
Tchaikovsky is known to have had sexual relations with his devoted valet Aleksey Sofronov (1859–1925), as well as the violinist and composer Josif Kotek (1855–1885), a longtime friend who advised him during the composition of his Violin Concerto. Kotek would have been the logical dedicatee of the concerto, but Tchaikovsky dreaded “malicious gossip” and eventually dedicated it to another virtuoso.
The composer was also devoted to Ivan Klimenko (1839-1914), an architect to whom he wrote in 1871: “Can you, the most beloved of the concubines of my harem, you, the beautiful and at the same time young Klimenka, doubt for even a single moment my love for you?” On another occasion he wrote to Klimenko: “Do come, I crave you irrepressibly.” Quoting these passages in his memoirs, Klimenko added: “I yielded to the lovely invitation and lived for some time with Pyotr Ilyich.” Tchaikovsky dedicated his song “Why?” to Klimenko.
Vladimir Shilovsky (1852–1893) was a wealthy singer and poet who often traveled with and for a time supported Tchaikovsky, who had been his professor of composition at the Moscow Conservatory. Their early attachment was strong, and despite the composer’s discomfort with being financially dependent on someone much younger, they remained close for years. The ballet Swan Lake was completed at the poet’s residence in 1876, and Tchaikovsky’s Two Piano Pieces, Op. 10, are dedicated to Shilovsky.
One of Tchaikovsky’s final attachments was to Alexander Stenbock-Fermor (born 1875), an 18-year-old nephew of a close friend of Czar Alexander III, a circumstance that led to threats of blackmail. The composer also had a deep but possibly platonic love for his nephew, Vladimir (“Bob”) Davidov (1871-1906), the dedicatee of his last great work, the Sixth Symphony (Pathétique).
Beyond these romantic and erotic attractions, Tchaikovsky had numerous anonymous sexual encounters, sometimes leaving him feeling remorseful afterward. Later in life he was reluctant to see two old friends, the dandy Nikolay Kondratyev (1837–1887) and the unsavory Prince Aleksey Golitsyn (1832–1901), whose intrigues and debauchery had become tiresome. As Alexander Poznansky wrote in Tchaikovsky: The Quest for the Inner Man: “Tchaikovsky’s letters and diaries make it clear that his feelings regarding the homosexual underground were always divided. The exotic subculture and the various individuals who belonged to it simultaneously repelled and attracted him, and he never completely resolved the ambiguity of his attitude.”
One of the last pieces Tchaikovsky heard was a performance of his Eugene Onegin at the Mariinsky Theater in late October 1893. His illness became acute, and a week later he died in the presence of his brothers Modest and Nikolay and the ever-faithful Aleksey Sofronov and Bob Davydov. Opinion has long been divided about the cause of Tchaikovsky’s death. Was it from cholera, suicide, or both? What is certain is that on November 10, 1893, he was accorded a state funeral paid for by the Czar, and it was said to have been the largest funeral St. Petersburg had ever seen.
Charles Timbrell, a pianist and author of French Pianism (1999), is professor emeritus of music at Howard University in Washington, DC.
