John Suchet is the author of a distinctly impressive series of composer biographies as well as being a noted expert on classical music more generally. He has previously explored the lives of Beethoven, Mozart, Verdi and two generations of the Strauss family, with the books in his Composer series having garnered significant praise due to their well-researched yet highly readable nature and admirable aesthetic qualities. In his latest book, Tchaikovsky: The Man Revealed, Suchet explores the complex life and works of Russia’s arguably most successful composer. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was a fragile, emotional child – his former nanny described him as being “brittle as porcelain” and “a child of glass” – who was hugely sensitive to criticism, a trait that would remain with him throughout his life, despite the monumental success that he would later achieve with his music. Tchaikovsky was introduced to the wonder of music at a young age when his father returned from a business trip with an orchestrion, a barrel-organ-like instrument that could simulate the sounds of an orchestra, which inspired the boy to attempt to recreate its music using the family’s piano. However, although Tchaikovsky’s parents were initially delighted by their son’s musical prowess, they were very keen that such activities not get in the way of more “serious” endeavours. In fact, Tchaikovsky’s parents decided (perhaps surprisingly early on) that their son should pursue a career as a civil servant and, hence, at the age of ten he was enrolled in the Imperial School of Jurisprudence in St Petersburg. Tchaikovsky did well at school, graduating thirteenth in his class, and entering the civil service as a junior assistant at the age of nineteen. Tchaikovsky apparently considered that he was a bad civil servant, although the evidence suggests that he was well thought of by his colleagues and superiors, and he remained in the service for a few years. However, music regained its hold over Tchaikovsky and in 1862 he enrolled as one of the first students at the St Petersburg Conservatory. From that point on, he dedicated his life to music, although his journey towards becoming a successful composer was rather circuitous, involving stints as a music teacher, pretty savage criticism from others in the world of opera and classical music, periods of illness and depression, and numerous doomed love affairs and secret liaisons. In Tchaikovsky: The Man Revealed, John Suchet provides readers with a generally chronological account of the great composer’s life from childhood until his untimely death in 1893. Suchet includes in his account numerous quotes from letters and diaries and biographical recollections of Tchaikovsky, in addition to many photographs and illustrations, which really help to flesh out the narrative and illuminate the more human side of the composer. The latter aspect is particularly important given the huge amount of censorship that Tchaikovsky’s life story has been subject to, both during his lifetime and in the intervening years, particularly with regards to his homosexuality. Of course, Suchet also casts an expert eye over Tchaikovsky’s musical output, both the successes and the failures, highlighting how elusive inspiration often proved to be and how Tchaikovsky was rarely fully happy with his own work. Tchaikovsky: The Man Revealed is a hugely impressive biography that is packed full of facts and otherwise little-known information. While clearly a comprehensive and thoroughly researched account of Tchaikovsky’s life, it still manages to be a light and enjoyable book that educates the reader, seemingly without overtly seeking to do so. It’s also a beautifully produced book that is a real pleasure to read.

The book was informative,well laid out and presented, and l found myself lost in another time of Russian history.A very enjoyable read and l would definitely recommend it!

Having read three of John Suchet's books (Strauss, Mozart and Verdi) and a biography by another author of Tchaikovsky, I was looking forward to reading this book. John Suchet asks in his Author's note whether, although Tchaikovsky's homosexuality is well know, we should ignore his "predilection for youth" and states that there is emphatic need that it should be discussed. There are no contemporary biographies of Tchaikovsky. His brother Modest wrote one some years after Tchaikovsky's death, although this tends to overlook any negative factors. A later biography by Modest and a large number of letters have subsequently been censored by the Soviet authorities and some have still not been released. In this book John Suchet makes use of various letters written by or to Tchaikovsky, but also seems to make too many assumptions and suppositions about whether Tchaikovsky has intimate relations with youths. Often the book says "there is no proof but we can speculate...". My disappointment with this book is that Tchaikovsky's sexuality, although it cannot be ignored, dominates the narrative at the expense of the music. Admittedly the book is titled "The man revealed" but the other books by Suchet give much greater emphasis on the composer and his music than this book. Most people buying this book will want to learn more about Tchaikovsky as a composer, not a long catalogue of his young male friends and whether his relationship with them became "intimate"