Book Review

Tchaikovsky
by Edward Garden

This biography of Tchaikovsky was well written and well organized. I really liked the way Garden wove the narrative of Tchaikovsky's life together with discussions of his music rather than putting them in separate chapters. I also like the clear-eyed assessments of the relative merits (or lack thereof) of the composer's work. However, this book was blighted by Garden's appalling and antiquated homophobia (Tchaikovsky was gay), which was surprisingly retained even in this second edition from 1993.