UK’s John Suchet, OBE, on Tchaikovsky, The Nutcracker, & Ballets

[00:00:00] Albert Cheng: Well, hello again, everybody. It’s good to be with you on another episode of the Learning Curve podcast. I’m one of your co hosts this week, Dr. Albert Cheng from the University of Arkansas, and co hosting with me this week is Jocelyn Chadwick. Jocelyn, happy holidays and great to see you. Happy holidays and great to see you.

[00:00:43] I’m really looking forward to this show. I mean, we’ve got John Suchet, who’s gonna talk to us, speaking about the holidays, about Tchaikovsky and the Nutcracker.

[00:00:51] Jocelyn Chadwick: This is gonna be a real treat, I think. Tchaikovsky is one of my favorites. He, he really is. And my best, best favorite of the ballets is, of course, The Nutcracker.

[00:01:02] And I love the way, the, the story of how Tchaikovsky comes into writing the music for the book that was initially written by Dumas. And it’s just, it’s just wonderful. You know, once they convince Tchaikovsky to write some music to accompany it, it’s just, it’s wonderful. It debuted in 1944 at Christmastime, and it has been, you know, like gangbusters ever since.

[00:01:29] And I just, I think that being able to speak with John today, and to go back and review just how the Nutcracker came into being, As a story, then as this amazing ballet and other interpretations as things that moved on, including film. A big film was made of it in 2018. I think this is, this has to be a magnificent session.

[00:01:53] So preparing for it was excellent.

[00:01:56] Albert Cheng: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we’re looking forward to that coming on the flip side of the break, but just real quick before we do that, I guess we talk education news for just a brief second, and we’re wrapping up with the end of the year. And, you know, I think one article caught my eye, which I think gives a nice summary of, you know, the top education policy issues of 2024.

[00:02:16] It’s put up by the 74. Pandemic politics, pre-K and more. 12 charts that define education in 2024. I just wanna point listeners to that. You’ll see coverage about AI and esser funding and achievement gaps, student mental health, post-secondary enrollment rates. All the salient things we seem to have talked about this past year.

[00:02:37] So check that news story out. But uh, hey Jocelyn, I’m really looking forward to this interview. Let’s move away from talking about policy and let’s talk about some of the timeless creations, namely the nutcracker, that really demonstrates what humans are capable of. So stick around. On the flip side of the break, we’re going to have John Suchet join us.

[00:03:09] John Suchet, officer of the Order of the British Empire, presented Classic FM’s flagship morning show in Britain for almost a decade, and then the nightly Classic FM concert for the following two years. Before turning to classical music, John was one of England’s most respected television journalists. As a reporter, he covered world events, including the Iran Revolution, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the Philippines Revolution.

[00:03:39] In 1986, he was voted Television Journalist of the Year, in 1996, Television Newscaster of the Year, and in 2008, the Royal Television Society awarded him a Lifetime Achievement Award. The Royal Academy of Music has awarded him an Honorary Fellowship in recognition of his work on Beethoven. He has published numerous books on Beethoven and other composers, beginning with a three volume biographical novel, The Last Master, 1996 to 1998.

[00:04:07] This was followed by The Friendly Guide to Beethoven, published in 2006, The Treasures of Beethoven, in 2008, Beethoven, The Man Revealed, in 2012, and In Search of Beethoven, A Personal Journey, published in 2024. Suchet has also published the biographies The Last Waltz, The Strauss Dynasty, and Vienna. Mozart, The Man Revealed, Verdi, The Man Revealed, and Tchaikovsky, The Man Revealed.

[00:04:35] Suchet was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2023 New Year’s Honors for services to journalism and charity. Mr. Suchet, welcome to the show. It’s a pleasure to have you on.

[00:04:47] John Suchet: Thank you so much. Pleasure to be here.

[00:04:50] Albert Cheng: Well, I’m really looking forward to this interview. Talk a little bit about how you got into classical music.

[00:04:55] I mean, you’re a distinguished television journalist, and you host a widely celebrated classical radio program in England, and you’ve authored numerous acclaimed biographies of composers, including Peter Tchaikovsky. Well known for his great ballet, Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker, among a lot of other pieces.

[00:05:14] How did you come to love classical music? And why don’t you also summarize while you’re at it, why Tchaikovsky is one of the most successful Russian composers of all time? My

[00:05:24] John Suchet: interest in classical music began as a teenager. I’m really, really a bit of a, bit of a geeky nerd when it comes to classical music.

[00:05:32] When I was at school, as a teenager, my schoolmates were all into Bill Haley and the Comets, and Chubby Pecker and the Twist. This was pre Beatles, pre Rolling Stones, but American rock and roll was coming over across the Atlantic. here to Britain, and all my schoolmates were really into that, and I was into Tchaikovsky.

[00:05:53] They used to say to me, forget what, but I just loved Tchaikovsky. I loved classical music. My dad insisted that I learn the violin and the piano, and I was mediocre at both. I did switch, I switched to the more forgiving trombone, and became not a bad jazz trombonist, but my love of classical music began around the age of 15 or 16, one of my aunts gave me a recording, an old vinyl LP, of Tchaikovsky’s Fantasy Overture, Romeo and Juliet.

[00:06:26] I put it on my wind up gramophone, and it blew me away. And I thought, wow. This is the music for me, and I became an absolute Tchaikovsky obsessive, and I love him still to this day, which is why I’ve written a biography of him. And just to sort of put the musical career to bed, I was quite good on the trombone and made the decision to go to the Royal Academy of Music, study trombone, and become a professional musician.

[00:06:51] Fortunately for the world of music, I changed my mind. I just did not have the talent. I had the interest, which I still have, but not the talent. So instead of being able to play the music, I write about it, which is not as good as being able to play for it, but it at least allows me to indulge my passion.

[00:07:11] So the passion for music, classical music in particular, has always been there at the back of my life. And as a TV journalist, traveling the world as a reporter covering Not very nice events, revolutions, riots, wars around the world, and that sort of thing. I always had a Walkman in my pocket, and I might well have 5th symphonies.

[00:07:33] Not necessarily his 6th, because that’s a little bit more downbeat, but lots of Beethoven, always. Beethoven is my ultimate idol. Uh, so I’ll always have the Eroica in my pocket. But Tchaikovsky, to get back to your question, What has made him such an enduringly popular composer? Quite possibly, along with his great hero, Mozart.

[00:07:56] They probably vie to be described as the most popular classical composers who ever lived. And interestingly, Tchaikovsky revered Mozart. He called him the Jesus Christ of music. And I’ve been to his home, Tchaikovsky’s, outside Moscow in the little town of Klin. And there’s a big portrait of Mozart in his study, looking down on the piano.

[00:08:20] And the short answer to the question, why is Tchaikovsky so popular? is that, in my opinion, he was the most naturally gifted melodist. of them all. There’s not necessarily oodles of depth in Tchaikovsky’s music, particularly his orchestral music. You don’t have to delve deeply and strain to work out what he’s trying to tell us.

[00:08:43] It’s just providing us with one immortal melody after another. He simply could not stop the melodies coming, and his ballets are the classic example of that. And interestingly, only when I started researching his life did I realize he only ever wrote three This one, mate, Sleeping Beauty, Nutcracker. He wrote around a dozen operas, of which only one remains sort of in the repertoire, and they’re not easy to sing melodies out of, but the ballets, only three, and each one among the most popular ever performed anywhere in the world, simply because they are crammed with unforgettable melodies, and that is Tchaikovsky’s great talent. He was a melodist.

[00:09:29] Albert Cheng: That’s fascinating, uh, the reference to Mozart being like, geez, I, I, it’s, I heard it’s been said that Mozart descended from heaven because he was able to, uh, spin out melodies while Beethoven and Haydn had to ascend to heaven, but anyway, we’ll have to get you on to talk about some other composers maybe on a different show, uh, but let’s get back to Tchaikovsky.

[00:09:47] Yeah. So according to your biography, Tchaikovsky was, quote, a shy, emotional child intended for the civil service by his father. He came late to composing as a career and despite his success he was a troubled character. So tell us a bit more about Tchaikovsky’s life. Sketch it out for us, his young life, his family background, education, and then how he ultimately got into music.

[00:10:08] John Suchet: Yeah, well, it’s interesting, I mean, Tchaikovsky from his earliest days loved music, and he had a wonderful governess who let him listen to music and what have you. He was born and brought up in a rather affluent household in the small town of Votkinsk, just west of the Urals, and his father had a good job there.

[00:10:29] Votkinsk was renowned then as it is now. for its natural iron ore deposits. And there was a factory there in the 19th century that made iron ore equipment for the Imperial Russian Navy, and its major produce was anchors, ship’s anchors. And that is the symbol of the town today. If you go to Votkinsk today, there’s the sign saying Votkinsk, there’s a picture of an anchor.

[00:10:57] underneath it because it was famous then for its production of anchors and the state owned company that produced them The manager of that was Tchaikovsky’s father and it’s quite a prestigious job. And with the job came a nice house on the shores of a lake and Tchaikovsky was born and grew up there.

[00:11:19] And this is the sort of thing I always say, if you, if you want to write a story about someone who actually lived like a composer, you must go to where they lived. And Nula, my wife and I went to Votkinsk. Difficult journey, but we got there, and we got to his house, which is now a museum to him. And this is the sort of thing you only learn from going there.

[00:11:41] Our lovely guide showed us his nursery in this house, which had a bench, and he used to kneel on that bench and look out of the window. And she said, as you can see, there is a reservoir, man made reservoir, that he looked out over. And when he was a child, what do you think was on that lake? The answer?

[00:12:01] Swans. So, it was many years before he would write the world’s most popular ballet, but without any doubt, the seed was sown then. So, he was already thinking artistically, thinking musically, and was already skilled. The father one day came home with a small keyboard. Tchaikovsky indulged himself as a boy on this keyboard, but his father would have none of it.

[00:12:26] The father would Uh, rather annoyingly, I mean, for the family, especially for Tchaikovsky, I mean, he had, as I say, he had this wonderful governess, Fanny Duerbach was her name, she was French, and the father resigned his job. Because he managed to land a really lucrative job in St. Petersburg, which is where he was originally from.

[00:12:49] So he moved the whole family from Votkinsk, northwest to St. Petersburg. Fanny didn’t come with them. She liked it in Votkinsk and was employed by another family. And so the father disrupted family life in a major way. Got to St. Petersburg, or rather, I think it was Moscow, actually, to find there was no job for him.

[00:13:11] So this was enormously disruptive to young Tchaikovsky. The family moved around, he was looking for work, and when it came to school age, Tchaikovsky said to his father he wanted to pursue a career in music. The father said in so many words, don’t be ridiculous, and put him into the school of jurisprudence to learn to become a lawyer and a civil servant, which, of course, he hated.

[00:13:35] And it was there that his sexual predilection first started coming out, which set him apart, although he was no, there was no stranger to that in this school. He was one of many. And it cemented his his sexual orientation. And by the time he graduated, he knew he was different to other people because of his homosexuality.

[00:13:57] He at last persuaded his father to allow him to go to the newly opened St. Petersburg Conservatoire of Music. So at last he was allowed, I think he was 18 or 19 by then, to study music and he put the law and the civil service behind him and never looked back. Although, as I said earlier, The melodies just naturally flowed from him.

[00:14:21] He was his harshest critic from his earliest time on. He thought the music he was producing was worthless, and if anybody criticized his music, it hurt him deeply. And he would rewrite it, and he would agonize. So we would think those immortal melodies emerging from him. That he would know the genius he had, like both Mozart and Beethoven. Neither, especially Beethoven, was never modest about his talent. Tchaikovsky certainly was, and he didn’t believe his music was worth anything.

[00:14:54] Albert Cheng: Let’s talk about a couple of the issues you’ve brought up in a bit more detail. First, let’s talk about the complexity of his private and emotional life and connection to music. I mean, you write in your biography that, quote, from Tchaikovsky’s disastrous marriage to his many amorous liaisons and his devotion to friends and family, as well as his attempts to suppress his homosexuality, it all took a huge toll. So, say more about, again, his private and emotional life and how this played out in his genius for composing music.

[00:15:24] John Suchet: Well, yes, I mean, his homosexuality It was something that he was bitterly ashamed of, and he called it a deviation or deviance. He said it is not normal, it is an illness. And he had a wide circle of gay friends, none of whom had any problem with their homosexuality. And they used to say to him, Piotr, why are you so uptight about it?

[00:15:47] For goodness sake, just relax and enjoy life. You are what you are. And they accepted. He could not bring himself to accept it, and he made the disastrous decision. I forget the exact age. I think he was in his late 20s, or it might have been early 30s. And he wrote to his younger brother, who also, was homosexual.

[00:16:08] First of all, Tchaikovsky blamed himself for the fact that his youngest brother was homosexual. And then he wrote to his youngest brother, Modest, saying, I’ve made a decision. I know how to cure myself of his words. Once and for all, I’m going to get married. That was the biggest mistake of his life, because from the moment the Orthodox priest allowed him to kiss the bride, he knew he’d made the mistake of his life.

[00:16:33] And from day one, it was a disaster. They separated quite soon. He relentlessly pursued him, but he knew. It wasn’t for him. And he pours this out, at this stage, in his music. For instance, his Symphony No. 4, of his six symphonies, the first three are nice, they’re good, but 4, 5, and 6 are the works of genius.

[00:16:57] And the first of those, No. 4, he called, My Fate, My Destiny. And he was composing it in the early part of his marriage to Antonina, and he, it is fate. I mean, the opening bars of it, quite extraordinary. The opening bars of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4, horns and bassoons, ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba.

[00:17:25] There’s nothing nice and melodic about that. And he called it, my fate. And if you think about it, Beethoven’s 5th, not that much different, so Tchaikovsky is clearly giving his version of fate. And at this stage, he has developed the most incredible relationship with a patron, a patroness. Unlike any relationship in classical music, Nadezhda von Meck, she inherited a vast amount of money from her late husband, who had made a lot of money with the burgeoning railways which were bringing citizens in Russia within reach of each other for the first time, left her a fortune, she adored Tchaikovsky’s music, and she pledged him, I will pay you a monthly stipend, enough for you to forget your money worries, on one condition, we must never meet.

[00:18:21] Quite extraordinary. Tchaikovsky, this was right up his street. First of all, he was financially free. Secondly, there was no danger of a relationship developing. She refused to meet him. And that lasted for 13 years. And the first major piece of music he composed with Nadezhda von Meck as his patroness was Symphony No.

[00:18:42] 4 and he wrote to her saying, I am in a disastrous situation, here is the symphony that explains what has happened to me. And he dedicated it to her, the dedication to this day of Symphony No. 4 is to, and she wouldn’t allow him to use her name, and I think he, he says something like, to a special friend, or something like that.

[00:19:03] And you can listen to the Fourth Symphony as a superb piece of music, but if you know what’s happening in his private life, you really do understand it. Yeah,

[00:19:12] Albert Cheng: yeah. Well, I’ll have to listen to that again with this in mind now. That’s quite enlightening. Earlier you mentioned he studied at a conservatory in St.

[00:19:20] Petersburg. Let’s talk about that stage of his life. So he was a, Late blooming pianist composer, and again, his early career was initially under the control of those Russian conservatories in St. Petersburg and Moscow. And sadly, he often second guessed and questioned his own talents. Again, that’s another point you’ve alluded to.

[00:19:39] He had harsh critics. Well, the public enjoyed his work. So talk about his career, uh, a bit more about how this was all managed by his patrons and the reception by critics and popular audiences.

[00:19:51] John Suchet: Yeah, well, to go back to his conservatory days in St. Petersburg, it was not a happy time. It was newly opened and it was run by, uh, a musician, an educationalist by the name of Anton Rubinstein, who was a brilliant pianist, and he was the spitting image to look at of Beethoven, and his fingers were like Beethoven’s, and he played the piano like Beethoven did, and he considered himself almost to be a re reincarnation of Beethoven, and he was a genius.

[00:20:20] Not kind to Tchaikovsky. Tchaikovsky was quite ethique, quite gentle, quite calm, whereas Rubinstein was this Beethovenian figure. And probably homophobic as well, though we don’t have any concrete proof of that. He was married with a family. Tchaikovsky was very obviously gay. And he gave Tchaikovsky a really difficult time.

[00:20:43] at the conservatory. He criticized Tchaikovsky’s work. Tchaikovsky had to produce an overture for his graduation, and Rubenstein ripped it apart. But he did finally give him his degree, and then his brother, Anton Rubenstein’s brother, Nikolai, opened a conservatory in Moscow a few years after the St.

[00:21:05] Petersburg one. And Anton said to his brother, look, I’ve got this student, he’s actually very good. But I can’t get on with him. I can’t make him out. I’m going to send him to you. And Tchaikovsky moved down to Moscow, into the Moscow Conservatory, and Nikolai was a much more congenial fellow, brilliant pianist, and Tchaikovsky actually enjoyed his time at the Moscow Conservatory.

[00:21:30] And he was so good that after he graduated, Nikolai Rubinstein gave him an appointment as a professor. at the Moscow Conservatory. Now, he hated teaching. All great composers hate teaching, whether they’re Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn, Tchaikovsky, but it brought in some money. Sadly, it was at that conservatory that he met Antonina Mikhailova, who he then went on to marry.

[00:21:54] She was a student. But apart from that disastrous episode, he at least was making his name. And while he was a professor there, he produced his first work, of what we would call genius, namely the fantasy overture, Romeo and Juliet. And interestingly, as I say, that was, I think, the first LP I ever bought of Jack Dawson.

[00:22:17] And it does have this soaring love theme in it. Bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah. And the whole story of Romeo and Juliet is distilled into 16 or 17 minutes of music. Dum, da da dum, dum da dum da dum, all the tragedy, the trauma of the two families fighting each other. But that love theme is always there and it’s there right at the end.

[00:22:43] And interestingly, what I didn’t know at the time was Tchaikovsky had just had an intense love affair with a much younger man and it had ended in tears. And he rewrote that overture several times over the years. The famous ending, which is syncopated chords of real. As the lovers die together, you know, the tragedy, he only added that in the final version, but that soaring love theme is there in the first version, and it’s there in the final version.

[00:23:14] Interesting, fascinating. He’s giving us his story in music.

[00:23:18] Albert Cheng: Fascinating. Well, I’m going to turn it over to Jocelyn in a little bit to talk about the Nutcracker, but I have to get in a question about another famous piece, the 1812 Overture.

[00:23:26] John Suchet: Yeah.

[00:23:27] Albert Cheng: This was commissioned by Czar Alexander I and commemorates Russia’s successful defense against Napoleon. For our listeners who are in Boston, you know, you hear this all the time when you’re at the Esplanade on July 4th. But anyway, it’s well known for the climactic cannon fire, the chimes, you know, the brass fanfare finale. So discuss this powerful piece, which is quite popular, really.

[00:23:49] John Suchet: Alexander I wanted to celebrate the defeat of Napoleon in his failed invasion of Russia.

[00:23:57] He got to Moscow, but they burned it and then he had to retreat in the winter and all that sort of thing. What he commissioned was a church to be built, the Church of Christ the Savior. And 70 years later, it still wasn’t complete. But Alexander III, his descendant, I think it was, said, look, this has gone on for long enough.

[00:24:15] Let’s open the bloody thing for goodness sake, just get it open. And they commissioned Tchaikovsky to write a piece to celebrate the opening because it wasn’t complete. They had to erect a tent alongside the church. So Tchaikovsky wrote this piece to celebrate it, and it was first performed in a tent, and it was, I think, to give it its full title, a festive overture.

[00:24:38] We know it as the 1812 overture. And he opens with poignant local Russian themes from folk songs, and ends with a cannon fire and fireworks and the glorious Him to the Tsar, da da da da da da, ba ba ba, as the cannon go off. And he wrote to Nadezhda von Meck, his patron, said, I’ve written a piece of music, it has no artistic merit whatsoever.

[00:25:03] And he really, really didn’t rate it because he said, I’ve got to write it for this celebration thing. I don’t want to do it, but I’ll do it anyway. And my radio station here, Classic FM, just said, We have a Hall of Fame vote every year, to which hundreds of thousands of people vote their favourite piece of classical music.

[00:25:21] And it’s way up there as his most popular piece of music ever written. And he hated it.

[00:25:30] Jocelyn Chadwick: That’s wonderful. I’m so glad that I’m, you called yourself earlier a geeky nerd, so to even it out, this is, I am one geeky nerd talking to another geeky nerd, because I fell in love with Joukowsky and Puccini at second grade.

[00:25:45] Fantastic,

[00:25:46] John Suchet: yeah.

[00:25:47] Jocelyn Chadwick: Yeah, so when you said that I thought, wow. Oh, so we have something in common.

[00:25:52] Um, so, with that, let’s continue to talk about the Nutcracker, which is one of my favorites. In 1844, French novelist Alexandre Dumas adapted the Prussian storyteller E. T. A. Hoffman’s 1816 scary short story into a sweeter tale that became the basis for Tchaikovsky’s immortal ballet, The Nutcracker, 1891 92.

[00:26:20] Will you provide all of us a brief synopsis of the story of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, and tell us about how he selected this story as a subject for what ultimately became his most famous ballet.

[00:26:36] John Suchet: Yes, I mean, The Nutcracker, it’s very, it has a special place in musical history. First of all, he didn’t select the story.

[00:26:43] The story was brought to him, and he was asked to set it to music. And as you say, Dumas version is much sweeter and gentler than the original one, and by the time Tchaikovsky has dealt with it, and the scenes have been set, it’s an altogether frothier piece. And the first interesting thing to say about it is it came very late in life for him.

[00:27:06] And the story is set on Christmas Eve, and there is this family, and in continental Europe, Christmas Eve is of more importance than Christmas Day. Not here in the UK, Christmas Day, the meal is the big thing for us, but in France, Germany, Austria, Russia, you name it, it’s Christmas Eve that is the big celebration.

[00:27:26] And this story takes place on Christmas Eve, and it’s all to do with the daughter, Clara, And there are gifts under the tree, including a nutcracker, and she goes to bed and in the middle of the night she comes back down to the tree, and the toys come alive, the nutcracker turns into a prince, there’s a battle between the prince and his enemy, he gets injured.

[00:27:50] Anyway, it all ends happily ever after, obviously. It’s called the Kingdom of Sweets that they’re transported to. And interestingly, the Kingdom of Sweets In act two, there’s only two acts in this ballet, is where you get the famous selection of dances. You get the Russian dance, the Chinese dance, the Arabian dance, the dance of the merlitons, the dance of the sugar plum fairy, and it ends with the glorious waltz of the flowers.

[00:28:17] Now, Tchaikovsky composed this set of dances in the Kingdom of the Sweets. At the same time, he was composing the whole ballet, but even he knew, oh, blimey, this is, this is a bit special. These are all really rather good. They’re only three or four minutes each, but they’re instantly memorable. They provide great fun for the dancers.

[00:28:39] The ballet, you know, Chinese dance, Arabian dance, dance of the sugar plum fairy and what have you. And before the first performance of the ballet, he hived this set off and published it separately as the Nutcracker Suite. And it’s that that became world famous. And it’s that that you hear to this day when they say, now here is Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker.

[00:29:04] It’s always those little dances that you hear because they are so instantly popular. And he knew it. He knew, unlike most of the time when he was So, hypercritical of his own music. He knew he had written something special, probably thought it was worthless. What is a dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy? The dance of the Merlitons?

[00:29:24] That’s not worth, that’s not real music. That’s not like Beethoven or Haydn or Mozart, but it’s jolly nice and it’s easily memorable. So I’m going to publish them separately. And as I say, they became an instant hit. Hit in time. On the opening night of the ballet itself, the word the critics used to describe, first of all, the story was lopsided, and then they described the ballet dancer who danced the Sugar Plum Fairy as corpulent.

[00:29:57] Now, this is language that is not woke, and is the sort of thing we’re not allowed to say today. It happened, interestingly, with Verdi’s La Traviata, the premiere of that. Here is Violetta, who’s supposed to be dying of consumption, and as one critic pointed out, nothing wrong with her, look at her, she’s a big fat lady, she’s not dying of consumption.

[00:30:18] Language that was allowed at the time. And similarly, with Tchaikovsky’s Sugar Plum Fairy, she attracted the same sort of criticism. So the first night was not a huge success. And indeed, Tchaikovsky died without knowing that it would become the worldwide success that it has.

[00:30:36] Jocelyn Chadwick: That’s the ultimate irony, isn’t it?

[00:30:37] John Suchet: Yeah.

[00:30:38] Jocelyn Chadwick: That it is as large, it is just so magnificently gigantic, and he had no clue. I mean, that’s just, so we’re gonna, we’re gonna delve a little bit more into your, what you’re exploring. Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker is known for its use of orchestral colors, which is what you’ve been discussing, and the romantic style.

[00:30:57] He paints musical pictures, a world of toys and candies with sounds that some say resemble crystallized ginger, sponge sugar, glittering snow. Music is notoriously difficult to describe in words. However Would you help explain, as you have been doing, how to use the full array of orchestral instruments to create the magic of the Nutcracker?

[00:31:22] John Suchet: Yeah, the, the first thing to say is Tchaikovsky was a great orchestrator. He was a good pianist, but even he said, I’m not a great pianist. I’m good, but I’m not great. And so he did not himself premier his famous first piano concerto. He said, no, I’m not gonna risk that. I’ll give it to a professional. Same with his second piano concerto.

[00:31:42] But he was a great orchestrator. He’d create his melodies on the piano, and then he would orchestrate them in Nutcracker. More than any other ballet. As you said, he uses this full array of Chinese sounds, Arabian sounds, sugar plum sounds and so on and so forth. I think the Celeste is what he uses in the Sugar Plum Fairy and it gives it this wonderful, not eerie, but otherworldly quality.

[00:32:08] It’s like an electric piano almost. Wonderful sound. And as I say, he was, was brilliant. Marvellous at creating these sounds. And you have to remember the crucial element about the Nutcracker, which makes it so immediately placeable, is it takes place on Christmas Eve. So there’s a massive Christmas tree on the stage.

[00:32:28] That’s why it is always put on by great ballet companies in America, in Russia, and Europe around the world. at Christmas time. In fact, there’s a TV series running here at the moment on television in the UK behind the scenes at the Birmingham Royal Ballet as they prepare a production, a new production, of Nutcracker.

[00:32:50] And it’s going to be on right over Christmas. So in a way, you know, it’s simpler to create joyous sounds at a joyous time of year. Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, they’re beautiful ballets, but you don’t place them in time. Another example of an operetta that you do is Johann Strauss The Youngest Die Fledermaus, which takes place on New Year’s Eve.

[00:33:15] and New Year’s Day. And so there’s a new production of it every New Year’s Eve at Vienna State Opera. So it is a Christmas operetta. So it’s easier to place in time. And of course it’s full of champagne. The champagne is flowing right through it and people going to see it around about New Year are drinking champagne before they go in in the interval and afterwards.

[00:33:37] Similarly with the nutcracker you can place it in time and it’s a particularly Joyous time, unlike Easter, for instance, which begins with the crucifixion, so you’ve got great masses, Bach’s Mass in B minor, Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, all this kind of stuff, which is, you know, even handles Messiah. When you get to the Easter part, you’re dealing with the crucifixion, then the resurrection, but there isn’t that joyousness of spirit that there is at Christmas.

[00:34:06] And so it’s easier to place, you Nutcracker for that reason.

[00:34:10] Jocelyn Chadwick: You know, you’ve taken me back. I studied there, but I’ve spent the holidays there, and you’re so right. It is just, it’s amazing. That’s, wow, I had not really thought about that in a number of years. So the next question, we’re still going to follow up, because this is a follow up to the follow up.

[00:34:27] Tchaikovsky’s music is, of course, traditionally Russian, though he also liked to travel. The Nutcracker has a fantastical and exotic quality, especially, and you cited these earlier, the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, Spanish Dance, Chocolate, Arabian Dance, Coffee, Chinese Dance, Tea, the Russian Dance, Candy Canes.

[00:34:49] Will you talk about Tchaikovsky’s inspiration for this wide variety of imaginative music drawn from other nations and cultures?

[00:34:59] John Suchet: Tchaikovsky was a great traveler. He loved getting out of Russia, and particularly traveling around Europe. And he visited so many countries on tour, conducting his own work, but his favorite country of all, bar none, was Italy.

[00:35:14] And his favorite city was Florence. And he would go to Italy almost every summer. He loved the French Riviera. So, he was very open to other cultural Influences the music of other cultures. If you take, for instance, there’s a wonderful piece he wrote called Capriccio Italien. It’s a piece that lasts 15 or 20 minutes and it starts off with a fanfare which goes on trumpet.

[00:35:40] Bum, bum, ba bum. Bam, bam, ba bam, and then it takes off from there. And I’ve always loved this piece since I was a teenager, but I only, when I was working at Classic FM presenting my radio show, I looked into it a bit more. He was in Rome with his brother when he wrote that piece, and they were sharing a hotel room, and right next to the hotel was an army barracks, and he was woken every morning at six o’clock by a trumpeter or bugler playing a form of Revali, and that is exactly what he reproduces at the beginning of Capriccio Italian.

[00:36:17] So while most of us might, might go and complain to the hotel manager, we can’t sleep with this trumpet every bloody morning. He said, ah, I can use that. So it’s a good example of composers never waste a good tune. So he was open to these other cultural influences. He didn’t stay put in Russia. Russia was quite insular in those times.

[00:36:38] Russians didn’t travel much. The biggest amount of travel that he would do would be down to Ukraine, which was part of Russia, known as Little Russia. And his sister had an estate there, and he would love to spend summers there. His patron, patroness, Nadia Straffon Meck, had an estate there. Of course, he stayed there, but they never met except once accidentally, but that’s another story.

[00:37:00] But as I say, often he would, he would come to Europe on musical tours. And in fact, he was in Hamburg where he met Brahms, Johannes Brahms. And an interesting little story, if I might just digress, neither of them liked each other. Neither of them liked each other’s music. And a mutual friend, when Tchaikovsky was in Hamburg Decided to get them together and invited them both to a lunch, and they both turned up grumpily.

[00:37:26] Much wine was consumed, and at the end of the meal, one of them said to the other, Play me your latest tune on that piano over there. And then the other one said, I’m gonna play you mine now. And the other one said, I’m gonna play you mine. And they started fooling around on the piano together. They got on like a house on fire, Brahms and Tchaikovsky, and although they never met again, they both for the rest of their lives sang each other’s praises.

[00:37:52] Jocelyn Chadwick: That is a wonderful story, I absolutely love that, that is great, that’s good, thank you so much. Another question. The Nutcracker is performed at many companies around the world, which you cited, including the Royal Opera House in London, the Joffrey in Chicago, the Opera Bastille in Paris, and the first woman to perform in the Nutcracker was Annetta Dillett.

[00:38:19] Ava in 1892, and Missy Copeland, of course, here in the United States, has performed this character in 2014, and then in a film for a larger audience in 2018. So, the question is, the New York City’s ballet production of The Nutcracker is one of the company’s highest earning shows, accounting for around 45 percent of its annual ticket sales, as you cited.

[00:38:44] earlier, with other venues. Would you briefly tell us about the success of his other important ballets? Swan Lake, 1877, which is absolutely brilliant. The Sleeping Beauty, 1890, and his opera, Eugene Ogyn, 1879.

[00:39:03] John Suchet: Yeah, yeah. Well, Swan Lake is a very interesting point. Swan Lake is even more popular. I believe, than Nutcracker.

[00:39:10] It came quite early in Tchaikovsky. I think he was in his 30s only when he wrote it. And he wrote it for his niece, nieces and nephew, I think. Interestingly, when he was a very young, young man, he wrote a ballet. I told you that he looked out over a lake as a child that had swans on it. Not many years later, he wrote a ballet that only lasted half an hour, and he called it The Lake of Swans, and it went nowhere, but some years after that, we get the Great Ballet Swan Lake, which was presented to him as a story, and he set it to music, and he absolutely loved the music.

[00:39:52] He loved writing for dance, that surprisingly only wrote three, but each one of them is immortal. And there’s another great, great story, which I’m forced to tell you. When he was in, I think it was in Moscow, at the, a professor at the Moscow Conservatory, the French composer, Camille Saint Saëns, who you may have heard of, came to Moscow.

[00:40:16] And what is not generally known about Saint Saëns was that he was a cross dresser. And he met Tchaikovsky, who was homosexual. The two got on like a house on fire. And Nikolai Rubinstein ran the Moscow Conservatoire. And in the evening, after it had been shut, the three of them went in, and Rubinstein sat at the piano and played some of Tchaikovsky’s ballet music.

[00:40:42] And the two of them Saint Saëns with a tutu, and Tchaikovsky as the male, danced pas de deux together, quietly. Can you imagine having been there to witness that? Wouldn’t that have been wonderful? Anyway, I digress. That would have been worth everything. It would. But I digress. Swan Lake, again, it was not popular when it was first performed.

[00:41:06] It took a long time to take off. It was criticized for being unwieldy, for not working, ridiculous plot about swans, and so on and so forth. And interestingly, Joseph Stalin The dictator, after the Second World War, wouldn’t say, right, Tchaikovsky, Swan Lake, I’m not having that ending. I want the lovers to survive.

[00:41:29] So he ordered somebody to rewrite the ending of Swan Lake. So during the Stalinist era in Russia, Swan Lake had a happy ending. Can you believe that?

[00:41:39] Jocelyn Chadwick: I did not know that story, but I certainly will not forget it.

[00:41:42] John Suchet: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, the ballet as we know it, again, he did not know the success that it would achieve, because in his lifetime, it didn’t achieve great success.

[00:41:52] And we all know now, you know, it’s not only the, I think, the most performed and most successful ballet ever composed, but there’s been one, a wonderful, do you know, Matthew Bourne’s production of it, which is now, you know, More than 20 years old, he’s just re thought it, and it’s just coming out again, with all male swans.

[00:42:12] They’re all male, and of course they’re gay, but they’re powerful swans. So the famous little, the dance of the little swans, where the ballerinas all come in, arms linked and, you know, go across the stage. You want to see that done by a man. By, by aggressive male dancers. And I remember the first time I saw it in performance, going back, oh, 20, 25 years, in the bar, in the interval, I overheard an American couple standing there.

[00:42:39] She turned to him and her husband and she said, and I thought I knew Swan Lake. Sorry about the accent, but you know, you can do so much with it.

[00:42:52] Jocelyn Chadwick: This is great. So one more question and a quote. We’re hoping that you’ll give us a quote. But the question is, will you close by discussing Tchaikovsky’s magnificent, enduring legacy and why his music remains the most popular concert and theatrical music in the current classical repertoire?

[00:43:13] John Suchet: I believe that Tchaikovsky’s eternal popularity, as probably one of the most admired and revered and loved composers of all time, is his facility to create melody. I mean, who can’t hum? The Waltz of the Flowers, or the Waltz from Swan Lake, or one of his glorious waltzes, or Who Doesn’t Recognize the Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy, or Who Can’t Sing Any Melody from the 1812 Overture, or One of his most famous pieces ever that was castigated in his lifetime was his first piano concerto.

[00:43:54] In fact, Nikolai Rubinstein, who was the head of the Conservatoire in Moscow, good, brilliant pianist, Tchaikovsky composed his first piano concerto and said to Rubinstein, I want you to give it its first performance. And Rubinstein said, well, look, let’s go to the Conservatoire and I want you to play it for me.

[00:44:12] And Tchaikovsky played his first piano concerto for Rubinstein, and as he said afterwards, there are three movements, and he said it was as if the concerto was a three course meal, and at the end of every course He didn’t say a word. And then when I played the final chord, he opened up on me saying, that is the most appallingly dreadful, simplistic, ridiculous piece of music you have ever composed.

[00:44:42] Get up. Get off. Let me sit there. And he proceeded to Nick Rubenstein, to parody what Tchaikovsky, and this bit here, what are you, I mean, what’s that supposed to, and Tchaikovsky fled the room in tears, and just for once in his life, he said, no, I’m not altering a note, and we have probably the most famous piano concerto ever written, that opening, ba ba ba bum.

[00:45:12] That opening is just, I mean, who doesn’t know the opening of Kosky Piano can share to number one and yet castigated in his lifetime. But he wrote melodies that are immortal, and I mean, I, I, I hesitate to say this, but not necessarily deep. Unlike Beethoven, say, or unlike, unlike Wagner, or you don’t have to, you don’t have to knit your brow and go, God, what is he trying to say?

[00:45:42] Just sit back and enjoy the melody. And that, I think, accounts for his eternal success.

[00:45:49] Jocelyn Chadwick: I’ve never thought of it that way, but you’re right. You’re right. That’s a brilliant description. Yeah.

[00:45:55] John Suchet: Oh, good. I’m glad. I mean, you know, it’s, it’s just my opinion, but he is hugely popular and everybody can whistle at least one or two melodies that he wrote.

[00:46:08] Do you have a favorite quote you want to share? Well, yes. I mean, I include it in the book. His own description of his creative process. Not many great composers have written about how they actually do the job. And Tchaikovsky did, and I think, I think it’s just quite interesting. Shall I read this to you?

[00:46:27] Jocelyn Chadwick: Oh, please

[00:46:27] John Suchet: do, because I think that’s important. I agree, I agree wholly with you. Okay, these are Tchaikovsky’s words written in a letter, I think, to his younger brother. The seed of a future composition usually reveals itself suddenly in the most unexpected fashion. If the soil is favorable, that is, if I’m in the mood for work, this seed takes root with inconceivable strength and speed, bursts through the soil, puts out roots, leaves, twigs, and finally flowers.

[00:47:00] It would be futile for me to try and express to you in words the boundless bliss of that feeling which envelops you when the main idea has appeared and when it begins to take definite forms. You forget everything. You’re almost insane. Everything inside you trembles and writhes. You scarcely manage to set down sketches.

[00:47:23] One idea presses upon another. And I think that’s fascinating because what he’s saying is I’m not in control of what I write. Somewhere up there, someone’s controlling it, putting it into my head, and it inhabits me so completely. I have to get it down. I have to get it down, otherwise I’ll die. And that’s absolutely a perfect description of a genius at work.

[00:47:50] Beethoven was the same, and it ended up on the page in a complete mess and shambles. Mozart was the same, and it ended up on the page, as Salieri famously put it in Antony Schaffer’s play, as if God put the music into Mozart’s head, it flows down his arm, into his hand, into his pen, and onto the page. No crossings out, nothing.

[00:48:12] Beethoven, crossings out. Tears holes in the paper. And Tchaikovsky wrote neatly, but he had to do it. It poured out of him. And I think that’s one of the best descriptions we have of the white heat of the creative process of composition.

[00:48:30] Jocelyn Chadwick: Brilliant. I really do appreciate that because too often we don’t really have the insight.

[00:48:36] Artists, writers, don’t often share

[00:48:40] John Suchet: what their creator meant

[00:48:41] Jocelyn Chadwick: to them. Yeah, and when they do, it’s always so enlightening for others to hear how they process.

[00:48:49] John Suchet: Yes, absolutely right. Absolutely, yeah. And, you know, we must be grateful to him for putting it down on paper.

[00:48:55] Jocelyn Chadwick: Well, I was grateful for reading your book.

[00:49:00] It was great. It was just wonderful. Thank you so much.

[00:49:03] John Suchet: Thank you, Jocelyn. Thank you.

[00:49:20] Albert Cheng: Well, Jocelyn, that was a lot of fun, wasn’t it?

[00:49:22] Jocelyn Chadwick: I thoroughly enjoyed that. Tchaikovsky is one of my favorites, and I learned so much from John’s book that it was just, it was a treat, especially this time of year.

[00:49:32] Albert Cheng: Yeah, that’s right. Well, for those of you who have tickets to go see a Nutcracker performance somewhere, well, I hope you’ll, uh, enjoy that performance even more after hearing this.

[00:49:40] Before we close out, though, I do want to give the Tweet of the Week. This one comes from Education Week, which states require the most and least instructional time? Find out. So check out that link that’s on that Tweet to see what instructional time requirements look like across states. But speaking of instructional time, I know we’re all closing out the new year, and so kids are going to be hitting their winter breaks in a little bit.

[00:50:04] And so if you’re a parent, I hope you enjoy that time with your kids being home. And speaking of other things to do during this holiday season, we’re not going to have a new episode for the next couple of weeks, but please tune in to see the top 10 most popular episodes of this past year, 2024. But all of us will see you back on January 8th in the new year for a brand new episode of the LearnCurve podcast.

[00:50:33] So Jocelyn, I just want to wish you happy holidays and thanks for being on the show. Happy holidays, and it’s always a pleasure. And for the rest of you listening, happy holidays to you. Be safe, be well, and enjoy the season. Hey, it’s Albert Cheng here, and I just want to thank you for listening to the Learning Curve podcast.

[00:50:54] If you’d like to support the podcast further, we invite you to donate to the Pioneer Institute at pioneerinstitute.org/donations.