Tchaikovsky’s Women - Documentary about Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky | Part 1

Filmmaker Christopher Nupen about the film: “When Manfred Grater of WDR Television in Cologne (the best head of any television music department that the world has seen so far) challenged us to try and make a film about the music of Tchaikovsky, without dressing up an actor and asking him to pretend to be the composer, he brought me back to the genius of a great artist with the passion of a convert. After working at it for more than a year, we realised that there was too much to be contained in a single television film and we ended up making two. The first - this one - looks at the destinies of the women both in his private life and in his music. It looks also at the influence of each on the other. The second, “ Fate“, follows Tchaikovsky’s relationship with Nadezhda von Meck and his increasing preoccupation with the idea of fate as a controlling influence in his own life and as a motivating force in the later symphonies. These anxieties, allied to an early foreboding that he would eventually, “...smash himself into pieces“, were to bring his end, at the age of 53, more tragically than even Tchaikovsky could have foreseen. The films were made with the unstinting help of Professor David Brown and Vladimir Ashkenazy whose musicality, dedication and profound understanding of his compatriot’s music add a rare quality to these films.“ Subscribe to the channel for more content: An Allegro Film by Christopher Nupen