Tchaikovsky’s Last Note

What magic a photo is! It captures a scene, a sight, an expression, a moment in time and we keep it in some way to revisit, to explain, to maybe prove something. In this case it is the desk of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky at his last home in Klin, north of Moscow. At that desk the composer wrote his last notes of music, the unfinished Third Piano Concerto, then left on the midnight train to Saint Petersburg to conduct his last, the Sixth Symphony, and to die. He left us on November 6, 1893 (new calendar).  But we have him with us forever, immortal.

In my world travels over the years, I usually had a camera. but I remember so well the shots I missed–either no camera or no opportunity. Out the car window on a Malaysian country road, dodging the bicycles, was this sight of a worn square brown building with six windows, the whole building side a faded scene which was once a Coca-Cola ad.  And out of the top left window, some thrity feet above the rocky ground, dangled the bare legs of a boy. He looked natural there, unconcerned, in a little escape from the heat of the room beyond him. And we drove on. Pictures in the camera of the mind last just as long, maybe longer 

See the photos on this web site, a few of the thousands I have taken around the globe. Buy here  “Walking on Ice, An American Businessman in Russia”

Dancers are the athletes of God:
Ulyana Lopatkina as Odette/Odile in Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake

Dancers are the athletes of God.

-Albert Einstein-

It is hard to explain why I like classical ballet so much. I was introduced to it as a teenager, when my mother took me to watch The Ballet Russe as they stopped in dusty El Paso, Texas on their way to more cultured cities. I don’t remember the program, probably Swan Lake. But I loved it for some reason and thus always have. It is, to me, the natural coming together of music and human expression. Martha Graham said it well, “Dance is the loftiest, most moving, most beautiful of the arts, because it is not a mere translation or abstraction of life; it is life itself!”

It is not only the Russian ballet but also the music of American Aaron Copland and his great folk ballet scores, “Rodeo.” “Billy the Kid,” “Appalachian Spring” and others with the choreography of Agnes DeMille and Martha Graham. I love those stories and dance art.

But it is Russia where ballet reached it height as a performance art. In my opinion, it remains there. With the dedication and determination so typical in Russia, they took the dance from France and made it their own. Today still the Mariinsky Ballet in St. Petersburg, known during Soviet times as the Kirov, is, for me, the world standard in classical ballet. My favorite ballet is “Romeo and Juliet” by Prokofiev. Their dancers, including the Corps de Ballet, are the best. My favorite dancer is Ulyana Lopatkina who as Odette/Odile in Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake cannot be matched. She is The Swan.

I have been fortunate to see the Mariinsky (Kirov) in St. Petersburg many times, and in Moscow, London, the US. The ballet is another one of those art forms in which Russia has simply excelled. The immortal Anna Pavlova said it best, “No one can arrive from being talented alone. God gives talent; work transforms talent into genius.” And the Russians work very hard at it. That is why they are the best.