Symphony Pathétique

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Symphonie Pathétique is a novel by the writer Klaus Mann . It is about the Russian composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky . Klaus Mann wrote the novel in 1935. It was published by Querido Verlag in Amsterdam . In 1948 a modified American edition was created. The name of the novel is related to Tchaikovsky's 6th Symphony , which is nicknamed Pathétique .

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In this novel by Klaus Mann, the composer Tchaikovsky receives a human monument about his life and work against the backdrop of society in the late 19th century. In a poetically simple and very approachable way, Mann succeeds in portraying Peter Tchaikovsky as a novel hero who one thinks he has known himself. Without further ado, the soul life of the "unwanted traveler" is dealt with in detail. Relations with other contemporary composers are also dealt with, for example, it is claimed that Tchaikovsky has a formally fearful respect for the German master Brahms , but at the same time maintains a close relationship with Edvard Grieg and his wife.

Tchaikovsky has a kind of dependency on his own death - often coupled with suicidal thoughts. Above all, the early death of his mother (known today as suicide) shapes him for a lifetime. His greatest unrequited love is for his heterosexual nephew Vladimir, known as Bob. Klaus Mann gives the composer's emotional torment a lot of space, but also the genesis of his works, especially his nutcracker and the last eponymous Pathétique, are linked to the life of Tchaikovsky.

The work ends with a theatrical narrative of Tchaikovsky's death. The composer's suicide remains speculative. Cholera circulated in St. Petersburg in 1893 . The musician, plagued by suicidal thoughts, demands a glass of water in a restaurant - not mineral water that the attendant points out to him with a reference to the cholera wave, but simply water. He wants to poison himself without anyone noticing. In his opinion, suicide is a sin, but he is a believer. He says that drinking a glass of water cannot be a sin, because “If I die from it, then I will die because God did not heal me.” He wants to go. Klaus Mann describes in detail the ensuing agony of the composer, who finally leaves the world far too early, but apparently prepared.

backgrounds

Klaus Mann and Pyotr Tchaikovsky were primarily linked by their homosexuality . While Mann lived this out openly, Tchaikovsky looked rather disturbed and entered into an unhappy marriage of convenience. Man had to write an American revision because he couldn't find a publisher in the United States . For this he increased u. a. the homoerotic aspects of the work.

expenditure

  • First edition: Symphonie Pathétique. A Tchaikovsky novel. Querido publishing house, Amsterdam 1935.
  • English edition: Pathetic Symphony. A novel about Tchaikovsky. Allen, Towne & Heath, New York 1948.
  • Current edition: Symphonie Pathétique. A Tchaikovsky novel (= Rororo 22478). With an afterword by Fredric Kroll . Extended new edition. Rowohlt-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Reinbek near Hamburg 1999, ISBN 3-499-22478-X . New edition: Rowohlt, Hamburg 2019, ISBN 978-3-499-27648-4 .