SPRING-SUMMER '25 PICK
“There is more to being a hopeless romantic. This Tchaikovsky bio is a behind the scenes look at how a towering figure in classical music was able to navigate politics and personal struggles to be a success.”
Tchaikovsky’s Empire: A New Life of Russia’s Great Composer by Simon Morrison
Publisher Description: In this iconoclastic biography, celebrated author Simon Morrison re-creates Tchaikovsky’s complex world. His life and art were framed by Russian national ambition, and his work was the emanation of an imperial subject: kaleidoscopic, capacious, cosmopolitan, de-centered. Morrison reexamines the relationship between Tchaikovsky’s music, personal life, and politics; his support of Tsars Alexander II and III; and his engagement with the cultures of the imperial margins, in Ukraine, Poland, and the Caucasus. Tchaikovsky’s Empire unsettles everything we thought we knew—and gives us a vivid new appreciation of Russia’s most popular composer.
How to present this to library customers: A biography like this can be paired with the composer’s famous recordings or works. If you have a sizable classical music collection in streaming and in house, you can use these items to market the book and your collection.
Audience Key:
NOVICE:
A patron who does not know about the arts but is looking for new interests. These items are for public collections that call for you to introduce the arts to patrons and ignite their interests. They often know much more about popular culture than what’s happening in the arts.
EXPLORER:
These items are for customers who have some knowledge of the arts and want to learn more. Oftentimes these patrons stream music from your music streaming service, take out music and art biographies and they may attend music and art programming at your library.
AFICIONADO:
Ordering for aficionados requires knowledge about their habits when consuming the arts. These patrons are aware of the arts through museums, classical music, jazz and more. Oftentimes, these patrons attend music and art programming at your library, are professionals in the arts world with thorough knowledge of visual and/or performing arts.