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Good Book Guide to Stravinsky and Tchaikovsky

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Tchaikovsky: The Man and his Music 
by David Brown (Faber)

Great introduction, even for those new to classical music, from one of the world authorities on Tchaikovsky

    Tchaikovsky
    by Anthony Holden (Bantam Press)

    Lurid account dwelling on the conflict between Tchaikovsky’s public and private life.

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      Tchaikovsky’s Last Days - A Documentary Study
      by Alexander Poznansky (OUP)

      Scholarly study which aims to put to rest the myths surrounding the composer’s death.

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        Tchaikovsky
                 by David Brown (Gollancz)

        (4 volumes: The Early Years; The Crisis Years; The Years of Wandering; The Final Years)
        A classic: especially strong on the music, this monumental and exhaustive study even impressed the Russians.

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          The Tchaikovsky Handbook
          By Alexander Poznansky & Brett Langston (Indiana University Press)

          (2 volumes: Thematic Catalogue of Works, Catalogue of Photographs, Autobiography; Catalogue of Letters, Bibliography)
          The most comprehensive scholarly resource on the subject: if it’s not here it has nothing to do with Tchaikovsky

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            The Life and Letters of Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky
            by Modeste Tchaikovsky, edited and translated by Rosa Newmarch (University Press of the Pacific)

            Substantial overview of Tchaikovsky's life and letters, by the composer's brother.

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              Tchaikovsky's Ballets: Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Nutcracker
              by Roland John Wiley (Clarendon Paperbacks)

              Professor Wiley provides everything you need to know about Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, and the Nutcracker in historical copntext, based on rare and not easily accessible documents of the first productions of these works in imperial Russia.

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                Igor Stravinsky
                by Michael Oliver (Phaidon Press)

                A good start if you’re tempted to dip your toe in

                  Conversations with Stravinsky
                  by Robert Craft (Faber and Faber)

                  Bons mots by the bucketful, this is the first of innumerable books of variable reliability from Stravinsky’s long-time assistant and keeper of the flame.

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                    Stravinsky
                    by Stephen Walsh (Jonathan Cape)

                    (2 vols: A Creative Spring Russia and France 1882 –1934; The Second Exile  - France and America 1934 – 1971)
                    A compulsive read, you’ll want to go back to the music when you read this indispensable two-volume biography, which shows Stravinsky and his circle, warts and all.

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                      An Autobiography
                      by Igor Stravinsky (W.W. Norton)

                      The young Stravinsky in his own words: not all true but fascinating nonetheless

                        The Apollonian Clockwork  - On Stravinsky
                        by Louis Andriessen and Elmer Schönberger (Amsterdam University Press - Amsterdam Archaeological Studies)

                        Fascinating 'holistic' approach from Holland’s leading composer and musicologist which reveals the essential elements of Stravinsky’s music.

                          Poetics of Music
                          by Igor Stravinsky (Harvard University Press)

                          The bees in the 1939 Stravinsky bonnet, originally delivered as Harvard lectures: Wagnerism, Verdi, musical taste, musical snobbery, Soviet music, and music critics.

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                            Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions: A Biography of the Works Through Mavra
                            by Richard Taruskin (OUP - 2 Volumes)

                            Fascinating, penetrating exploration into the Russian influences Stravinsky tried so hard to obscure during his lifetime.

                              Stravinsky in Pictures and Documents
                              by Vera Stravinsky Robert Craft (Hutchinson)

                              Weighty but worthwhile tome on that most photogenic of composers.
                                  Tchaikovsky Experience

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                                  Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky

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