I am appalled by what is happening in Ukraine, but I was sad to read the suggestion of Oleksandr Tkachenko, Ukraine’s minister of culture, that we should refuse to perform Tchaikovsky (As Ukraine’s culture minister, I’m asking you to boycott Tchaikovsky until this war is over, 7 December). During the second world war, the day after Germany invaded Holland, the German mezzo-soprano Elena Gerhardt, exiled in London, sang a programme of German song with the pianist Myra Hess at the National Gallery. Gerhardt had said to Hess that “nobody will want to hear the German language”, but Hess persuaded her to sing nevertheless.
As she stepped on to the platform, she received such an overwhelming ovation that it took her some time before she was able to sing. The audience understood that the great works of German music represented the best of German civilisation at a time when the Nazis were destroying it. Likewise, Tchaikovsky represents the best of Russian civilisation. Tchaikovsky himself wrote to a fellow composer “though born Russians, we are at the same time even more Europeans”. He too would have been appalled at what Putin is doing to Ukraine.
Robert Philip
Edinburgh
