[HN Gopher] Tchaikovsky's Patroness
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       Tchaikovsky's Patroness
        
       Author : tintinnabula
       Score  : 31 points
       Date   : 2022-01-15 03:48 UTC (19 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (daily.jstor.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (daily.jstor.org)
        
       | friendlydog wrote:
        
       | smitty1e wrote:
       | Possibly she understood the wisdom of never meeting one's heroes.
        
       | abecedarius wrote:
       | > You are paid an enormous, regular annuity . . . but there is a
       | bizarre catch: you can never meet your admirer face-to-face.
       | 
       | 'Catch'? Is that how Tchaikovsky himself saw it? (Didn't see much
       | support for this in the article.) It seems a really neurotypical
       | point of view.
        
         | gwern wrote:
         | I think it's a catch. As it points out, even if you didn't ever
         | want to meet your benefactor, the requirement is still a
         | problem. There you are walking around Italy on vacation,
         | totally care-free, when suddenly -
        
       | chasil wrote:
       | There has been speculation that Tchaikovsky's death was a
       | suicide, perhaps related to previous intimate relationships.
       | 
       | It is possible that von Meck's withdrawal from his life is
       | related; she might have found out.
       | 
       | The wiki has a very brief mention of the suicide speculation, but
       | I have read more extensive discussions elsewhere.
       | 
       | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyotr_Ilyich_Tchaikovsky
        
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       (page generated 2022-01-15 23:01 UTC)