A member of an ancient but impoverished Devonshire family, Gay was educated at the free grammar school in Barnstaple. He was apprenticed to a silk mercer in London but was released early from his indentures and, after a further short period in Devonshire, returned to London, where he lived most of his life. Among his early literary friends were Aaron Hill and Eustace Budgell , whom he helped in the production of The British Apollo , a question-and-answer journal of the day. From to he was steward in the household of the Duchess of Monmouth, which gave him leisure and security to write.
15 great classical composers who also happened to be gay
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Wolfgang Mozart - Requiem, Facts & Death - Biography
British Broadcasting Corporation Home. Sean Rafferty presents a selection of music and guests from the arts world. View full schedule. There are two extremes to be found in Tchaikovsky biography. One is a conspiracy of secrecy, where letters and diaries are published with systematic cuts, and where almost complete denial surrounds the subject of the composer's sexuality - this was standard Soviet practice from Stalin onwards.
The 50 Greatest Composers of All Time
Gravely ill at birth and born into an impoverished family, he wasn't expected to survive. Four of his siblings did not. As a child, he was shielded from an abusive father by his mother, Lillian, who bought him books and sheet music from her earnings as a domestic.
But until now some of the letters of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , in which he tells of his sexual desires, have been hidden from the world because the objects of those desires were other men. Some readers have even questioned the authenticity of particular letters kept in the archive. He does it for the love of art and adores men with beards. The letters are held in the archives of the Tchaikovsky State House-Museum in the town of Klin, north-west of Moscow, where he lived from until his death the following year, at 53, during a cholera epidemic. Most of the letters have never before been available in English.
