Tama Matheson

speaker

770 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 28 Jul

Tama Matheson’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.

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Rosebud with Gyles Brandreth · More Rosebud - Tchaikovsky · 28 Jul 2026 podcast

It was a

Horrible to see his little coffin carried through the Gare du Nord in Paris.

All that greatness reduced to nothing.

And then a young artillery officer, with whom I had grown very fond, took a gun and put an end to his sexual confusion, and his death almost defeated me.

And the longer I live, the more I seem to realize that there is never a moment of true happiness in this life.

For me, only music could keep me from despair.

Of all heaven's gifts to humanity wandering in the darkness, music is the most beautiful.

I did, to the very last moment.

I was writing my sixth symphony, my Pathétique, as I called it.

It was just at that time that another cholera epidemic appeared in St.

Petersburg and people started to die all around me.

It terrified me because my mother had died of cholera and at that time the cholera rose freshly into my mind and mortality felt ominously close.

I put that aside and

thought about the symphony.

I was thrilled with the piece.

I knew it was my greatest work, but the audience didn't like it.

After the performance, there was silence in the hall, a few scattered claps and nothing.

And I think I realized what it was.

With the cholera there and the world sighing into death all around, people wanted heroic defiance, not craven submission.

But for me, that was not life.

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