Upon his death in the spring of 1983, George Balanchine left behind no autobiographical writings. He had, however, been conducting over his last two years a continuous series of private interviews with Russian musicologist Solomon Volkov. Their subject was Tchaikovsky, the composer who exercised perhaps the most profound lifelong influence on the great choreographer. And throughout these interviews, it was Balanchine's characteristic way to spring from his observations of Tchaikovsky and the many affinities he so deeply felt in the composer's art and life into a free flow of personal reflections and reminiscences.
