# Conversation with Alice Coote and Christian Blackshaw

Mezzo-soprano Alice Coote and pianist Christian Blackshaw talk with the Music Division's Anne McLean about Tchaikovsky & His Poets, a splendid recital created in collaboration with actor Ralph Fiennes as narrator. The program is a masterly presentation of Tchaikovsky songs, interwoven with recitations of poems by great Russian poets who inspired him, including Alexander Pushkin, Mikhail Lermontov, Afanasy Fet and Aleksei Tolstoy. The artists discuss the process of crafting the program, which also offers readings by Fiennes of four of the composer's letters, to Alexander Glazunov, his patron Nadezhda von Meck, and his brother Modest. Their conversation touches on Tchaikovsky's personal life and love of literature, as well as concepts of artistic freedom and risktaking, for a concert providing an intimate, revelatory portrait of the composer.

- Kind: Talk
- Year: 2021
- By: Library Of Congress. Music Division
- Archive: [Library of Congress](https://www.loc.gov/item/2024697769/)
- Licence or status: Rights statement at the Library of Congress (as the archive states it)
- Credit: Library of Congress
- Who can watch: Tweens profiles and older (the archive gives no rating; placed by Invisible Network from its collection and subjects)

[Watch now](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/watch/archive/loc/2024697769?play=1)