YOSEF KOTEK

Yosef Kotek (left), with Pyotr Ilyich

    Yosef is one of my favorite characters, especially of the ones romantically involved with Tchaikovsky. Also spelled Iosef or Josef in phonetically-translated Russian, this young man was  known to be a former student from the Moscow Conservatory where the composer taught music during his late twenties to early thirties.  Yosef was fifteen years his junior but clearly had a romantic connection to his professor. In my novel Pyotr Ilyich, we visit a period where Yosef has returned to the conservatory for the express purpose of visiting his former professor. He had recently been employed by the wealthy Nadezhda von Meck as a violinist in her private music ensemble and was anxious to catch up with Tchaikovsky. (As my readers know, Nadezhda eventually becomes the composer’s benefactor so one might wonder if her connection to Yosef is just a strange coincidence… It seems less so when one realizes that Nadezhda was well acquainted with Nikolai Rubinstein, the Conservatory Director, who obviously recommended Yosef to her when she inquired about employable musicians.)

Since Yosef is one of the few people who attended the infamous wedding, it became clear to me that his involvement with Tchaikovsky had become much more than just sexual. Yosef had stood by him through his entire courtship of Antonina, which I admired him for greatly, and thus decided to write him as an especially caring soul. This was love, not sex.

Later in my story, when the two are no longer involved but are working together on the Violin Concerto, I needed to show a definite maturing on the part of Yosef.  I accomplished this by having him confide in Tchaikovsky in regard to his bout with syphilis, and his questioning of the composer’s judgment in regard his wanting to dedicate the concerto to him.  As these were all true facts, they felt right being included in my story.  –I will stop my character analysis here to avoid any spoilers which may come up!  Best regards, Adin Dalton

[NOTE: I thought it might be helpful if I posted in-depth information about some of the main characters in “Fate.”  Since these characters are based actual living, breathing people in the 19th-century, scholars do know something about their points of view, attitudes, and general personalities.  I had the honor of tweaking these attributes further in my novel of course, and so it will be my take on them that I write about here.  I will do many of these over the coming weeks, continuing on from the last one which featured a housemaid named Marie who became involved with Tchaikovsky’s valet.]