Today begins Pride Month, which I enthusiastically support and will continue to do so, for all members of the LGBTQ+ community.
I start with a work by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, whom most scholars agree was almost certainly homosexual. He had to remain closeted his entire life; Imperial Russia was not a place friendly to non-straight people; come to that, post-Imperial Russia hasn’t been great for those people, either. There seems to be a shadow coming over that community these days; let us hope that it is only a passing shadow.
Here’s Capriccio Italien.