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Sat 11 Nov 2002Championing TchaikovskyTchaikovsky's just a cheap sentimentalist? Not so, writes Arminta Wallace. He's the man who carried classical harmonies and a simplicity of melodic line into the dark heart of romantic sensibility.Is Tchaikovsky ever going to be rehabilitated? Over the past couple of decades - since glasnost grew into something more substantial than a twinkle in Mikhail Gorbachev's eye - Russian music has, pretty much, come in from the cold. Gone are the days when a blast of the sleigh ride from Lieutenant Kije on Christmas telly was the only Prokofiev you were ever likely to hear: now we're all up to speed on Shostakovich string quartets and The Rite of Spring and even, for goodness' sake, Boris Godunov.