page_title: Tchaikovsky State House-Museum
section_title: The interior of the Tchaikovsky House
hierarchical_section_title: Tchaikovsky State House-Museum / The interior of the Tchaikovsky House
caption_attribution_description: English: Writing table in the reception room where Tchaikovsky wrote his correspondence after breakfast
context_page_description: The Tchaikovsky House-Museum was the country home in Klin, 85 kilometers northwest of Moscow where Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky lived from May 1892 until his death in 1893. His last major work, the 6th Symphony, was written there. The house is now a museum.
context_section_description: The house was built in the 1870s by V.S. Sakharov, on land given to the family by Emperor Nicholas I. It was rarely used by the Sakharov family, which rented and then sold it to Tchaikovsky. Tchaikovsky lived on the second floor, while the family of his servant, Alexei Sofronov, lived on the ground floor. The kitchen and dining room were also on the first floor.
  The reception room and study on the second floor, where his piano is located, is the largest room of the house. The piano is a Becker, which was given him by the St. Petersburg firm in 1885, when he first arrived in Maidanovo.  Tchaikovsky never played the piano in a concert hall for an audience, but he did play at home for his guests, and enjoyed playing duets on the piano with visiting musicians. His evening entertainments also usually included oral readings of literature.
  His writing desk, where he wrote letters every morning after breakfast, is at the end of the room. Over the desk, in the place of honor, is a picture of Anton Rubenstein, the founder of the St. Petersburg Conservatory of Music and his first teacher of instrumentation and composing. Just below the picture of Rubenstein is a picture of Beethoven. On the other walls are many photographs of his family, in particular of his father, Ilya Petrovich Tchaikovsky, and his mother, Alexandra Andreyevna. Nearby are two bookcases containing his musical library and his library of Russian and foreign literature, and the bound sets of magazines to which he subscribed. The other cabinets in the room are filled with gifts to Tchaikovsky, including an ink-pot in the form of the Statue of Liberty given to him during his visit to the United States.
  The bedroom of the composer adjoins the reception room through a doorway covered with a curtain. He composed music in this room on a plain unpainted table overlooking the garden. The table was made of Karelian birch by village workers in Maidanovo, when he first settled in the Klin region. This was the table on which Tchaikovsky composed his 6th Symphony, the Pathetique, the last major work before his death.
caption: Tchaikovsky's desk in his reception room, where he wrote his correspondence. Over the desk is a portrait of his composition teacher Anton Rubenstein
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