Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

**Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky** (born 7 May 1840; died St Petersburg, 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer who lived in the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer and is one of the most popular of all Russian composers. His compositions include 11 operas, 2 ballets, and orchestral music. His famous ballets (*Swan Lake* and *The Nutcracker*) have some of the best known tunes in all of romantic music. He is widely regarded as the greatest composer of ballets.

## Early years

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born in Votkinsk, a small town in Vyatka Governorate (present-day Udmurtia) in the Russian Empire, into a family with a long history of military service. His father, Ilya Petrovich Tchaikovsky, had served as a lieutenant colonel and engineer in the Department of Mines, and would manage the Kamsko-Votkinsk Ironworks.

However, they decided in 1850 to send Tchaikovsky to the Imperial School of Jurisprudence in Saint Petersburg. They had both graduated from institutes in Saint Petersburg and the School of Jurisprudence, which mainly served the lesser nobility, and thought that this education would prepare Tchaikovsky for a career as a civil servant. His father's income was also growing increasingly uncertain, so both parents may have wanted Tchaikovsky to become independent as soon as possible.

As the minimum age for acceptance was 12 and Tchaikovsky was only 10 at the time, he was required to spend two years boarding at the Imperial School of Jurisprudence's preparatory school, 1,300 kilometres (800 mi) from his family. Once those two years had passed, Tchaikovsky transferred to the Imperial School of Jurisprudence to begin a seven-year course of studies.

Tchaikovsky's early separation from his mother caused an emotional trauma that lasted the rest of his life and was intensified by her death from cholera in 1854, when he was fourteen. The loss of his mother also prompted Tchaikovsky to make his first serious attempt at composition, a waltz in her memory. Tchaikovsky's father, who had also contracted cholera but recovered fully, sent him back to school immediately in the hope that classwork would occupy the boy's mind.

## Years of fame

Once Tchaikovsky graduated in 1865, Rubinstein's brother Nikolai offered him the post of Professor of Music Theory at the soon-to-open Moscow Conservatory. While the salary for his professorship was only 50 rubles a month, the offer itself boosted Tchaikovsky's morale and he accepted the post eagerly. He was further heartened by news of the first public performance of one of his works, *Swan Lake.*

In 1875, Tchaikovsky began making a long tour of Europe. He liked Bizet’s opera *Carmen.* In 1877 he finished *Swan Lake*, the first of his two ballets. The audience did not like it at first because the dancers were not very good. He wrote a piece for orchestra called *Romeo and Juliet* which soon became internationally known. Balakirev had four friends who were composers. This circle of friends is often called “The Five” or “The Mighty Handful”. They were interested in using Russian folktunes in their music. Tchaikovsky was never a member of the group, although he joins in.

Two musical works from this period stand out. With the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour nearing completion in Moscow in 1880, the 25th anniversary of the coronation of Alexander II in 1881, and the 1882 Moscow Arts and Industry Exhibition in the planning stage, Nikolai Rubinstein suggested that Tchaikovsky compose a grand commemorative piece. Tchaikovsky agreed and finished it within six weeks. He had plenty of time to write music: he wrote several operas including Eugene Onegin and his Fourth and Fifth Symphonies, Francesca Da Rimini, the Serenade for Strings, *Capriccio Italienne* and the *1812 Overture*.

On 23 March 1881, Nikolai Rubinstein died in Paris. That December, Tchaikovsky started work on his Piano Trio in A minor, "dedicated to the memory of a great artist". First performed privately at the Moscow Conservatory on the first anniversary of Rubinstein's death, the piece became extremely popular during the composer's lifetime; in November 1893, it would become Tchaikovsky's own elegy at memorial concerts in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

## His last years

By 1885, Tchaikovsky had tired of travelling around. He rented a country house in Klin, just outside Moscow. He lived a regular life, reading, walking in the forest, composing during the day and playing music with his friends in the evenings. He started to have more confidence as a conductor and toured Europe twice, conducting in Leipzig, Berlin, Prague, Hamburg, Paris and London. In 1889 while staying in Florence, he wrote *The Storm* overture in E minor*.*

When he returned to Russia, he wrote his last compositions, his last ballet *The Nutcracker* and his Sixth Symphony, known as the “Pathétique Symphony”. This work is often considered his best. It was performed in St Petersburg on October 16 1893. The next morning, at Modest's apartment, Pyotr was not in the sitting room drinking tea as usual, but in bed, he then starting dying but instead taking cod liver oil. Tchaikovsky no longer needed to work. He died in Saint Petersburg, on 6 November 1893, at the age of 53. The official cause of death was reported to be cholera, most probably contracted through drinking contaminated water several days earlier. Exactly what happened is still a mystery.