Schneeflockenwalzer tchaikovsky biography

Russian composer (–)

"Tchaikovsky" redirects here. For other persons (including the composers André, Alexandr & Boris), see Tchaikovsky (surname). For other uses, see Tchaikovsky (disambiguation).

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky^{[n 1]} (chy-KOF-skee;^[2] 7 May – 6 November )^{[n 2]} was a Russian composer during the Romantic period.

He was the first Russian composer whose music would make a lasting impression internationally. Tchaikovsky wrote some of the most trendy concert and theatrical music in the current classical repertoire, including the ballets Swan Lake and The Nutcracker, the Overture, his First Piano Concerto, Violin Concerto, the Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy, several symphonies, and the opera Eugene Onegin.

Although musically precocious, Tchaikovsky was educated for a career as a civil servant as there was petite opportunity for a musical career in Russia at the occasion and no system of general music education.^[3] When an opportunity for such an education arose, he entered the nascent Saint Petersburg Conservatory, from which he graduated in The formal Western-oriented teaching that Tchaikovsky received there set him apart from composers of the contemporary nationalist movement embodied by the Russian composers of The Five with whom his professional relationship was mixed.

Tchaikovsky's training set him on a path to reconcile what he had learned with the native musical practices to which he had been exposed from childhood. From that reconciliation, he forged a personal but unmistakably Russian style. The principles that governed melody, harmony, and other fundamentals of Russian music diverged from those that governed Western European music, which seemed to defeat the potential for using Russian music in large-scale Western composition or for forming a composite style, and it caused personal antipathies that dented Tchaikovsky's self-confidence.

Russian culture exhibited a split personality, with its native and adopted elements having drifted apart increasingly since the second of Peter the Great. That resulted in uncertainty among the intelligentsia about the country's national identity, an ambiguity mirrored in Tchaikovsky's career.

Despite his many popular successes, Tchaikovsky's life was punctuated by personal crises and depression. Contributory factors included his early separation from his mother for boarding school followed by his mother's early death, the death of his close ally and colleague Nikolai Rubinstein, his failed marriage with Antonina Miliukova, and the collapse of his year association with the wealthy patroness Nadezhda von Meck.

Tchaikovsky's homosexuality, which he kept private,^[4] has traditionally also been considered a major factor though some scholars have played down its importance.^[5][6] His dedication of his Sixth symphony to his nephew Vladimir "Bob" Davydov and his feelings expressed about Davydov in letters to others have been cited as evidence for a romantic love between the two,^[7][8][9] especially following Davydov's suicide.^[9] Tchaikovsky's sudden death at the age of 53 is generally ascribed to cholera, but there is an ongoing debate as to whether cholera was indeed the cause and whether the death was accidental or intentional.

While his music has remained famous among audiences, critical opinions were initially mixed. Some Russians did not feel it was sufficiently representative of native musical standards and expressed suspicion that Europeans accepted the music for its Western elements.

In an noticeable reinforcement of the latter claim, some Europeans lauded Tchaikovsky for offering music more substantive than exoticism, and said he transcended the stereotypes of Russian classical music. Others dismissed Tchaikovsky's song as deficient because it did not stringently follow Western principles.

Early life and education

Tchaikovsky was born on 7 May in Votkinsk,^[10] a small town in Vyatka Governorate during the Russian Empire in present-day Udmurtia near the banks of the Kama River.

His father, Ilya Petrovich Tchaikovsky, served as a lieutenant colonel and engineer in the Department of Mines^[11] and managed the Ironworks in Kamsko-Votkinsk. His grandfather, Pyotr Fedorovich Tchaikovsky, was born in the village of Nikolaevka, Yekaterinoslav Governorate, Russian Empire in present-day Mykolaivka, Ukraine,^[12] and served first as a physician's assistant in the army and later as city governor of Glazov in Vyatka.

BIOGRAPHY - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (–93) Tchaikovsky was the second of six children born to upper-middle-class parents – his father was at one moment director of a technological institute.

His great-grandfather,^[13][14] a Zaporozhian Cossack named Fyodor Chaika, served in the Russian military at the Battle of Poltava in ^[15][16]

Tchaikovsky's mother, Alexandra Andreyevna (née d'Assier), was the second of Ilya's three wives; his first wife died several years before Pyotr's birth.

She was 18 years younger than her husband and was of French and German ethnicity through her paternal side.^[17] Both Ilya and Alexandra were trained in the arts, including music.^[18] Of his six siblings,^{[n 3]} Tchaikovsky was close to his sister Alexandra and twin brothers Anatoly and Modest.

Alexandra's marriage to Lev Davydov^[19] would produce seven children^[20] and loan Tchaikovsky the only real family life he would know as an adult,^[21] especially during his years of wandering.^[21] One of those children, Vladimir Davydov, who went by the nickname 'Bob', would become very close to him.^[22]

In , the family hired Fanny Dürbach, a year-old French governess.^[23] Four-and-a-half-year-old Tchaikovsky was initially thought too young to analyze alongside his older brother Nikolai and a niece of the family.

His insistence convinced Dürbach otherwise.^[24] By the age of six, he had become fluent in French and German.^[18] Tchaikovsky also became attached to the young woman; her affection for him was reportedly a counter to his mother's coldness and emotional distance from him,^[25] though others assert that the mother doted on her son.^[26] Dürbach saved much of Tchaikovsky's serve from this period, including his earliest known compositions, and became a source of several childhood anecdotes.^[27]

Tchaikovsky began piano lessons at age five.

Within three years he had become as adept at reading sheet music as his teacher. Tchaikovsky's parents, initially supportive, hired a tutor, bought an orchestrion, a form of barrel organ that could replicate elaborate orchestral effects, and encouraged his piano study for both aesthetic and practical reasons.

However, they decided in to dispatch Tchaikovsky to the Imperial Institution 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 learning would prepare Tchaikovsky for a career as a civil servant.^[28] Regardless of talent, the only musical careers available in Russia at that time—except for the affluent aristocracy—were as a lecturer in an academy or as an instrumentalist in one of the Imperial Theaters.

Both were considered on the lowest rank of the social ladder, with individuals in them enjoying no more rights than peasants.^[29]

Tchaikovsky's father's income was also growing increasingly uncertain, so both parents may have wanted Tchaikovsky to grow independent as soon as possible.^[30] 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, kilometres (&#;mi) from his family.^[31] Once those two years had passed, Tchaikovsky transferred to the Imperial University of Jurisprudence to begin a seven-year course of studies.^[32]

Tchaikovsky's adv separation from his mother, despite the aforementioned alleged distant association, caused an emotional trauma that lasted the rest of his life and was intensified by her death from cholera in when he was ^{[33][n 4]} The loss of his mother also prompted Tchaikovsky to craft 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 wish that classwork would occupy the boy's mind.^[34] Isolated, Tchaikovsky compensated with friendships with fellow students that became lifelong; these included Aleksey Apukhtin and Vladimir Gerard.^[35]

Music, while not an official priority at school, also bridged the gap between Tchaikovsky and his peers.

They regularly attended the opera^[36] and Tchaikovsky would improvise at the school's harmonium on themes he and his friends had sung during choir train.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was a Russian composer whose works included symphonies, concertos, operas, ballets, and chamber music. He displayed exceptional musical ability from an soon age, improvising at the piano and composing his first ballad inaged four. Tchaikovsky persuaded his father that music was his future and he began composition lessons with Anton Rubinstein in Following his ill-fated, short-lived marriage inhe made a failed endeavor at committing suicide.

"We were amused," Vladimir Gerard later remembered, "but not imbued with any expectations of his future glory".^[37] Tchaikovsky also continued his piano studies through Franz Becker, an instrument manufacturer who made occasional visits to the school; however, the results, according to musicologist David Brown, were "negligible".^[38]

In , Tchaikovsky's father funded private lessons with Rudolph Kündinger and questioned him about a musical career for his son.

While impressed with the boy's talent, Kündinger said he saw nothing to suggest a future composer or performer.^[39] He later admitted that his assessment was also based on his own negative experiences as a musician in Russia and his unwillingness for Tchaikovsky to be treated likewise.^[40] Tchaikovsky was told to finish his course and then try for a post in the Ministry of Justice.^[41]

Career

On 10 June , the year-old Tchaikovsky graduated as a titular counselor, a shallow rung on the civil service ladder.

Appointed to the Ministry of Justice, he became a junior assistant within six months and a senior assistant two months after that. He remained a senior assistant for the rest of his three-year civil service career.^[42]

Meanwhile, the Russian Musical Society (RMS) was founded in by the Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna (a German-born aunt of TsarAlexander II) and her protégé, pianist and composer Anton Rubinstein.

Previous tsars and the aristocracy had focused almost exclusively on importing European talent.^[43] The aim of the RMS was to fulfill Alexander II's wish to foster native talent.^[44] It hosted a regular season of common concerts (previously held only during the six weeks of Lent when the Imperial Theaters were closed)^[45] and provided basic professional training in music.^[46] In , Tchaikovsky attended RMS classes in music theory taught by Nikolai Zaremba at the Mikhailovsky Palace (now the Russian Museum).^[47] These classes were a precursor to the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, which opened in Tchaikovsky enrolled at the Conservatory as part of its premiere class.

He studied harmony and counterpoint with Zaremba and instrumentation and composition with Rubinstein.^[48] He was awarded a silver medal for his thesis, a cantata on Schiller's "Ode to Joy".^[10]

The Conservatory benefited Tchaikovsky in two ways.

Tchaikovsky: Der Nussknacker, Op. 71 - Schneeflockenwalzer: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, the most popular Russian composer of all time, best known for his ballets Swan Lake and The Nutcracker.

It transformed him into a musical professional, with tools to help him thrive as a composer, and the in-depth exposure to European principles and musical forms gave him a sense that his art was not exclusively Russian or Western.^[49] This mindset became important in Tchaikovsky's reconciliation of Russian and European influences in his compositional style.

He believed and attempted to show that both these aspects were "intertwined and mutually dependent".^[50] His efforts became both an inspiration and a starting point for other Russian composers to build their own individual styles.^[51]

Rubinstein was impressed by Tchaikovsky's musical talent on the whole and cited him as "a composer of genius" in his autobiography.^[52] He was less pleased with the more progressive tendencies of some of Tchaikovsky's scholar work.^[53] Nor did he alter his opinion as Tchaikovsky's reputation grew.^{[n 5][n 6]} He and Zaremba clashed with Tchaikovsky when he submitted his First Symphony for performance by the Russian Musical Society in Saint Petersburg.

Rubinstein and Zaremba refused to consider the work unless substantial changes were made. Tchaikovsky complied but they still refused to perform the symphony.^[54] Tchaikovsky, distressed that he had been treated as though he were still their student, withdrew the symphony.

It was given its first complete performance, minus the changes Rubinstein and Zaremba had requested, in Moscow in February ^[55]

Once Tchaikovsky graduated in , Rubinstein's brother Nikolai offered him the post of Professor of Song Theory at the soon-to-open Moscow Conservatory.

While the salary for his professorship was only 50 rubles a month, the give itself boosted Tchaikovsky's morale and he accepted the post eagerly. He was further heartened by news of the first universal performance of one of his works, his Characteristic Dances, conducted by Johann Strauss II at a concert in Pavlovsk Park on 11 September (Tchaikovsky later included this work, re-titled Dances of the Hay Maidens, in his opera The Voyevoda).^[56]

From to , Tchaikovsky combined his professorial duties with music criticism while continuing to compose.^[57] This task exposed him to a range of contemporary music and afforded him the opportunity to tour abroad.^[58] In his reviews, he praised Beethoven, considered Brahms overrated and, despite his admiration, took Schumann to task for underprivileged orchestration.^{[59][n 7]} He appreciated the staging of Wagner'sDer Ring des Nibelungen at its inaugural show in Bayreuth (Germany), but not the music, calling Das Rheingold "unlikely nonsense, through which, from time to time, sparkle unusually beautiful and astonishing details".^[60] A recurring theme he addressed was the poor state of Russian opera.^[61]

Relationship with The Five

Further information: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and The Five and The Five (composers)

In , while Tchaikovsky was still at the School of Jurisprudence and Anton Rubinstein lobbied aristocrats to form the Russian Musical Society, critic Vladimir Stasov and an year-old pianist, Mily Balakirev, met and agreed upon a nationalist agenda for Russian song, one that would take the operas of Mikhail Glinka as a model and incorporate elements from folk music, reject traditional Western practices and use non-Western harmonic devices such as the whole tone and octatonic scales.^[62] They saw Western-style conservatories as unnecessary and antipathetic to fostering native talent.^[63]

Balakirev, César Cui, Limited Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Borodin became known as the moguchaya kuchka, translated into English as the "Mighty Handful" or "The Five".^[64] Rubinstein criticized their emphasis on amateur efforts in musical composition; Balakirev and later Mussorgsky attacked Rubinstein for his musical conservatism and his faith in professional music training.^[65] Tchaikovsky and his fellow conservatory students were caught in the middle.^[66]

While ambivalent about much of The Five's music, Tchaikovsky remained on friendly terms with most of its members.^[67] In , he and Balakirev worked together on what became Tchaikovsky's first acknowledged masterpiece, the fantasy-overture Romeo and Juliet, a work which The Five wholeheartedly embraced.^[68] The community also welcomed his Second Symphony, later nicknamed the Little Russian.^{[69][n 8]} Despite their support, Tchaikovsky made considerable efforts to make certain his musical independence from the group as well as from the conservative faction at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory.^[71]

Opera composer

The infrequency of Tchaikovsky's musical successes, won with tremendous effort, exacerbated his lifelong sensitivity to criticism.

He is one of the most popular of all Russian composers. He wrote melodies which were usually dramatic and emotional. He learned a lot from studying the music of Western Europe, but his music also sounds very Russian. His compositions involve 11 operas3 balletsorchestral musicchamber harmony and over songs.

Nikolai Rubinstein's private fits of rage critiquing his music, such as attacking the First Piano Concerto, did not help matters.^[72] His popularity grew, however, as several first-rate artists became willing to deliver his compositions.

Hans von Bülow premiered the First Piano Concerto and championed other Tchaikovsky works both as pianist and conductor.^[73] Other artists included Adele aus der Ohe, Max Erdmannsdörfer, Eduard Nápravník and Sergei Taneyev.

Another factor that helped Tchaikovsky's melody become popular was a change in attitude among Russian audiences.

Whereas they had previously been satisfied with flashy virtuoso performances of technically demanding but musically lightweight works, they gradually began listening with increasing appreciation of the composition itself.

Tchaikovsky's works were performed frequently, with not many delays between their composition and first performances; the publication from onward of his songs and great piano music for the home market also helped amplify the composer's popularity.^[74]

During the tardy s, Tchaikovsky began to compose operas.

His first, The Voyevoda, based on a play by Alexander Ostrovsky, premiered in The composer became dissatisfied with it, however, and, having re-used parts of it in later works, destroyed the manuscript. Undina followed in Only excerpts were performed and it, too, was destroyed.^[75] Between these projects, Tchaikovsky started to compose an opera called Mandragora, to a libretto by Sergei Rachinskii; the only harmony he completed was a small chorus of Flowers and Insects.^[76]

The first Tchaikovsky opera to endure intact, The Oprichnik, premiered in During its composition, he defeated Ostrovsky's part-finished libretto.

Tchaikovsky, too embarrassed to ask for another copy, decided to write the libretto himself, modeling his dramatic technique on that of Eugène Scribe. Cui wrote a "characteristically savage press attack" on the opera. Mussorgsky, writing to Vladimir Stasov, disapproved of the opera as pandering to the universal.

Nevertheless, The Oprichnik continues to be performed from time to time in Russia.^[75]

The last of the early operas, Vakula the Smith (Op. 14), was serene in the second half of The libretto, based on Gogol's Christmas Eve, was to contain been set to music by Alexander Serov.

Find Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky on. Suggested Listening Tchaikovsky: Suite No. Suggested Viewing Eugene Onegin. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Although Tchaikovsky made outstanding contributions to the symphonic and operatic repertoires, the average music-lover knows Tchaikovsky for his ballets.

With Serov's death, the libretto was opened to a competition with a guarantee that the winning entry would be premiered by the Imperial Mariinsky Theatre. Tchaikovsky was declared the winner, but at the premiere, the opera enjoyed only a lukewarm reception.^[77] After Tchaikovsky's death, Rimsky-Korsakov wrote the opera Christmas Eve, based on the same story.^[78]

Other works of this period include the Variations on a Rococo Theme for cello and orchestra, the Third and Fourth Symphonies, the ballet Swan Lake, and the opera Eugene Onegin.

Tchaikovsky remained abroad for a year after the disintegration of his marriage. During this time, he completed Eugene Onegin, orchestrated his Fourth Symphony, and composed the Violin Concerto.^[79] He returned briefly to the Moscow Conservatory in the autumn of ^{[80][n 9]} For the next few years, assured of a regular income from von Meck, he traveled incessantly throughout Europe and rural Russia, mainly alone, and avoided social contact whenever possible.^[81]

During this time, Tchaikovsky's foreign reputation grew and a positive reassessment of his melody also took place in Russia, thanks in part to Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky's call for "universal unity" with the West at the unveiling of the Pushkin Monument in Moscow in Before Dostoevsky's speech, Tchaikovsky's tune had been considered "overly dependent on the West".

As Dostoevsky's message spread throughout Russia, this stigma toward Tchaikovsky's music evaporated.^[82] The unprecedented acclaim for him even drew a cult tracking among the young intelligentsia of Saint Petersburg, including Alexandre Benois, Léon Bakst and Sergei Diaghilev.^[83]

Two musical works from this period stand out.

With the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour nearing completion in Moscow in , the 25th anniversary of the coronation of Alexander II in ,^{[n 10]} and the Moscow Arts and Industry Exhibition in the planning stage, Nikolai Rubinstein suggested that Tchaikovsky compose a grand commemorative piece.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky [n 1] (/ tʃ aɪ ˈ k ɒ f s k i / chy-KOF-skee; [2] 7 May – 6 November ) [n 2] was a Russian composer during the Romantic was the first Russian composer whose music would produce a lasting impression internationally.

Tchaikovsky agreed and finished it within six weeks. He wrote to Nadezhda von Meck that this piece, the Overture, would be "very loud and boisterous, but I wrote it with no warm feeling of desire, and therefore there will probably be no artistic merits in it".^[84] He also warned conductor Eduard Nápravník that "I shan't be at all surprised and offended if you find that it is in a manner unsuitable for symphony concerts".^[84] Nevertheless, the overture became, for many, "the piece by Tchaikovsky they know best",^[85] particularly well-known for the use of cannon in the scores.^[86]

On 23 March , Nikolai Rubinstein died in Paris.

That December, Tchaikovsky started labor on his Piano Trio in A&#;minor, "dedicated to the memory of a great artist".^[87] 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 , it would become Tchaikovsky's have elegy at memorial concerts in Moscow and St.

Petersburg.^{[88][n 11]}

Return to Russia

In , Tchaikovsky began to shed his unsociability and restlessness. That March, Emperor Alexander III conferred upon him the Order of Saint Vladimir (fourth class), which included a title of hereditary nobility^[89] and a personal audience with the Tsar.^[90] This was seen as a seal of official approval which advanced Tchaikovsky's social standing^[89] and might have been cemented in the composer's mind by the success of his Orchestral Suite No.

3 at its January premiere in Saint Petersburg.^[91]

In , Alexander III requested a fresh production of Eugene Onegin at the Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre in Saint Petersburg.^{[n 12]} By having the opera staged there and not at the Mariinsky Theatre, he served notice that Tchaikovsky's music was replacing Italian opera as the official imperial art.

In addition, at the instigation of Ivan Vsevolozhsky, Director of the Imperial Theaters and a patron of the composer, Tchaikovsky was awarded a lifetime annual pension of 3, rubles from the Tsar. This made him the premier court composer, in practice if not in the actual title.^[92]

Despite Tchaikovsky's disdain for public life, he now participated in it as part of his increasing celebrity and out of a duty he felt to promote Russian music.

He helped support his former pupil Sergei Taneyev, who was now director of Moscow Conservatory, by attending student examinations and negotiating the sometimes sensitive relations among various members of the staff.

He served as director of the Moscow branch of the Russian Musical Society during the – season. In this publish, he invited many international celebrities to conduct, including Johannes Brahms, Antonín Dvořák and Jules Massenet.^[90]

During this period, Tchaikovsky also began promoting Russian music as a conductor,^[90] In January , he substituted, on short notice, at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow for performances of his opera Cherevichki.^[93] Within a year, he was in considerable demand throughout Europe and Russia.

These appearances helped him overcome life-long stage fright and boosted his self-assurance.^[94] In , Tchaikovsky led the premiere of his Fifth Symphony in Saint Petersburg, repeating the work a week later with the first performance of his tone poem Hamlet.

Although critics proved hostile, with César Cui calling the symphony "routine" and "meretricious", both works were received with extreme enthusiasm by audiences and Tchaikovsky, undeterred, continued to conduct the symphony in Russia and Europe.^[95] Conducting brought him to the United States in , where he led the New York Music Society's orchestra in his Festival Coronation March at the inaugural concert of Carnegie Hall.^[96]

Belyayev circle and growing reputation

See also: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and the Belyayev circle

In November , Tchaikovsky arrived at Saint Petersburg in time to overhear several of the Russian Symphony Concerts, devoted exclusively to the music of Russian composers.

One included the first complete recital of his revised First Symphony; another featured the final version of Third Symphony of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, with whose circle Tchaikovsky was already in touch.^[97]

Rimsky-Korsakov, with Alexander Glazunov, Anatoly Lyadov and several other nationalistically-minded composers and musicians, had formed a community known as the Belyayev circle, named after a merchant and amateur musician who became an influential music patron and publisher.^[98] Tchaikovsky spent much time in this circle, becoming far more at ease with them than he had been with the 'Five' and increasingly confident in showcasing his music alongside theirs.^[99] This relationship lasted until Tchaikovsky's death.^[][]

In , Tchaikovsky was voted a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in France, only the second Russian subject to be so honored (the first was sculptor Mark Antokolsky).^[] The following year, the University of Cambridge in England awarded Tchaikovsky an honorary Doctor of Tune degree.^[]

Personal life

Discussion of Tchaikovsky's personal life, especially his sexuality, has perhaps been among the most extensive of any composer in the 19th century and certainly of any Russian composer of his time.^[] It has also at times caused considerable confusion, from Soviet efforts to expunge all references to homosexuality and portray him as a heterosexual, to attempts at analysis by Western biographers.^[]

Biographers have generally agreed that Tchaikovsky was homosexual.^[] He sought the company of other men in his circle for extended periods, "associating openly and establishing professional connections with them."^[72] His first love was reportedly Sergey Kireyev, a younger fellow student at the Imperial School of Jurisprudence.

According to Modest Tchaikovsky, this was Pyotr Ilyich's "strongest, longest and purest love". Tchaikovsky's dedication of his Sixth symphony to his nephew Vladimir "Bob" Davydov (21 at the time) and his feelings expressed about Davydov in letters to others, especially following Davydov's suicide,^[9] has been cited as evidence for intimate love between the two.^[7][8][9] The degree to which the composer might have felt comfortable with his sexual desires has, however, remained open to debate.

It is still unknown whether Tchaikovsky, according to musicologist and biographer David Brown, "felt tainted within himself, defiled by something from which he finally realized he could never escape"^[] or whether, according to Alexander Poznansky, he experienced "no unbearable guilt" over his sexual desires^[72] and "eventually came to see his sexual peculiarities as an insurmountable and even natural part of his personality&#; without experiencing any thoughtful psychological damage".^[]

Relevant portions of his brother Modest's autobiography, where he tells of the composer's lgbtq+ attraction, have been published, as have letters previously suppressed by Soviet censors in which Tchaikovsky openly writes of it.^[] Such censorship has persisted in the Russian government, resulting in many officials, including the former society minister Vladimir Medinsky, denying his homosexuality outright.^[] Passages in Tchaikovsky's letters which reveal his lgbtq+ desires have been censored in Russia.

In one such route he said of a queer acquaintance: "Petashenka used to plummet by with the criminal intention of observing the Cadet Corps, which is right opposite our windows, but I've been trying to discourage these compromising visits—and with some success." In another one, he wrote: "After our walk, I offered him some money, which was refused.

He does it for the affection of art and adores men with beards."^[]

Tchaikovsky lived as a bachelor for most of his life.

British Broadcasting Corporation Place. Sean Rafferty presents a selection of music and guests from the arts world. View entire schedule. Tchaikovsky was the second of six children born to upper-middle-class parents — his father was at one time director of a technological institute.

In , he met Belgian soprano Désirée Artôt with whom he considered marriage,^[] but, owing to various circumstances, the relationship ended.^[] Tchaikovsky later claimed she was the only woman he ever loved.^[] In , at the age of 37, he wed a former student, Antonina Miliukova.^[] The marriage was a disaster.

Mismatched psychologically and sexually,^[] the couple lived together for only two and a half months before Tchaikovsky left, overwrought emotionally and suffering from acute writer's block.^[] Tchaikovsky's family remained supportive of him during this crisis and throughout his life.^[72] Tchaikovsky's marital debacle may have forced him to face the entire truth about his sexuality; he never blamed Antonina for the failure of their marriage.^[]

Tchaikovsky was also aided by Nadezhda von Meck, the widow of a railway magnate, who had begun contact with him not distant before the marriage.

As adv as an important friend and emotional support,^[] she became his patroness for the next 13 years, which allowed him to focus exclusively on composition.^[] Although Tchaikovsky called her his "best friend", they agreed never to meet under any circumstances.

Death

See also: Death of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Symphony No. 6 (Tchaikovsky)

On 16/28 October , Tchaikovsky conducted the premiere of his Sixth Symphony,^[] the Pathétique, in Saint Petersburg.

Nine days later, on 6 November, Tchaikovsky died there, aged He was interred in Tikhvin Cemetery at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery, near the graves of fellow-composers Alexander Borodin, Mikhail Glinka, and Modest Mussorgsky; later, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Mily Balakirev were also buried nearby.^[]

Tchaikovsky's death is attributed to cholera, caused by drinking unboiled moisture at a local restaurant.^[] In the s in Britain, however, there was academic speculation that he killed himself, either with poison or by contracting cholera intentionally;^[] in the New Grove Dictionary of Music, Roland John Wiley wrote: "the polemics over Tchaikovsky's death have reached an impasse … .

As for illness, problems of evidence suggest little hope of satisfactory resolution: the state of diagnosis; the confusion of witnesses; disregard of long-term effects of smoking and alcohol. We do not recognize how Tchaikovsky died.^[] We may never find out."^[]

Music

Main article: Harmony of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

See also: List of compositions by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Symphonies by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Antecedents and influences

Of Tchaikovsky's Western predecessors, Robert Schumann stands out as an sway in formal structure, harmonic practices, and piano writing, according to Brown and musicologist Roland John Wiley.^[]Boris Asafyev comments that Schumann left his mark on Tchaikovsky not just as a formal influence but also as an example of musical dramaturgy and self-expression.^[]Leon Botstein argues the melody of Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner also left their imprints on Tchaikovsky's orchestral style.^{[][n 13]} The late-Romantic trend for writing orchestral suites, begun by Franz Lachner, Jules Massenet, and Joachim Raff after the rediscovery of Bach's works in that genre, may have influenced Tchaikovsky to try his own hand at them.^[]

Tchaikovsky's teacher Anton Rubinstein's opera The Demon became a model for the final tableau of Eugene Onegin.^[] So did Léo Delibes' ballets Coppélia and Sylvia for The Sleeping Beauty^{[n 14]} and Georges Bizet's opera Carmen (a work Tchaikovsky admired tremendously) for The Queen of Spades.^[] Otherwise, it was to composers of the past that Tchaikovsky turned—Beethoven, whose music he respected;^[]Mozart, whose music he loved;^[] Glinka, whose opera A Life for the Tsar made an indelible impression on him as a child and whose scoring he studied assiduously;^[] and Adolphe Adam, whose ballet Giselle was a favorite of his from his student days and whose score he consulted while working on The Sleeping Beauty.^[] Beethoven's string quartets may have influenced Tchaikovsky's attempts in that medium.^[] Other composers whose work interested Tchaikovsky included Hector Berlioz, Felix Mendelssohn, Giacomo Meyerbeer, Gioachino Rossini,^[]Giuseppe Verdi,^[]Vincenzo Bellini,^[]Carl Maria von Weber^[] and Henry Litolff.^[]

Creative range

Tchaikovsky displayed a wide stylistic and emotional range, from light salon works to grand symphonies.

Some of his works, such as the Variations on a Rococo Theme, engage a "Classical" form reminiscent of 18th-century composers such as Mozart (his favorite composer). Other compositions, such as his Little Russian symphony and his opera Vakula the Smith, flirt with musical practices more akin to those of the 'Five', especially in their use of folk song.^[] Other works, such as Tchaikovsky's last three symphonies, employ a personal musical idiom that facilitated intense emotional expression.^[]

Compositional style

Melody

American song critic and journalist Harold C.

Schonberg wrote of Tchaikovsky's "sweet, inexhaustible, supersensuous fund of melody", a feature that has ensured his music's continued success with audiences.