Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is perhaps the most famous Russian composer ever. He was born in Votkinsk, on May 7, 1840. Having been born to a reasonsonably well-off family, he was given a good musical education from a French teacher. At the age of 10, Tchaikovsky moved with his family to St. Petersburg, where he studied to become a government clerk. His musical talent, however, did not manifest itself until he attended the new school in the city founded by Anton Rubinstein. That school came to be called the St. Petersburg Conservatory. Here, Tchaikovsky learned harmony and counterpoint, as well as composition. Tchaikovsky was hired by the Moscow Conservatory in 1866 as a professor of harmony. At this point he began to compose in earnest, but his first works were somewhat uninspired. It was his symphonic poem "Fatum" (1869) which finally demonstrated Tchaikovsky's promise as an individualistic composer, with its minor modes and rhythmic life. His subsequent works, though often criticized, went on to become enormously famous. Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 (1875) was initially called "unplayable" by his good friend Nicolai Rubinstein. Similar attacks were made on his Violin Concerto (1881) by Leopold Auer, to whom the score was dedicated. However, the incredible popular response to these pieces spoke for Tchaikovsky's mastery. Much of Tchaikovsky's music reflects a life fraught with tragedy. His mother died of cholera when he was 14. A woman with whom he considered marriage married another man in 1868; when he was finally married in 1877, he found that his homosexual nature was incompatible with his new wife, and in a fit of dispair, he attempted, unsuccessfully, to commit suicide; a woman, Nadezhda von Meck, who had been supporting Tchaikovsky with an annuity of 6000 rubles per year terminated this income and all correspondence at the peak of his career. Tchaikovsky found this particularly sad because, having corresponded with her for over 13 years, he had considered von Meck among his best friends. It seems ironic that Tchaikovsky should die of the same disease that claimed his mother. While visiting St Petersburg in 1893 during the height of a cholera epidemic, Tchaikovsky ignored the warnings about drinking unboiled water. On November 6, 1893, Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky died.