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PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY
(Russian composer of the Romantic era.)

To play the music again click on the score (=partitura):

An incomplete, yet interesting biography

Childhood

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born in Votkinsk. His father, Ilya Petrovich, was the son of a government mining engineer, of Ukrainian descent. His mother, Alexandra, was a Russian woman of partial French ancestry and the second of Ilya's three wives.

Tchaikovsky began piano lessons at age four with a local woman. Musically precocious (=showing unusually early mental development or achievement), he could read music as well as his teacher within three years. However, his parents feeling inferior due to their humble (=poor or of a low social rank) origins, sent Pyotr to a boarding school for the "lesser nobility" in St. Petersburg to secure for him a career as a civil servant (=a person who works for the government department responsible for private arguments between people or organizations).

Tchaikovsky as a teenager

A second blow (=an unexpected event that has a damaging effect) came on June 25, 1854 with Alexandra's death from cholera. Within a month of her death, Pyotr was making his first serious efforts at composition: a waltz in her memory.

While music was not considered a high priority at the Institute, Tchaikovsky regularly attended the theater and the opera with other
classmates—a common practice among the students there. He was fond of works by Rossini, Bellini, Verdi and Mozart. A piano manufacturer, Franz Becker, sometimes gave lessons and this was the only music instruction Tchaikovsky received at school.

In 1855, his father paid for private tuition (=teaching) outside the Institute with Rudolph Kündinger, a well-known piano teacher from Nuremberg. Ilya also questioned Kündinger about a musical career for his son. Kündinger replied that nothing suggested a potential composer or even a fine performer. Tchaikovsky was told to finish his course work, then try for a post in the Ministry of Justice.

Tchaikovsky graduated on May 25, 1859 with the rank of titular counselor, the lowest rung (=step, rank, position, level) of the civil service ladder. On June 15, he was appointed to the Ministry of Justice. There Tchaikovsky remained for the rest of his three-year civil service career.

In 1861, he attended classes in music theory taught by Nikolai Zaremba through the Russian Musical Society. The following year he followed Zaremba to the new St Petersburg Conservatory. Tchaikovsky followed but did not give up his Ministry post "until I am quite certain that I am destined to be a musician rather than a civil servant." From 1862 to 1865, he studied harmony, counterpoint and fugue (=a piece of music consisting of three or more tunes played together) with Zaremba. Anton Rubinstein, director and founder of the Conservatory, taught him instrumentation and composition. Rubinstein was impressed by Tchaikovsky's musical talent. However, this did not stop either him or Zaremba from clashing with Tchaikovsky over his First Symphony. By this time, the young composer had already graduated from the conservatory. The symphony was given its first complete performance in
February 1868, where it was well received.

Tchaikovsky entered into a working relationship with Balakirev in 1869. The result was Tchaikovsky's first masterpiece, the fantasy-overture Romeo and Juliet.

Mature composer

Anton Rubinstein's younger brother Nikolai asked Tchaikovsky to become professor of harmony, composition, and the history of music at the Moscow Conservatory. Tchaikovsky gladly accepted the position. At the same time he wrote music criticism and continued as a professional composer. Some of his best-known works from this period include the 'First Piano Concerto', the 'Variations on a Rococo Theme' for violoncello and orchestra, the 'Little Russian Symphony' and the ballet 'Swan Lake'.

Of undoubted (=accepted as the truth) significance was Tchaikovsky's ill-starred (=unlucky and unsuccessful) marriage to one of his former composition students, Antonina Miliukova. The brief time with his wife drove him to an emotional crisis, because of which he went to Clarens, Switzerland for rest and recovery. Paradoxically (=a situation or statement which seems impossible or is difficult to understand because it contains two opposite facts), the marriage's strain on Tchaikovsky may have actually enhanced (=improve the quality, amount or strength) his creativity. The 'Fourth Symphony' and the opera 'Eugene Onegin', two of his finest compositions, could be considered proof of this. While in Clarens he also composed his 'Violin Concerto', with the technical assistance of one of his former students, violinist Yosif Kotek.

As Tchaikovsky focused inwards in his musical expression, his fame among concert audiences began to expand outside Russia and continued to grow within it. In a German newspaper, they praised the 'First String Quartet', 'Romeo and Juliet' and other works. In France, Camille Benoit began introducing readers of the 'Revue et Gazette Musiale de Paris' to Tchaikovsky's music in June 1877. Tchaikovsky's music also received significant exposure during the International Exhibition in Paris in 1878.

Nadezhda von Meck

Nadezhda von Meck, the wealthy widow of a Russian railway tycoon (=a person who has succeeded in business or industry and has become very wealthy and powerful) and an influential patron (=a person or group that supports an activity or organization, especially by giving money) of the arts supported Tchaikovsky and became an important element in his life. She paid Tchaikovsky an annual subsidy of 6,000 rubles. This made it possible for him to resign from the Moscow Conservatory in October 1878 and concentrate primarily on composition.

Von Meck remained a fully dedicated supporter of Tchaikovsky and all his works. She also became a vital enabler in his day-to-day existence. Tchaikovsky and von Meck also became related by marriage when one of her sons, Nikolay, married Tchaikovsky's niece Anna Davydova in 1884. However, after 13 years von Meck, suffering from health problems, family pressure, and the mismanagement of her estate by her son, suddenly ended the relationship. The break was announced in a letter delivered by a trusted servant that contained a request that he not forget her, and was accompanied by a year's subsidy in advance. Pyotr remained bewildered and resentful about her abrupt disappearance for the remaining three years of his life.

In 1893, the University of Cambridge awarded Tchaikovsky an honorary Doctor of Music degree.

Death

Tchaikovsky died in St. Petersburg on November 6, 1893, nine days after the premiere of his 'Sixth Symphony', the 'Pathétique'. The work was received by the public with silent incomprehension. The second performance, under conductor Eduard Nápravník, took place 20 days later at a memorial concert and was much more favorably received. The 'Pathétique' has since become one of Tchaikovsky's best known works.

Tchaikovsky's death has traditionally been attributed to cholera, most probably contracted through drinking contaminated water several days earlier. However, some have theorized that his death was a suicide.