Born May 7, 1840 in Votkinsk, Russia, Tchaikovsky was a famous composer during the romantic time period of music and was the most famous Russian composer. Tchaikovsky was born to a small middle class family.
His father was a miner and his mom died when he was 14. He started learning to play piano at the age of 5 and soon showed a great talent for it. At age 10 he was sent to the School of Jurisprudence at St. Petersburg where he and his family would live for quite some time. Tchaikovsky originally started studying law, but his involvement in music became a lot greater and therefore he followed his calling by entering the St. Petersburg Conservatory where he studied from 1863 to 1865.
While at the Conservatory he came to know a group of composers, Rimsky-Korsakov and Balakierev, who influenced his second symphony because of their nationalistic beliefs. Eventually, however, he became rejected by the group, because they thought he was too conservatory trained and that his music wasn’t nationalistic enough. While his music was Russian, it was imbued with his love of Mozart and other Western European influences.Tchaikovsky didn’t really like other composer’s pieces. Tchaikovsky didn’t even like Wagner (pronounced VAg-Ner) or Brahms’s music, who were two leading composers during the romantic period.
Tchaikovsky didn’t even like Beethoven’s music, who happened to be one of the most famous composers of all time. He would have this to say about Beethoven and Mozart: "It angers me that that presumptuous mediocrity is recognized as a genius." Regarding Beethoven, "I acknowledge the greatness of some of his works, but I do not love him." Mozart however, was "a musical Christ.
"Tchaikovsky was a secretive homosexual and made the mistake of marrying one of his pupils, who unfortunately was not very bright, and a nymphomaniac as well. The marriage lasted nine weeks culminating in Tchaikovsky attempting suicide by jumping in a river to give himself pneumonia. His brother Modest Ilyich Tchaikovsky, also homosexual, saved him and took him back to St Petersburg where Tchaikovsky suffered a complete nervous breakdown. Tchaikovsky drank too much and is said to have wrote in his diary: "It is said that to abuse one's self with alcohol is harmful. I readily agree to that.
But nevertheless I, a sick person, full of neuroses, absolutely cannot do without the alcoholic poison.” (Tchaikovsky)Tchaikovsky wrote many pieces of music, but his most famous piece would be The Nutcracker. He also wrote: Eugene Onegin, The Queen of Spades, Romeo and Juliet, Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, Souvenir de Florence, The Seasons, and None but the Lonely Heart. His first opera was The Voyevoda written in 1869, but it was not well received. Tchaikovsky later used material from his first to write his second opera, The Oprichnik. The Oprichnik won some success in at St.
Petersburg in 1874. In 1875 came the carefully written Third Symphony and Swan Lake, commissioned by Moscow Opera.Tchaikovsky died on November 6, 1893, in St. Petersburg.
He died nine days after the premiere of his Sixth Symphony, the Pathétique. This piece was received with silent incomprehension. On its second performance twenty years later, it was much more celebrated. Throughout Tchaikovsky’s career, he showed his genius through piece after piece of musical talent.
Much of his works are staples of the musical world today. It is hard to go through a Holiday season without hearing some musical section of The Nutcracker, or even see some rendition of it in a theater or on Television. His contribution to the musical world can hardly be overstated, as his works live on in the modern world.
