Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilyich

Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilyich (1840-93), Russian composer.

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky first worked as a clerk in St. Petersburg.

He had played the piano from boyhood and at the age of twenty-one he made up his mind to study music seriously.

He attended the School of Music in St. Petersburg and, three years later, was teaching music in Moscow.

Soon afterwards his first piano concerto was performed in Moscow and he became known as a composer.

In 1877, Tchaikovsky married one of his pupils but she left him after nine weeks and he tried to kill himself.

He gave up teaching to spend all his time writing music and in later years went on visits to foreign countries to conduct his work.

Tchaikovsky composed six symphonies and the Sixth Symphony, known as the Pathetique or Pathetic, is one of his greatest works.

He composed three ballets, Swan Lake (1876), The Sleeping Princess (1889) and The Nutcracker (1892), and several operas.

His best known operas are Eugene Onegin (1878) and The Queen of Spades (1890).

His other works include many songs, the 1812 Overture (1880), the overture to Romeo and Juliet (1869-80) and the Concerto in D for violin and orchestra (1878), one of the greatest of all violin concertos.

See Tchaikovsky: The Man and His Music ~ David Brown