Pyotr llyich Tchaikovsky was born May 7th 1840 in Votkinsk, Russia and died Nov. 6th, 1893.
At the age of five he started taking piano lessons and within a few years he was reading music on the same level as his teacher.
By his teen years he became traumatized when his mother died of cholera and was sent to boarding school. Emotional upheaval was a constant theme in his life.
His middle class upbringing steered him to stake a profession other than music.
In 1859 he graduated from the St. Petersburg School of Law and actually practiced for several years in the Russian Empire’s Justice Department.
By 1861, against his father’s wishes, he gave law up and went to study music at the St. Petersburg Conservatory.
From 1866 to 1878 he was a music professor at the Moscow Conservatory.
It was in Moscow in 1868 where the young composer’s First Symphony was performed to a warm reception.
Although he tried to conceal homosexual tendencies, he hastily married in 1877 and after a few weeks fled a nervous wreck.
From 1877 to 1890 Tchaikovsky benefited from the patronage of a railway tycoon’s widow, Nadezhda von Meck. Her contributions amounted to almost thirty percent of his income and when she ran into financial difficulties and suddenly ended the arrangement, Tchaikovsky’s emotional instability reared its tormented head again.
Best known are the Tchaikovsky Ballets- Swan Lake (1876), Sleeping Beauty (1888) and The Nutcracker (1892).
The 1812 Overture is Tchaikovsky’s most famous composition, written to commemorate the festivities in 1882 surrounding the 25th anniversary of the coronation of Alexander II and the Moscow Arts and Industry Exhibition, both coinciding with the completion of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, built to commemorate the defeat of Napoleon in 1812.
Tsar Alexander III of Russia awarded Tchaikovsky a lifelong pension in 1885.
In 1891, during a tour of America, he conducted the opening night orchestra at New York’s Carnegie Hall.
The composer remained in St. Petersburg until his death in 1893 from cholera, although some believe he committed suicide.
