Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was a Russian composer born in 1840 in Votkinsk, Russia. He showed early musical talent and began piano lessons at age 5. He was sent to school in St. Petersburg to study law but continued his musical studies. Tchaikovsky went on to write many popular classical works including his 1812 Overture, ballets such as The Nutcracker and Swan Lake, and operas like The Queen of Spades. He had a significant impact as one of the first professional composers to assimilate Western styles into Russian classical music.

1. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

2. Life In May 7th of 1840, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born in Votkinsk , a small town in present-day Udmurtia , formerly the Imperial Russian province of Vyatka . His father, Ilya Petrovich Tchaikovsky, was a government mining engineer of Ukrainian nationality who worked as a factory manager in several Russian cities. [4] His grandfather was Pyotr Fyodorovich Chaika (who later changed his surname to Tchaikovsky), Chaika ( ukr . Чайка, means seagull ) is a traditional Ukrainian surname. Pyotr Chaika was born in 1745 in Nikolaevka, near Poltava , Ukraine . In 1785 he was added to the registry of the nobility. Pyotr Chaika was the second child of Fyodor Chaika (ca. 1695–1767), who studied in a seminary in Kiev before later receiving medical training in Saint Petersburg , and his wife Anna (1717–?). [5] The composer's mother, Alexandra Andreyevna née d'Assier, was of partial French ancestry and was the second of Ilya's three wives. Pyotr was the second eldest of the six children of his father's second marriage. He had four brothers (Nikolai, Ippolit, and twins Anatoly and Modest , the latter being a dramatist, librettist , and translator), and a sister Alexandra. He also had a half-sister Zinaida from his father's first marriage. [6] In 1843 Tchaikovsky's parents hired a French governess, Fanny Dürbach. Her love and affection for her charge is said to have provided a counter to Alexandra, who is described by one biographer as a cold, unhappy, distant parent not given to displays of physical affection. [7] However, other writers claim that Alexandra doted on her son. [8] Tchaikovsky began piano lessons at the age of five. A precocious pupil, he could read music as adeptly as his teacher within three years. His parents were extremely supportive of his musical talents, hiring him a tutor, buying him an organ, and encouraging his study of the piano. [9] However, his parents' passion for his musical talent soon cooled. In 1850, the family decided to send Tchaikovsky to the Imperial School of Jurisprudence in Saint Petersburg . This establishment mainly served the lesser nobility or gentry, and would prepare him for a career as a civil servant. As the minimum age for acceptance was 12, Tchaikovsky was required to spend two years boarding at the Imperial School of Jurisprudence's preparatory school, 800 miles (1,300 km) from his family. [10] Once those two years had passed, Tchaikovsky transferred to the Imperial School of Jurisprudence to begin a seven-year course of studies.

3. Music Tchaikovsky wrote many works which are popular with the classical music public, including his Romeo and Juliet , the 1812 Overture , his three ballets ( The Nutcracker , Swan Lake , The Sleeping Beauty ) and Marche Slave . These, along with two of his four concertos , three of his six numbered symphonies and, of his 10 operas, The Queen of Spades and Eugene Onegin , are probably among his most familiar works. Almost as popular are the Manfred Symphony , Francesca da Rimini , the Capriccio Italien and the Serenade for Strings . His three string quartets and piano trio all contain beautiful passages, while recitalists still perform some of his 106 songs. Tchaikovsky also wrote over a hundred piano works, covering the entire span of his creative life. Brown has asserted that "while some of these can be challenging technically, they are mostly charming, unpretentious compositions intended for amateur pianists. He adds, however, that "there is more attractive and resourceful music in some of these pieces than one might be inclined to expect.

4. Impact Wiley cites Tchaikovsky as "the first composer of a new Russian type, fully professional, who firmly assimilated traditions of Western European symphonic mastery; in a deeply original, personal and national style he unified the symphonic thought of Beethoven and Schumann with the works of Glinka, and transformed Liszt's and Berlioz's achievements in depictive-programmatic music into matters of Shakespearean elevation and psychological import."

5. The Sleeping Beauty Original cast of Tchaikovsky's ballet, The Sleeping Beauty , Saint Petersburg, 1890

6. Links for Further Research Tchaikovsky Research Istituto Musicale Tchaikovsky (Italian) Tchaikovsky – biography , works and miscellaneous PBS Great Performances biography of Tchaikovsky Tchaikovsky : listen to a playlist on Magazzini Sonori (Italian) Biography of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Tchaikovsky cylinder recordings , from the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara Library. Tchaikovsky performances on ClassicalTV How Homosexual Was Tchaikovsky ? by Petr Beckmann