Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was one of the most influential and beloved composers of the 19th century. His prolific output spans various genres, including 7 symphonies, 4 orchestral suites, several orchestral tone poems and overtures, many duets, a trio, 3 string quartets, a sextet, many compositions for solo instruments and orchestra, an important composition for string orchestra, many pieces for piano solo, more than 100 songs, 13 operas, and 3 iconic ballets.
Tchaikovsky was born in 1840 in Votkinsk, Russia, 800 miles east of Moscow. He began piano lessons at age five and by age six was fluent in French and German. He later learned Italian and English. He was a nervous child, capricious and irritable, very reticent and unsociable. Tchaikovsky’s parents hired a tutor, encouraged his piano studies and bought an orchestrion, a mechanical organ that could imitate elaborate orchestral effects. It played excerpts by Mozart, Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini, and von Weber. Beginning at age 5 every spare moment he had was spent at the piano picking out melodies he heard on this instrument. He said “I am never away from the piano; it cheers me up when I am sad.”
The only careers available for a musician in Russia at that time were as a teacher in an academy or as an instrumentalist in one of the Imperial Theaters. Both were considered on the lowest rank of the social ladder having no more rights than peasants. So when he was 10 Tchaikovsky’s parents sent him to the Imperial School of Jurisprudence for 9 years, a boarding school for boys in St. Petersburg to prepare their son for a career as a civil servant.
While there Tchaikovsky had music lessons and sang in the choir. When he was 15 Tchaikovsky’s father funded private piano lessons with Rudolph Kündinger, who, when questioned about a musical career for his son, Kündinger replied that while he was impressed with the boy’s talent, he saw nothing to suggest a future composer or performer!
“I have now written another two songs. I have taken texts from Aleksey Khomyakov. What a poet he was! The two poems I have chosen are sheer delight! They are so original and delightful that I can feel how my music has come out better and more successfully then in all the others.” One of these is called The Last Night.
“I have never met anyone who was more in love than I am with Mother Russia in general. I am passionately fond of Russians, of hearing the Russian language, of the Russian way of thinking, of the beauty of the Russian face, of Russian customs. I was steeped from my earliest childhood in the indescribable beauty of Russian folk music with all its special characteristics. I am a Russian in the fullest sense of the word.” Despite Tchaikovsky’s disdain for public life, he participated in it as part of his increasing celebrity and out of a duty he felt to promote Russian music. At age 37 he wrote “I am an artist who can and must bring honor to his country. I can feel great creative powers within me. I still have not done even a fraction of what I can do.”
At age 11 his mother brought him to hear his first opera performance: A Life for the Tsar by Mikhail Glinka, which was one of his favorites throughout his life. “How Glinka with a single stride, placed himself alongside (yes – alongside!) Mozart, Beethoven, and anyone else you like. This can be said without any exaggeration of the man who wrote Slavsya! (Glory!) Slavsya is something quite overwhelming and gigantic, a work of superlative inspiration, which stands alongside the loftiest manifestations of the creative spirit in the great geniuses. What a remarkable phenomenon Glinka was! All the Russian composers who followed him including myself continue to this day to borrow contrapuntal and harmonic combinations from him.”
Tchaikovsky was a musical misfit. Other Russian composers were into nationalism: music that’s earthy, folksy and very Russian! Tchaikovsky created his own style. It’s why international audiences love him but Russian critics of his time didn’t. They said he was overly reliant on Western melodies and harmonies. A turning point was a speech in 1880 by the great novelist Dostoyevsky, who called for a “universal unity” with the West. The message spread throughout Russia and Russians began to reassess Tchaikovksy.
“For me the best opera ever written is Don Giovanni. I was 16 when I first heard it. It was the first music to have a really shattering effect on me. It took me into the world of artistic beauty where only the greatest geniuses dwell. It is to Mozart that I am in indebted for the fact that I have dedicated my life to music. It was he who caused me to love music more than anything in the world. I do not merely like Mozart. I worship him. What marvelous sensations I experience when I immerse myself in his music! When I read or play Mozart I feel more lively and vigorous, almost a young man again! I so love the music of Don Giovanni that at this very moment as I write to you I could weep from emotion and excitement. I cannot discuss it calmly.”
Thousands of letters written by Tchaikovsky have survived. Alexandra Orlova worked as a young musicologist in the Tchaikovsky Museum at Klin. She assisted in compiling a chronicle of Tchaikovsky’s life and a subject index of his unpublished letters to his brothers. Many of Tchaikovsky’s letters have been censored and many of the letters that were published contain redacted passages because of references to his homosexuality. Orlova wrote “Tchaikovsky’s brother, Modest’s unpublished reminiscences are in the archives of the Tchaikovsky Museum at Klin. Access to them is not now granted; but I read Modest’s reminiscences when I was working at the museum in 1938 and ‘39”
“I have been constantly depressed this winter to a greater or lesser degree and sometimes to the ultimate degree of being so revolted by life that I would have welcomed death. Now that spring is approaching these attacks of melancholy have stopped all together but, other things involve much biting of nails and the smoking of a vast number of cigarettes.”
Tchaikovsky was an artist who had known success and recognition on two continents, who was in his lifetime covered with glory, affection, and adulation. So why the sadness, the pain, the torment?” Despite his great, international success, Tchaikovsky’s life was filled with personal crises and depression, including the traumatic, early separation from his mother when he was sent to boarding school at age 10, and her death from cholera 4 years later, which caused emotional scars that he never recovered from. He experienced wild mood swings, extreme social anxiety, and his disastrous marriage to Antonina Miliukova, resulted in a nervous breakdown. His frequent suffering negatively affected his physical health. He was a heavy smoker and drank excessively, often to medicate himself because of his frequent emotional pain.
Tchaikovsky was greatly influenced by Shakespeare, resulting in his orchestral compositions Romeo and Juliet, The Tempest, and 2 compositions based on Hamlet. His operas Eugene Onegin and The Queen of Spades are based on works by Pushkin. Towards the end of his life he studied Spinoza. And he considered Tolstoy to be above everyone.
In 1878 he wrote “In the course of these two weeks, without any effort, as though moved by some supernatural force, I wrote the rough draft of the whole of The Tempest.” 5 years later, after mixed reaction to a performance of it in Paris he wrote “I was devastated by the thought that the Tempest, which I have grown used to regarding as my most brilliant composition, is in fact so worthless!”
At age 21 Tchaikovsky began the formal study of music. Bored with his civil service job, he quit the following year and entered the new St. Petersburg Music Conservatory. He was awarded a silver medal for his graduation assignment, composing a cantata on Schiller’s “Ode to Joy”. Upon graduation Tchaikovsky was hired by Nikolai Rubinstein to be a professor of music theory and composition at the new Moscow Conservatory of Music.
In 1877 he wrote “I can say, with no false modesty, that everything I have written up to now seems so imperfect, so feeble by comparison with what I can and must do. And I will do it.”
“I am a terrific lover of animals.” As a humanist Tchaikovsky hated evil and violence. He was a passionate lover of nature. “From time to time I am seized with those moments of ecstasy which only nature can provide. Only when one is alone in the warm bosom of nature can one experience moments of true happiness. Not even art can provide those moments of ecstatic rapture which nature gives.”
In 1938 the legendary tenor Sergei Lemeshev was the first artist to sing all 100 songs by Tchaikovsky in 5 concerts. Almost all his performances during the 1930s and 40s were accompanied by crowds of fans following him through the streets, spending days and nights near his house. He was married six times and had numerous affairs! Asteroid No. 4561 was named after him. His recordings of Tchaikovsky’s song, Autumn are classics. Tchaikovsky wrote: “I think that the tender melancholy of nature’s coloring in autumn has the power to fill my soul with a gentle sense of joy.”
Tchaikovsky combined composing with his teaching duties at the conservatory. For a few years he also worked as a music journalist. This activity exposed him to a lot of contemporary music and opportunities to travel abroad where he got to meet and know many of his composer colleagues. In his reviews, he praised Beethoven, considered Brahms overrated and admired Schumann.
He appreciated the staging of Wagner’s tetralogy, The Ring cycle, which he attended at its world premiere in 1876 in Bayreuth, Germany. He wrote about The Ring having “many striking beauties. It is one of the most significant events in the history of art. After the last notes of The Twilight of the Gods, I felt as though I had been let out of prison. The Nibelungen may actually be a magnificent work, but it is certain that there never was anything so endlessly and wearisomely spun out.
“I dislike Wagner himself as a man but his colossal musical talent cannot be denied. In my view, it is a talent which is nowhere so apparent as in Lohengrin. This work will remain the crowning glory of Wagner’s achievement. My particular interest in Lohengrin at the moment is the orchestration.” In 1884 he wrote: “I am studying Parsifal in the evenings. My God! How wearisome it is!
“In my view Grieg has immense gifts. His music is infused with a captivating melancholy which reflects the beauties of the Norwegian landscape. We instinctively recognize a deeply poetic nature. I am sincerely grateful to fate for enabling me to meet him and get to know him personally. I became particularly friendly with Grieg and his wife, who are charming people.”
His wonderful ballet, Swan Lake was a failure at its world premiere in Moscow in 1877. A Pas de deux originally intended for Swan Lake was lost until it was accidentally discovered in 1953 and choreographed by George Balanchine.
The Buddhist philosopher Daisaku Ikeda has repeatedly emphasized the profound and transformative power of music, describing it as a vitalizing power capable of inspiring courage, rekindling hope, and transcending barriers between people. Ikeda asserted that the true essence of music lies in its ability to touch the human soul.
In her later years the ballerina, Marta Gonzalez was struck with with Alzheimer’s disease and had become unresponsive. A therapist placed head phones on her, and while listening to Swan Lake, she suddenly remembered its choreography from when she was a prima ballerina 50 years before and began to recreate the gestures of the ballet in her wheelchair!
Tchaikovsky wrote: “Indeed I would go out of my mind were it not for music. That is truly heaven’s greatest gift to mankind as it blunders about in the darkness. Music alone brings light, and calm, and reconciliation. It is a true friend, protector, and comforter, and it alone makes life on this earth worth living. After all, there may not be any music in heaven, so let us live in this world so long as there is life in us!”
Tchaikovsky was greatly helped by Nadezhda von Meck, the widow of a railroad tycoon, who was totally captivated by his music. As well as an important friend and source of emotional support, she became his patroness for 13 years, which allowed him to focus exclusively on composing. Although Tchaikovsky called her his “best friend”, they agreed never to meet under any circumstances, and didn’t! Her financial assistance and her invitations for him to stay at several of her estates helped to create the optimal conditions for him to compose.
In 1878 Tchaikovsky composed his opera about Joan of Arc entitled The Maid of Orleans “I think that at last I have got it right in The Maid of Orleans but I may indeed be mistaken.” About the world premiere he wrote: “I took eight curtain calls at the end of Act 1. In all I took 24 calls. After that I spent a sleepless night.”
Tchaikovsky dedicated his 4th Symphony “To my best friend Nadezhda von Meck. I don’t know how things will turn out later, but at the moment I think that it is the best of all that I have written. This is one of my most favorite children, one which was written from beginning to end under the impetus of true inspiration, with love and genuine enthusiasm. None of my previous orchestral works has ever cost me so much effort, but then I have never felt so much affection for one of my works. There is not a single phrase in that symphony which is not deeply felt, which is not the echo of some sincere emotion.” The 3rd movement is very interesting because Tchaikovsky indicated that the string players pluck their strings and not use their bows. At its world premiere the symphony did not impress the audience nor the press, but has since gone on to be one of the most loved and often played symphonies.
“I will approach the fulfilling of my duties at the conservatory with extreme revulsion. I always have been and always will be a bad teacher if only because I have got into the habit of regarding my pupils as sworn enemies whose job it is to torment and torture me. Then have I not an obligation to devote all my time and all my powers to the cause which I love, which constitutes the whole purpose, the very essence of my life?” With von Meck’s consistent subsidy, he was able to resign from teaching at the conservatory. “What bliss it is to be free not to have to correct 60 harmony and orchestration exercises every day!”
Nikolai Rubinstein was a pianist and composer, one of Tchaikovsky’s teachers, and the founder and first Director of the Moscow Conservatory. Tchaikovsky greatly admired his piano playing and when he completed his 1st Piano Concerto he played it for Rubinstein, whose reaction was quite negative. He told Tchaikovsky that it was no good at all, that it was unplayable, that some passages were hackneyed, awkward, and clumsy beyond redemption, that the work as a whole was bad and vulgar, that there were only two or three pages which could stand and the rest would have to be thrown away or completely revised. “He said that a large number of passages required radical alteration, and said that if by a specified time I revised the concerto in accordance with his demands he would do me the honor of playing my piece at one of his concerts. I replied ‘I will not revise a single note and I will publish it in exactly the form it is now!’ And I did.”’
Hans von Bülow praised the concerto very highly—in direct opposition to Rubinstein—saying, that of all Tchaikovsky’s works with which he was acquainted this was “the most perfect. I should grow weary if I attempted to enumerate all the qualities of your work.”
Its first performance was in Boston performed by Hans von Bülow and was an immediate success. It has become one of the most popular concertos ever written. Tchaikovsky wrote “A few days ago I had a letter from Bülow. After every performance Bülow was obliged to repeat the entire finale! Such a thing could never happen here.” Tchaikovsky dedicated it to him in gratitude and von Bülow championed other Tchaikovsky works both as pianist and conductor.
Here is a short video tease: https://youtu.be/glFSAREwras