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Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was a Russian composer, conductor, and civil servant who today is celebrated as the man behind two of ballet’s most beloved masterworks: Swan Lake and The Nutcracker. A Romantic with a keen ear for soaring, plaintive melody, he’s perhaps Russia’s best-known composer, and many of his works are infused with Russian folk tunes or feature Slavic fairy tales in homage to his homeland. Still, many historians and fans of classical music consider him distinctly cosmopolitan––a singular musician able to blend the forms of the West with the flavors of the East. 

Born in the age of Imperial Russia in the town of Votkinsk, Tchaikovsky reportedly grew up in a home where music was highly respected. As members of the landowning middle class, Tchaikovsky’s parents seem to have made a point of exposing him to pieces by bel canto masters Bellini (1801-1835) and Rossini (1792-1868), as well as to works by the legendary Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791). Once young Pyotr’s musical talent became apparent––one story claims he was plunking out melodies on the keyboard as early as age four––piano lessons soon followed.

Still, Tchaikovsky’s path to music was anything but linear. After his family moved to St. Petersburg in the late 1840s, Tchaikovsky began formal studies at a local boarding school, ultimately enrolling in the city’s School of Jurisprudence to pursue a life in law (though lessons in both piano and singing were afforded to him on the side). Upon his graduation in 1859, Tchaikovsky even took a position as a clerk in the Ministry of Justice, though it was soon obvious his passions laid elsewhere. He appealed to his father about switching vocations, and, following a standard European “tour,” finally began his musical education at St. Petersburg’s Russian Musical Society. By 1862, he was a student at the brand-new St. Petersburg Conservatoire under the direction of composer and concert pianist Anton Rubinstein (1829-1894). In 1865, the Russian public got its first taste of Tchaikovsky’s music, and by 1866, Tchaikovsky was a lecturer at the newly formed Moscow Conservatoire, headed by Rubinstein’s brother Nikolai (1835-1881).

Though he would achieve international fame, Tchaikovsky was unusually adept at communicating loneliness, longing, and existential angst across a wide range of musical forms. This was perhaps due in part to his choice of subject matter (a fantasy overture inspired by Romeo and Juliet in 1870; a ballet of Swan Lake in 1875-6, likely based on a collage of harrowing fairy tales; an opera adaptation of Pushkin’s unrequited love story Eugene Onegin in 1879; and many, many more). But it may also have been a musical manifestation of the pain and anxiety Tchaikovsky himself suffered, both inherently––his governess once called him “a child of glass”––and as a gay man in 19th-century Russia.

Tchaikovsky’s homosexuality in no way defined him as an artist or a human being, but given the composer lived and worked at a time when being gay could lead to imprisonment or worse, this aspect of his identity lends richer context to his life and works. Songs such as “None but the lonely heart” (part of the Op. 6 Romances, 1869) take on added meaning when viewed through the perspective of someone forced keep their feelings a secret out of fear (though it’s been suggested this song was a reaction to his infatuation with a woman: mezzo-soprano Désirée Artôt, 1835-1907). Scenes such as Tatiana’s bittersweet “Letter Aria” in Eugene Onegin land more acutely when compared to the desperate actions of Tchaikovsky’s own wife, Antonina Milyukova, whom he reluctantly married after receiving a declaration of love much like Tatiana’s––a decision that contributed to Tchaikovsky’s nervous breakdown and attempted suicide soon after the wedding.

But there was joy in Tchaikovsky’s music too, buoyed by nationalistic fervor and fueled by the confidence his friends and colleagues instilled in him.

While in Moscow, Tchaikovsky found inspiration from fellow composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908), whose works incorporated national folk tunes as well as rhythms and harmonies that were recognizably and irrefutably Russian. Rimsky-Korsakov’s influence can arguably be heard in Tchaikovsky’s String Quartet No. 1 in D Major (1871, the first full string quartet by a Russian composer ever performed in public), which features a second movement built entirely on Russian folk music. It’s also evident in Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 2 in C minor: “The Little Russian” (1872-1880) whose score weaves together three folk melodies from the Ukrainian territory.

And then, of course, there’s Tchaikovsky’s ultimate nationalist anthem, his 1812 Overture (1880), written to honor a Russian victory over Napoleon––though this was perhaps less an authentic tribute to his country and more of a business venture. (It was all but commissioned by Nikolai Rubinstein for a cathedral opening, and Tchaikovsky famously hated the piece.)

Outside of his Russian pride, Tchaikovsky also found solace and motivation in a long-standing––if thoroughly unusual––friendship with an unlikely patron: the widowed aristocrat Nadezha von Meck (1831-1894). An admirer of the composer’s thanks to his instrumental adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest (1873), von Meck contacted Tchaikovsky in 1877 offering to fund his career for the small price of never meeting her in person. For roughly 13 years, the two wrote one another frequently (around 1,100 of their letters survive), and von Meck’s generosity allowed Tchaikovsky to complete, among other compositions, his operas Eugene Onegin, The Maid of Orleans (1881), and Mazeppa (1884, in such high demand it had two separate Russian “premieres”); his Symphonies Nos. 4 (1878) and 5 (1888); and his Sleeping Beauty ballet (1889, which supplies much of the score for the Disney film of the same name).

Von Meck severed their emotional and financial ties in 1890, but Tchaikovsky remained grateful, writing to his patron:

“I can say, without any exaggeration, that you saved me, and that I should probably have gone out of my mind and perished if you had not come to my aid, not sustained me with your friendship, sympathy, and material help.”

– Tchaikovsky, Letter to Nadezha von Meck, October, 1890

Indeed, Tchaikovsky’s fruitful years under von Meck’s sponsorship had helped him achieve worldwide success from Russia all the way to the US, and his later life saw him exploring new avenues of artistic expression, both on the page and on the stage. He debuted as a conductor in Moscow in 1887, eventually taking his baton to cities such as Prague, Berlin, Leipzig, and Copenhagen, and even conducting at the opening of New York’s Carnegie Hall in 1891. In 1890, he completed his opera The Queen of Spades, which drew particular attention from Tsar Alexander III, and in 1892 Tchaikovsky penned the future Christmas staple, The Nutcracker, which introduced Russia to the ethereal sounds of the celesta keyboard with the instantly memorable “Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy.”

It was in his final year, though, that Tchaikovsky would compose the work he himself described as the “most sincere” of all his pieces, into which he claimed he’d “poured” his entire soul. His Symphony No. 6 in B minor, nicknamed the “Pathétique” (as in “moving” or “melancholic”), premiered in 1893 with Tchaikovsky at the podium­­––a strangely fitting conclusion to a troubled life and illustrious career.

He died nine days later under circumstances that are still unclear.

Written by Eleni Hagen

Sources

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