Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: biography, interesting facts, creativity. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - biography, information, personal life Musical activity of Pyotr Ilyich

Origin

Youth

Musical activities

Sex life

Rumor of suicide

Dates of creative biography

Major works

Symphonies

Concerts

Piano works

Performances of Tchaikovsky's music

Filmography

Films about the composer's life

In numismatics

In popular music

On television

In philately

(April 25, 1840, Votkinsk plant, Vyatka province, Russian Empire - October 25, 1893, St. Petersburg) - Russian composer, conductor, teacher, musical and public figure, music journalist.

Considered one of the greatest composers in the history of music. Author of more than 80 works, including ten operas and three ballets. His concertos and other works for piano, seven symphonies (six numbered and the “Manfred” symphony), four suites, program symphonic music, ballets “Swan Lake”, “Sleeping Beauty”, “Nutcracker”, more than 100 romances represent an extremely valuable contribution to world musical culture.

Biography

Origin

Born on April 25, 1840 in the village of the Kama-Votkinsk plant in the Vyatka province (now the city of Votkinsk, Udmurtia). His father, Ilya Petrovich Tchaikovsky (1795-1880), an outstanding Russian engineer, was the son of Pyotr Fedorovich Chaika, who was born in 1745 in the village of Nikolaevka, Poltava regiment, near Poltava.

Tchaikovsky came from the Orthodox gentry of the Kremenchug district and was a descendant of the famous Cossack family of Chaeks in Ukraine.

Family legend claimed that his great-grandfather Fyodor Afanasyevich Chaika (1695-1767) participated in the Battle of Poltava, and died with the rank of centurion “from wounds,” although in fact he died in old age in Catherine’s time.

The composer's grandfather, Pyotr Fedorovich, was the second son of Fyodor Chaika and his wife Anna (1717-?). He studied at the Kiev-Mohyla Academy, from where in 1769 he was transferred to the St. Petersburg Military Land Hospital; in Kyiv, he “ennobled” his surname, starting to call himself Tchaikovsky. Since 1770, during the Russian-Turkish war (a doctor’s apprentice, a doctor’s assistant, then a doctor); in 1776 he was appointed city doctor in Kungur, Perm governorship; in 1782 he was transferred to Vyatka, two years later he was promoted to staff physician and then awarded the title of nobility. Subsequently, he retired, in 1795 he was appointed mayor to the city of Slobodskaya, and was soon transferred from there to Glazov, where he held the post until his death in 1818. In 1776, he married 25-year-old Anastasia Stepanovna Posokhova, who had recently lost her father (her father, a second lieutenant, died near Kungur in a skirmish with the Pugachevites; family legend called him the commandant of Kungur, allegedly hanged by Pugachev). They had 11 children.

Ilya Petrovich, the composer's father, was the tenth child. After graduating from the Mining Cadet Corps in St. Petersburg, he was enlisted in the Department of Mining and Salt Affairs. Widowed after a short marriage, in 1833 he married 20-year-old Alexandra Andreevna Assier (1813-1854), the granddaughter of the French sculptor Michel Victor Acier, a modeler for the porcelain manufactory in Meissen (Saxony), and the daughter of a major customs official Andrei Mikhailovich (Michael-Heinrich-Maximilian) Assier, who came to Russia as a teacher of French and German and in 1800 accepted Russian citizenship.

In 1837, Ilya Petrovich Tchaikovsky and his young wife moved to the Urals, where he was appointed to the post of head of the Kama-Votkinsk steel plant. Peter was the second child in the family: his older brother Nikolai was born in 1838, and his sister Alexandra (married Davydova) and Ippolit were born in 1842. Twin brothers Anatoly and Modest were born in 1850.

Pyotr Ilyich's parents loved music. His mother played the piano and sang; there was a mechanical organ in the house - an orchestra, in the performance of which little Peter first heard Mozart's Don Giovanni. While the family lived in Votkinsk, they often heard melodic folk songs of factory workers and peasants in the evenings. From a letter from governess Fanny Durbach to Pyotr Ilyich: “I especially loved the quiet, soft evenings at the end of summer... from the balcony we listened to tender and sad songs, only they alone broke the silence of these wonderful nights. You must remember them, none of you went to bed then. If you remember these melodies, put them to music. You will charm those who cannot hear them in your country.”

Youth

In 1849 the family moved to the city of Alapaevsk, and in 1850 to St. Petersburg. Feeling inferior in status due to his humble origins, in 1850 his parents sent Tchaikovsky to the Imperial School of Law, located near the street now named after the composer. Tchaikovsky spent 2 years abroad, 1300 km from his home, since the age for entering the school was 12 years old. For Tchaikovsky, separation from his mother was a very strong mental trauma. In 1852, having entered the school, he began to seriously study music, which was taught as an elective. Tchaikovsky was known as a good pianist and improvised well. From the age of 16 he began to pay more attention to music, studying with the famous teacher Luigi Piccioli; then Rudolf Kündinger became the mentor of the future composer.

After graduating from college in 1859, Tchaikovsky received the rank of titular councilor and began working in the Ministry of Justice. In his free time, he visited the opera house, where he was greatly impressed by productions of operas by Mozart and Glinka.

Musical activities

In 1861 he entered the Music classes of the Russian Musical Society (RMS), and after they were transformed into the St. Petersburg Conservatory in 1862, he became one of its first students in the composition class. His teachers at the conservatory were Nikolai Ivanovich Zaremba (music theory) and Anton Grigorievich Rubinstein (orchestration). At the latter's insistence, he quit his service and devoted himself entirely to music. In 1865 he graduated from the conservatory course with a large silver medal, having written a cantata based on Schiller’s ode “To Joy”; His other conservatory works are the overture to Ostrovsky's play "The Thunderstorm" and the dances of the hay girls, later included in the opera "The Voevoda".

After graduating from the conservatory, at the invitation of Nikolai Rubinstein, he moved to Moscow, where he received a position as professor of classes in free composition, harmony, theory and instrumentation at the newly founded conservatory.

In 1868, he first appeared in print as a music critic and met a group of St. Petersburg composers - members of the “Mighty Handful”. Despite the difference in creative views, friendly relations developed between him and the “kuchkists”. Tchaikovsky shows an interest in program music, and on the advice of the head of the “Mighty Handful” Mily Balakirev, he writes the overture-fantasy “Romeo and Juliet” based on Shakespeare’s tragedy of the same name (1869), and the critic V.V. Stasov suggested to him the idea of ​​​​a symphonic fantasy “The Tempest” (1873).

That same year he met Desiree Artaud. He dedicated Romance op. 5 and allegedly encoded her name in the lyrics of the Piano Concerto No. 1 and the symphonic poem Fatum. They planned to get married, but on September 15, 1869, Desiree unexpectedly married the Spanish baritone singer Mariano Padilla y Ramos. 19 years later, in October 1888, Tchaikovsky, at the request of Désirée, wrote Six Romances Op. 65.

The 1870s in Tchaikovsky’s work is a period of creative quest; he is attracted by the historical past of Russia, Russian folk life, and the theme of human destiny.

At this time, he wrote such works as the operas “The Oprichnik” and “Blacksmith Vakula”, music for Ostrovsky’s drama “The Snow Maiden”, the ballet “Swan Lake”, the Second and Third Symphonies, the fantasy “Francesca da Rimini”, the First Piano Concerto, Variations on a Rococo theme for cello and orchestra, three string quartets and others. The cantata “In memory of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Peter the Great,” written by order of the organizing committee of the Polytechnic Exhibition, to the words of Ya. P. Polonsky, dates back to the same period; it was first performed on May 31, 1872 on the Trinity Bridge in the Kremlin under a specially built canopy (conductor K. Yu. Davydov, soloist A. M. Dodonov).

From 1872 to 1876 he worked as a music critic for the newspaper Russkie Vedomosti, which had a reputation as a left-liberal press organ.

In July 1877, carried away by the composition of the opera Eugene Onegin, he impulsively married former conservatory student Antonina Milyukova, who was 8 years younger than him. He wrote to his brother that one of the goals of marriage is to get rid of accusations of homosexuality: “I would like, by marriage or generally a public relationship with a woman, to shut the mouths of any despicable creature, whose opinion I do not value at all, but which can cause grief to people close to me.” . However, the composer’s homosexuality was the reason that the marriage broke up a few weeks later; according to a number of art historians, this biographical fact was reflected in his work. Due to various circumstances, the couple were never able to divorce and lived separately.

In 1878, he left his post at the Moscow Conservatory and went abroad. Moral and material support for him during this period was provided by Nadezhda von Meck, with whom Tchaikovsky had extensive correspondence in 1876–1890, but never met. One of Tchaikovsky’s works of this period, the Fourth Symphony (1877), is dedicated to von Meck. In 1880, for the “1812” overture, Tchaikovsky received the Order of St. Vladimir, 1st degree.

In May 1881, he asked for the loan of three thousand rubles in silver from the treasury: “that is, so that my debt to the treasury would be gradually repaid with the performance fee due to me from the management of the Imperial Theaters.” The request was addressed to Emperor Alexander III, but the letter itself was sent to the Chief Prosecutor of the Holy Synod, K. P. Pobedonostsev, due to the fact that the latter was “the only dignitary close to the Sovereign to whom I have the honor of being personally known.” Tchaikovsky explained the reason for his appeal as follows: “This amount would free me from debts (made out of necessity both by myself and by some of my loved ones) and would return to me that spiritual peace that my soul longs for.” According to the chief prosecutor's report, the emperor sent Pobedonostsev 3 thousand rubles as a non-refundable allowance for Tchaikovsky. Tchaikovsky thanked the emperor and Pobedonostsev; to the latter, in particular, he wrote: “I am deeply touched by the form in which the Emperor’s attention to my request was expressed. It’s so difficult to express in words the feeling of tenderness and love that the Emperor arouses in me.”

In the mid-1880s, Tchaikovsky returned to active musical and social activities. In 1885 he was elected director of the Moscow branch of the Russian Medical Society. Tchaikovsky's music gains fame in Russia and abroad. The composer spent the last years of his life in Klin, Moscow region, where the State House-Museum of P. I. Tchaikovsky is now located.

Since the late 1880s he has performed as a conductor in Russia and abroad. Concert trips strengthened Tchaikovsky's creative and friendly ties with Western European musicians, including Hans von Bülow, Edvard Grieg, Antonin Dvorak, Gustav Mahler, Arthur Nikisch, Camille Saint-Saëns and others.

In the spring of 1891, P. I. Tchaikovsky made a trip to the USA. As a conductor of his works, he performed with sensational success in New York, Baltimore and Philadelphia (a detailed description of this trip is preserved in the composer's diaries). In New York, he conducted the New York Symphony Orchestra at the opening of Carnegie Hall.

For the last time in his life, Tchaikovsky stood at the conductor’s stand in St. Petersburg nine days before his death - October 16 (October 28, new style) 1893. In the second part of this concert his Sixth, “Pathetique” symphony was performed for the first time.

Sex life

Despite the fact of his (unsuccessful) marriage, Tchaikovsky was a pronounced homosexual (like his brother Modest). Tchaikovsky’s family believed that Tchaikovsky had his first homosexual experience at school, at the age of 13, with his classmate, the future poet A. N. Apukhtin (Apukhtin himself was already in a relationship with his class teacher at that time).

Tchaikovsky's homosexual and ephebophilic tendencies were well known to his contemporaries. Back in 1862, Tchaikovsky, in the company of legal friends, including Apukhtin, got into some kind of homosexual scandal in the St. Petersburg restaurant “Shotan”, as a result of which they, in the words of Modest Tchaikovsky, “were denounced throughout the city as mounds.”

In a letter to his brother Modest dated August 29, 1878, he notes a corresponding hint in a feuilleton about the morals of the Conservatory, which appeared in “New Time,” and writes with contrition: “My Bugrian reputation falls on the entire Conservatory, and that makes me even more ashamed, even harder.” .

Subsequently, A.V. Amphiteatrov, who tried to understand this issue by interviewing people close to Tchaikovsky, came to the conclusion that Tchaikovsky was characterized by “spiritual homosexuality, ideal, platonic ephebism. Forever surrounded by young friends, he always tenderly fussed with them, becoming attached to them and binding them to himself with a love more passionate than friendship or family. One of these platonic ephebes of Tchaikovsky in Tiflis even shot himself out of grief when his composer friend left the city. Under Tchaikovsky we can count many friends, young men and boys, but not a single lover.” Tchaikovsky's letters, primarily to Modest, contain frank confessions. Thus, in a letter to his brother (05/04/1877), he admits to burning jealousy towards his student, 22-year-old violinist Joseph (Eduard-Joseph) Kotek, due to the fact that the latter had an affair with singer Zinaida Eibozhenko. At the same time, in a letter to Modest dated January 19. 1877 Tchaikovsky, confessing his love for Kotek, at the same time emphasizes that he does not want to go beyond the boundaries of a purely platonic relationship.

The strong homosexual attachment of Tchaikovsky's last years is considered to be his nephew Vladimir (Bob) Davydov, to whom Tchaikovsky dedicated the Sixth Symphony, to whom he made a co-heir and to whom he transferred the right to royalties for stage performances of his works. In the last years of Tchaikovsky’s life, he, Modest, Bob and the young Vladimir Argutinsky-Dolgorukov (“Argo”) formed a close circle, jokingly calling themselves the “fourth suite.” However, Tchaikovsky was not limited to people in his circle: as is clear from the diary, throughout 1886 he was in a relationship with a cab driver named Ivan. A number of researchers also consider Tchaikovsky’s relationships with his servants, brothers Mikhail and Alexei (“Lenka”) Sofronov, to whom he also wrote tender letters, to be homosexual. In Tchaikovsky’s diaries during his stay in Klin one can find numerous erotic records about peasant children, whom he, in the words of Alexander Poznansky, “corrupted with gifts,” however, according to Poznansky, Tchaikovsky’s eroticism towards them was platonic, “aesthetically speculative.” character and was far from the desire for physical possession.

V. S. Sokolov, who studied Tchaikovsky’s letters, notes that in the 70s Tchaikovsky suffered from his sexual inclinations and tried to fight them (“If there is the slightest opportunity, try not to be a hillock. This is very sad,” he wrote, for example, to Modest in 1870 “Bugromanship and pedagogy cannot get along,” states in 1876); however, in the last decade of his life, as V.S. Sokolov notes, “a happy mental balance was found - after fruitless attempts to fight his nature.” “...after the story of my marriage, I am finally beginning to understand that there is nothing more fruitless than wanting to be something other than what I am by nature,” Tchaikovsky writes to his brother Anatoly on February 13/25, 1878.

N.N. Berberova notes that Tchaikovsky’s “secret” became widely known after 1923, when the composer’s diary of the late 80s was published, translated into European languages; this coincided with a revision of views on homosexuality in European society.

Death

On the evening of October 31, 1893, a completely healthy Tchaikovsky visited Leiner’s elite St. Petersburg restaurant on the corner of Nevsky Prospect and Moika embankment, where he stayed until approximately two in the morning. During one of the orders, he demanded to bring him cold water. Despite the unfavorable epidemiological situation in the city regarding cholera, Tchaikovsky was served unboiled water, which he drank.

On the morning of November 1, the composer felt unwell and called a doctor, who diagnosed cholera. The disease was severe, and Tchaikovsky died at 3 o’clock in the morning on October 25 (November 6), 1893, from cholera “unexpectedly and untimely” in the apartment of his brother Modest, at 13 on Malaya Morskaya Street. The funeral arrangements, with the Highest permission, were entrusted to the directorate of the Imperial Theaters, which was “a unique and quite exceptional example.”

The removal of the body and burial took place on October 28 (November 9), 1893; Emperor Alexander III ordered all funeral expenses to be covered “from His Majesty’s Own sums.” The funeral service in the Kazan Cathedral was performed by Bishop Nikandr (Molchanov) of Narva; the choir of singers of the Kazan Cathedral and the choir of the Imperial Russian Opera sang; “the walls of the cathedral could not accommodate everyone who wanted to pray for the repose of the soul of Pyotr Ilyich.” Two members of the imperial family took part in the funeral: Prince Alexander of Oldenburg (trustee of the School of Law) and Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich. He was buried in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra in the Necropolis of Masters of Arts.

Rumor of suicide

After Tchaikovsky's death, rumors arose about his "hidden suicide" supposedly out of fear of persecution for homosexuality. N.N. Berberova notes the spread of these rumors in emigration, and believes that they were spread by the descendants of N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov. She also cites the opinion of V.N. Argutinsky-Dolgoruky, who was present at the death of Tchaikovsky, who attributes this rumor to the revenge of the Purgold girls (i.e. N.N. Rimskaya-Korsakova and her sister singer A.N. Molas) for the failure of their matrimonial plans regarding Tchaikovsky. In the 1980s the legend was supported by the publications of the Soviet musicologist A.A. Orlova, who emigrated to the United States, citing information heard from people of the older generation. According to legend, Tchaikovsky allegedly drank arsenic (the symptoms of poisoning of which are similar to cholera) according to the verdict of the “court of honor” of his classmates at the School of Law, who were outraged by his harassment of the young nephew of Count Stenbock-Fermor, who was close to the tsar, which provoked a complaint to the tsar, and demanded that he him to commit suicide in the name of the honor of the School, in order to avoid a public scandal and criminal punishment. This legend was specially analyzed and refuted by Yale University employee Alexander Poznansky. He refutes the legend both with the well-known chronology of Tchaikovsky’s last days, and with the considerations that homosexuality in the Russian elite was looked at extremely condescendingly (especially since some members of the imperial family were homosexuals), and the School of Law, whose graduates were allegedly outraged by Tchaikovsky’s homosexuality , was widely known for its homosexual mores.

N.N. Berberova believes that the plot of the legend, according to which the scandal broke out because of Tchaikovsky’s acquaintance on a ship with the 13-year-old nephew of Count Stenbock-Fermor, reproduces the story of Tchaikovsky’s friendship (precisely on the ship) with 14-year-old Volodya Sklifosofsky, which really caused a stir. (son of a surgeon) in April 1889

Dates of creative biography

In 1866 he made his debut before the Moscow and St. Petersburg public with the overture in F major; began the First Symphony;

1867 - performance of Andante and Scherzo from the First Symphony at the Russian Musical Society in St. Petersburg.

1866-1867 - an overture to the Danish anthem and a number of piano pieces were written: “Memory of Gapsala.”

1867 - work began on the opera “The Voevoda”; in Moscow, in a symphony meeting, dances from it were performed.

1868 - The First Symphony was performed with great success at the symphony meeting in Moscow of the Russian Musical Society. Ch. was dissatisfied with his symphonic work: “Fatum” (1868), performed both in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

On January 30, 1869, the opera “The Voevoda” premiered at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow. Libretto by the composer and A. N. Ostrovsky based on his play (“Dream on the Volga”). Conductor - Merten. Cast: Nechai Shalygin - Finokki, Vlas Dyuzhoy - Radonezhsky, Nastasya - Annenskaya, Marya Vlasyevna - Menshikova, Praskovya Vlasyevna - Cronenberg, Stepan Bastryukov - Rapport, Dubrovin - Demidov, Olena - Ivanova, Rezvy - Bozhanovsky, Shut - Lavrov, Nedviga - Rozanova, new Voivode - Korin). In the 1870s, Tchaikovsky destroyed the opera, saving only a small part of the material.

In 1869, the opera Ondine was completed, but it was not staged. It was destroyed by the author in 1873, with the exception of some numbers that were later included in other works. The fantasy overture “Romeo and Juliet” was written in the fall. Six romances were written, of which “No, only that one,” “Both it hurts and it’s sweet,” “A tear trembles,” “Why,” “Not a word, oh my friend.”

1871 - the first quartet in D major.

1870-1872 - the opera “The Oprichnik” was composed, his own libretto based on the story by I. I. Lazhechnikov.

May 31, 1872 - the premiere of the cantata “In memory of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Peter the Great” took place, written by order and specially for the opening of the Polytechnic Exhibition of 1872.

1873 - symphonic fantasy “The Tempest”. And also music for the spring fairy tale “The Snow Maiden” by A. N. Ostrovsky at the Bolshoi Theater.

On April 12, 1874, at the Mariinsky Theater, the premiere of the opera “The Oprichnik” (conductor Napravnik; Zhemchuzhny - Vasiliev 1st, Natalya - Raab, Mitkov - Sobolev, Morozova - Krutikova, Andrei - Orlov, Basmanov - Vasiliev 2nd, Vyazminsky - Melnikov, Zakharyevna - Schroeder).

On May 4, 1875, the Bolshoi Theater staged the opera “The Oprichnik” (conductor Merten; Zhemchuzhny - Demidov, Natalya - Smelskaya, Morozova - Kadmina, Andrei - Dodonov, Vyazminsky - Radonezhsky, Basmanov - Aristova).

1875 - at the competition of the Russian Musical Society, the opera “Blacksmith Vakula” was awarded first prize.

1876 ​​- production of the opera “Blacksmith Vakula” in St. Petersburg, later remade into “Cherevichki”.

February 20, 1877 - production of the ballet “Swan Lake” at the Bolshoi Theater based on the libretto by V. Begichev and V. Geltser. (Odette-Odile - Karpakova, Siegfried - Gillert, Rothbart - Sokolov; choreographer Reisinger, conductor Ryabov, artists Waltz, Shangin, Groppius).

1878 - at the World Exhibition in Paris, under the direction of N. G. Rubinstein, the Second Piano Concerto, “The Tempest”, a serenade and a waltz for violin were performed. Growing fame in Europe. Written "Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom."

"Children's Album" Op. 39 - a collection of pieces for piano, bearing the author’s subtitle “Twenty-four easy pieces for piano.” The collection was composed by Tchaikovsky in May-July 1878 and at the first publication, which followed in December of the same year in the Jurgenson publishing house, was dedicated to the composer’s nephew Volodya Davydov.

March 17, 1879 - the first performance of the opera “Eugene Onegin”, by students of the Moscow Conservatory on the stage of the Moscow Maly Theater.

1879 - the opera “The Maid of Orleans” was written with a libretto by the composer himself based on the drama by F. Schiller translated by V. A. Zhukovsky, the drama by J. Barbier “Joan of Arc” and based on the libretto of the opera “The Maid of Orleans” by O. Merme.

On January 13, 1880, the production of the ballet “Swan Lake” was resumed at the Bolshoi Theater by choreographer Hansen, conductor Ryabov, designer Waltz, Shangin, Groppius. Starring Odette-Odile - Kalmykova and Gaten, Siegfried - Bekefi.

November 7, 1880 - the Solemn Overture “1812”, commissioned by N. G. Rubintstein, was completed in Kamenka. On the title page of the score it is written: 1812. Solemn overture for large orchestra. Composed on the occasion of the consecration of the Cathedral of the Savior by Pyotr Tchaikovsky. For this overture, Tchaikovsky became a Knight of the Order of St. Vladimir and began to receive a personalized imperial pension: 3,000 silver rubles per year.

February 13, 1881 - premiere of the opera “The Maid of Orleans” at the Mariinsky Theater (conductor Napravnik; Charles VII - Vasiliev 3rd, Cardinal - Mayboroda, Dunois - Stravinsky, Lionel - Pryanishnikov, Thibault - Koryakin, Raymond - Sokolov, Joan of Arc - Kamenskaya, Agnes - Raab).

A year before the consecration of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, during the All-Russian Industrial and Art Exhibition on August 8 (August 20), 1882, the Solemn Overture “1812”, written by the composer to commemorate the victory of Russia in the war with Napoleon, was performed for the first time (conductor I. K. Altani ).

On October 28, 1882, the production of the ballet “Swan Lake” was resumed at the Bolshoi Theater by choreographer Hansen, conductor Ryabov, designer Waltz, Shangin, Groppius. Starring Odette-Odile - Kalmykova and Gaten, Siegfried - Bekefi.

April 1883 - the opera “Eugene Onegin” was performed in St. Petersburg in a music and drama group under the direction of K. K. Zike. Opera "Mazeppa".

February 3, 1884 - at the Bolshoi Theater (Moscow) the premiere of the opera “Mazepa”, libretto by V. P. Burenin based on Pushkin’s poem “Poltava”. (conductor Altani, director Bartsal, artists Shishkov and Bocharov, choreographer Ivanov; Mazepa - Korsov, Kochubey - Borisov, Maria - Pavlovskaya, Lyubov - Krutikova, Andrei - Usatov, Orlik - Fuhrer, Iskra - Grigoriev, Drunken Cossack - Dodonov).

1885 - the opera “Mazeppa” was staged in Tiflis. A new edition of the opera “Blacksmith Vakula” called “Cherevichki” has been prepared.

On October 20, 1887, in St. Petersburg at the Mariinsky Theater, the premiere of the opera “The Enchantress” (libr. by I. V. Shpazhinsky based on his tragedy of the same name) premiered. Conductor Tchaikovsky, artist. Bocharov; Prince Kurlyatev - Melnikov, Princess - Slavina, Yuri - Vasiliev 3rd, Mamyrov - Stravinsky, Nastasya - Pavlovskaya).

1887 - the opera was staged in Tiflis (conductor Ippolitov-Ivanov; Nastasya - Zarudnaya),

On January 19, 1887, in Moscow, the Bolshoi Theater staged the opera “Cherevichki”, a reworking of the opera “Blacksmith Vakula”, libretto by Y. P. Polonsky based on the story “The Night Before Christmas” by N. V. Gogol, with additions by the composer. (conductor Tchaikovsky, artist Waltz; Vakula - Usatov, Oksana - Klimentova, Solokha - Svetlovskaya, Chub - Matchinsky, Pan Head - Streletsky, Bes - Korsov, School Teacher - Dodonov, His Serene Highness - Khokhlov, Panas - Grigoriev).

1888 - Emperor Alexander III awarded Tchaikovsky a pension of 3 thousand rubles.

January 3, 1890 - premiere at the Mariinsky Theater of the ballet “The Sleeping Beauty” based on the libretto by I. A. Vsevolozhsky. (Aurora - Brianza, Desiree - P. Gerdt, Lilac Fairy - M. M. Petipa, Carabosse - Cecchetti; choreographer M. I. Petipa, conductor Drigo, designer Bocharov, Levot, Andreev and Shishkov, costumes by Vsevolozhsky).

1890 - the opera “The Enchantress” was staged at the Bolshoi Theater (Moscow).

On December 7, 1890, the opera “The Queen of Spades” was staged at the Mariinsky Theater (libretto by the composer’s brother Modest with the participation of the composer, based on Pushkin’s story, using poems by K. N. Batyushkov, G. R. Derzhavin, V. A. Zhukovsky, P. M Karabanova and K.F. Ryleeva), (conductor Napravnik, production by Palechek, director Kondratiev, artists Vasiliev, Yanov, Levot, Ivanov and Andreev, choreographer Petipa; German - N. Figner, Tomsky - Melnikov, Eletsky - Yakovlev, Chekalinsky - Vasiliev 2nd, Surin - Frey, Chaplitsky - Kondaraki, Narumov - Sobolev, Manager - Efimov, Lisa - M. Figner, Countess - Slavina, Polina - Dolina, Governess - Pilz, Maid - Yunosova, Prilepa - Olgina, Milovzor - Friede , Zlatogor - Klimov 2nd).

December 19, 1890 - the opera “The Queen of Spades” was staged in Kyiv by artists of the opera company I. P. Pryanishnikov (conductor Pribik; German - Medvedev, Tomsky - Dementyev, Eletsky - Tartakov, Countess - Smirnova, Liza - Matsulevich).

1891 - the opera “Iolanta” was written (libretto by M. I. Tchaikovsky based on the drama “King René’s Daughter” by H. Hertz). The opera “The Queen of Spades” was staged at the Bolshoi Theater (conductor Altani, artists Waltz and Lebedev, choreographers Petipa and Ivanov; German - Medvedev; Tomsky - Korsov, Eletsky - Khokhlov, Lisa - Deisha-Sionitskaya, Polina - Gnucheva, Countess - Krutikova); music for Hamlet, staged at the Mikhailovsky Theater (St. Petersburg).

December 6, 1892 - premiere at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg of the opera “Iolanta” (conductor Napravnik, scenery Bocharov; King Rene - Serebryakov, Robert - Yakovlev, Vaudemont - Figner, Ebn-Hakiya - Chernov, Almeric - Karelin, Bertrand - Frey, Iolanta - M. Figner, Marta - Kamenskaya, Brigitte - Runge, Laura - Dolina) together with the ballet: “The Nutcracker”. (libretto by M. I. Petipa based on the fairy tale by E. T. Hoffman; adapted by A. Dumas the son). (Clara - Belinskaya, Fritz - V. Stukolkin, Nutcracker - S. Legate, Sugar Plum Fairy - Del-Era, Prince Whooping Cough - P. Gerdt, Drosselmeyer - T. Stukolkin; choreographer Ivanov, conductor Drigo, artists Bocharov and K. Ivanov, costumes - Vsevolozhsky and Ponomarev).

Major works

Operas

• Voivode (1868)
• Ondine (1869)
• Oprichnik (1872)
• Evgeny Onegin (1878)
• The Maid of Orleans (1879)
• Mazepa (1883)
• Cherevichki (1885)
• The Enchantress (1887)
• Queen of Spades (1890)
• Iolanta (1891)

Ballets

• Swan Lake (1877)
• Sleeping Beauty (1889)
• The Nutcracker (1892)

Symphonies

• Symphony No. 1 “Winter Dreams” op. 13 (1866)
• Symphony No. 2 op.17 (1872)
• Symphony No. 3 op. 29 (1875)
• Symphony No. 4 op. 36 (1878)
• "Manfred" - symphony (1885)
• Symphony No. 5 (1888)
• Symphony No. 6 op. 74 (1893)

Suites

• Suite No. 1 op. 43 (1879)
• Suite No. 2 op. 53 (1883)
• Suite No. 3 op. 55 (1884)
• Suite No. 4 Mozartiana op. 61 (1887)
• The Nutcracker, suite for ballet op. 71a (1892)

Selected orchestral works

Concerts

• Concerto for piano and orchestra No. 1 op. 23 (1875)
• Melancholic Serenade op. 26 (1875)
• Variations on a Rococo Theme for cello and orchestra op. 33 (1878)
• Waltz-scherzo for violin and orchestra op. 34 (1877)
• Concerto for violin and orchestra op. 35 (1878)
• Concerto for piano and orchestra No. 2 op. 44 (1880)
• Concert Fantasy for piano and orchestra op. 56 (1884)
• Pezzo capriccioso for cello and orchestra op. 62 (1887)
• Piano Concerto No. 3 (1893)

Piano works

Chamber music

• String Quartet No. 1 op. 11 (1871)
• String Quartet No. 2 op. 22 (1874)
• String Quartet No. 3 op. 30 (1876)
• “Memories of a Dear Place”, three pieces for violin and piano op. 42 (1878)
• Piano trio op. 50 (1882)
• "Memory of Florence", string sextet op. 70 (1890)

Tchaikovsky's voice

In 1890, the German inventor Julius Block made a short recording using a phonautograph.

According to musicologist Leonid Sabaneev, Tchaikovsky was not satisfied with the recording device and tried to evade it. Before recording, Blok asked the composer to play the piano or at least say something. He refused, saying: “I'm a bad pianist and my voice is squeaky. Why perpetuate this?”

Performances of Tchaikovsky's music

The complete cycle of Tchaikovsky's symphonies (including or excluding "Manfred") was recorded by conductors Antal Dorati (also a recording of all ballets and all orchestral suites), Herbert von Karajan, Eugene Ormandy, Mikhail Pletnev, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Evgeny Svetlanov, Maris Jansons and others. Recordings of individual Tchaikovsky's symphonies were performed by Alexander Gauk, Valery Gergiev (No. 4-6), Carlo Maria Giulini (No. 6), Kirill Kondrashin (No. 1, 4-6), Evgeny Mravinsky (No. 4-6), Roger Norrington (No. 5, 6 ), Seiji Ozawa (No. 6), David Oistrakh (No. 5, 6), Yuri Temirkanov, Ferenc Fryczai (No. 4, 5), etc.

Filmography

Films about the composer's life

• “The Third Youth”, 1965
• “Tchaikovsky”, 1969, director Igor Talankin - biographical film
• “The Music Lovers”, 1971, directed by Ken Russell - a free retelling of the composer’s biography
• “Apocrypha: Music for Peter and Paul”, 2004 “Golden Nymph” Prize 2006
• "Tchaikovsky", director Philip Degtyarev

Film adaptations of the composer's works

• Evgeny Onegin, 1958
• Queen of Spades, 1960
• The Nutcracker (cartoon, 1973)
• The Nutcracker and the Mouse King (cartoon), 1999
• The Nutcracker (cartoon, 2004)
• The Nutcracker and the Rat King (2010 film)

Films featuring the composer's music

• Chapaev with us, 1941 - part III is used ( Allegro molto vivace) The Sixth Symphony as a musical background for cutting documentary newsreels of the pre-war maneuvers of the Red Army
• Captive of the Caucasus, or New Adventures of Shurik - as music from the television broadcast of the ballet “Swan Lake”
• Anna Karenina (film, 1997)
• The Talented Mr. Ripley, 1999, directed by Anthony Minghella
• V for Vendetta, 2006 - 1812 Overture used
• Sensation, 2006, directed by Woody Allen
• The Ugly Duckling, directed by Harry Bardeen
• Black Swan
• Fantasy
• Swan Lake

Perpetuating the memory of the composer

In numismatics

• In 1990, the USSR issued a commemorative coin with a denomination of one ruble, dedicated to the 150th anniversary of the birth of P. I. Tchaikovsky

In popular music

• American musician Chuck Berry wrote the song Roll Over Beethoven in 1956, which was included in the list of the 500 greatest songs of all time according to Rolling Stone magazine. In addition to Tchaikovsky, the song mentions Beethoven.
• The song was performed by The Beatles in 1963. Later (in 1973) this song was performed by the Electric Light Orchestra in the album “ELO-2”.
• Tchaikovsky's music is widely used in jazz and is readily sampled by electronic engineers, and is also used in advertising
• The famous American singer Michael Jackson claimed that Tchaikovsky had the greatest influence on him. He said: “If you take The Nutcracker, you will see that every tune in there is a hit, every single one. And I thought: “Why can’t pop music have an album where every song is a hit?”

On television

• In episode 18 of season 1 of the TV series Scrubs, an excerpt from Tchaikovsky’s composition “Dance of the Sugar - Plum Fairy” is heard in one of the scenes.
• In episode 8 of season 1 of the TV series Interns, in the scene of preparing a solution for plaster, Tchaikovsky’s composition “The Nutcracker - Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” is heard.
• The TV series "Brigade" features a waltz from the ballet "Swan Lake"

Young Tchaikovsky

Great Russian composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born in the distant times of the heyday of romanticism: April 25, 1840, in Votkinsk, in the Vyatka province of the Russian Empire. Nowadays he is best known as a composer, but his roles also include conductor, music journalist and teacher.

The greatest composer in the history of music did not compose so much, only eighty works, including three operas and seven symphonies (six numbered and one named), the famous ballets “Swan Lake”, “The Nutcracker”, “Sleeping Beauty”, which themselves themselves are an extremely valuable contribution to world culture.

But let's go back to the beginning of our story.

Ilya Tchaikovsky, the father of Pyotr Ilyich, became known as an outstanding Russian engineer, but Pyotr Fedorovich, the grandfather of the future composer, was not always Tchaikovsky. Initially, his last name was Chaika, and he was born in the village of Nikolaevka, in the Poltava region. He received a medical education and then served as a medical officer.

Peter's parents loved music very much. His mother played the piano and the home mechanical organ, the orchestrion. They often heard the melodic songs of factory workers and peasants. Subsequently, governess Fanny Dürbach wrote the following lines to Peter: “I especially loved the quiet, soft evenings at the end of summer... from the balcony we listened to tender and sad songs, only they alone broke the silence of these wonderful nights. You must remember them, none of you went to bed then. If you remember these melodies, put them to music. You will charm those who cannot hear them in your country.”

Peter grew up as a smart, intelligent boy. At the age of six, he spoke fluently and wrote not only in his native Russian, but also in German and French. However, the gifted child was also very sickly. At school, he missed classes for six months in a row due to ill health.

When the future composer was about nine years old, his family moved to Alapaevsk. He later described this event in his book “12 Travels in the Middle Urals.”

Peter's parents felt awkward because of their humble origins, and therefore sent their son to the Imperial School of Law. It was located near the street that now bears the name of Tchaikovsky.

Peter spent two years very far from his home and from people close to him. Most of all, the young man was worried about separation from his mother, to whom he was strongly attached. It is interesting that even then he was very ironic about the newly-minted family coat of arms and in every possible way emphasized his plebeian origin. Perhaps this was the result of early democratic views.

1852. The family reunites in St. Petersburg, and Pyotr Ilyich enters college. He soon gains a reputation as a fairly good pianist, prone to improvisation. And at the age of sixteen he began to study with Luigi Piccioli and devote most of his time to music. Then Rudolf Kündinger becomes the young man's mentor.

Having completed his studies at the school, which happened in 1859, Tchaikovsky received the rank of titular adviser, after which he began to work in the Ministry of Justice.

In 1862, he became one of the first students of the St. Petersburg Conservatory in the composition class. He was taught the theory by Nikolai Ivanovich Zaremba, who did not publish any of his works during his lifetime. However, he was the first in Russia to teach music theory in Russian. This teacher spoke in an unusually lively and imaginative manner, and often dressed his musical theoretical statements in a religious garb. Then he ridiculed this feature of his in his work “Raika”.

But orchestration was taught to the young Tchaikovsky by Anton Grigorievich Rubinshein, now famous both as a teacher and as a pianist. Tchaikovsky became his most famous student, but he is considered a great man in his own right, with inexhaustible reserves of energy that allowed him to engage in such a wide range of activities.

It was Anton Grigorievich Rubinshein who once insisted that Pyotr Ilyich quit his service and begin to study music entirely.

This idyll lasted until 1865, until Peter graduated from the St. Petersburg Conservatory with a large silver medal. At that time he wrote a cantata based on Schiller's ode "To Joy". Among Tchaikovsky’s other works, written during his student years, one can highlight the overture to Ostrovsky’s “The Thunderstorm” and the dances of the hay girls, which he later included in the opera “The Voevoda.”

Growing reputation and worldwide fame

In January 1866, Nikolai Grigorievich Rubinstein, director of the newly founded Moscow Conservatory and brother of Tchaikovsky’s teacher, invited him to Moscow, where Peter received a position as professor of classes in free composition, harmony, theory, and orchestration.

In 1868, Pyotr Ilyich first acted as a music critic. Then he met the members of "". Although they differed in their views on music, they maintained friendly relations.

At this time, Tchaikovsky developed an interest in program music. Program music is a genre in which the intent of a piece of music is conveyed in an accompanying treatise. invites Peter to write a fantasy overture, and he begins to work on “Romeo and Juliet,” which later brought him worldwide fame, and with which the composer’s fame began to grow like a snowball. In addition, Stasov suggested to him the idea of ​​​​a symphonic fantasy “The Tempest”.

Around this time, he met the opera singer Desiro Artaud. They were in love with each other and even planned to get married, but for some reason she married a Spanish singer.

The seventies of the nineteenth century in the work of Pyotr Tchaikovsky became a time of search. He became fascinated by the past of Russia, its history, culture, life and fate of the Russian people. Then he wrote the operas “The Oprichnik”, “The Blacksmith Vakula”, “The Snow Maiden”, the ballet “Swan Lake” and many other, no less interesting, works.

By 1877, various indecent rumors began to circulate about his personal life, and in order to put an end to the gossip, he decided to marry Antonina Milyukova, a former student at the conservatory. She was eight years younger than him, but rumors about his homosexuality, as it turned out, did not arise out of nowhere, and after just a few weeks their marriage broke up. The marriage broke up, but they were unable to get a divorce, and they continued to live in a separate marriage.

Having received a certain freedom, he left the Moscow Conservatory the following year and went abroad. This trip was sponsored by Nadezhda von Meck, the widow of a railway magnate, with whom Peter had never personally met (more precisely, he met once, but both were silent out of embarrassment), but maintained an active correspondence. Their strange relationship ended in 1891 when von Meck suddenly stopped sending both letters and money. He dedicated his Fourth Symphony to her.

In 1881, he realized that it was time to do something about the debts. And he wrote a letter to the emperor in which he asked to lend him three thousand rubles so that the debt would be deducted from Tchaikovsky’s subsequent productions. He explained why he needed such a large sum, and the sovereign not only lent him, but gave it as a benefit.

Perhaps this was one of the reasons that in the mid-eighties Tchaikovsky began to work actively again, he was elected director of the Moscow branch of the RMO, and his works became widely known abroad. In 1885, he stopped active travel in Europe and Russia and settled in a landowner's house near Klin. From that time on, he began active propaganda of Russian music.

It should be noted that throughout his life Tchaikovsky loved everything Russian, was proud of the fact that he was born in Russia and did not tolerate hints of his Polish roots.

Once, while still a boy, Peter was looking at a map of Europe, and suddenly began to cover the territory of Russia with kisses and seemingly spit on all other countries!

last years of life

At the end of his life, he worked increasingly not as a composer, but as a conductor. In 1889, he made a tour of Germany and Switzerland, in which he met Johannes Brahms and

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (April 25 (May 7), 1840, in the village at the Kama-Votkinsk plant, Vyatka province, now the city of Votkinsk, Udmurtia - October 25 (November 6), 1893, St. Petersburg) - a great Russian composer, one of the best melodists, conductor, teacher, musical and public figure. Father - Ilya Petrovich Tchaikovsky (1795 - 1880).

He graduated from the School of Law in St. Petersburg (1859), served in the Ministry of Justice (until 1863). From 1861 he studied in the Music classes of the Russian Musical Society (RMS), transformed in 1862 into the St. Petersburg Conservatory, from which he graduated in 1865 in the composition class of A. G. Rubinstein. In 1866–78 he was a professor at the Moscow Conservatory (classes of free composition, theory, harmony and instrumentation).

Tchaikovsky actively participated in the musical life of Moscow, his works were published and performed here, and the main genres of creativity were determined. The result of their acquaintance in 1868 and creative contacts with members of the “Mighty Handful” was the creation of program symphonic works (on the advice of M. A. Balakirev, the overture-fantasy Romeo and Juliet (1869), the Manfred symphony (1885) was written; V. V. Stasov suggested to Tchaikovsky the idea for the fantasy symphony “The Tempest” (1873).

Creativity of the 70s. distinguished by the intensity of quests and the diversity of artistic interests. In con. 70s Tchaikovsky experienced a severe mental crisis caused by overstrain of creative forces, as well as circumstances of his personal life. For several years he lived mainly abroad (mainly in Switzerland and Italy). During these years, material support and correspondence (1876–90) with N. F. von Meck were important for Tchaikovsky. All R. 80s Tchaikovsky returned to active musical and social activities. In 1885 he was elected director of the Moscow branch of the Russian Musical Society, and contributed to raising the level of musical culture in Moscow. From 1885 he lived constantly in the Moscow region - in the vicinity of the city of Klin (Maidanovo, Frolovskoye), from 1892 - in Klin itself, where after the death of the composer a memorial house-museum was opened. Since the late 1880s. He performed extensively as a conductor in Russia and abroad. Concert trips strengthened Tchaikovsky's creative and friendly ties with Western European musicians (Hans von Bülow, Edvard Grieg, Antonin Dvorak, Gustav Mahler, Arthur Nikisch, Camille Saint-Saëns, etc.).

Creation
Almost all musical genres are represented in Tchaikovsky's work, in which opera and symphony were leading. The music reflected the deep social and ethical conflicts born of Russian reality in the 2nd half. 19th century. There is a noticeable increase in the tragic principle in the works of recent years (especially in the opera The Queen of Spades and the 6th Symphony). The content of Tchaikovsky's music is universal: it covers images of life and death, love, nature, childhood, everyday life, it reveals in a new way the works of Russian and world literature - A. S. Pushkin and N. V. Gogol, Shakespeare and Dante. Tchaikovsky's music reveals deep connections with the work of L.N. Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy, F.M. Dostoevsky, I. S. Turgenev, A. P. Chekhov. In Tchaikovsky's music, deep processes of spiritual life, doubt, despair and the impulse towards the ideal were realized.

Interesting Facts

* In 1890, Tchaikovsky wrote sketches in his notebook for the “Queen of Spades” he was composing. And on one piece of paper, written down in hasty handwriting, is obviously the theme (melody) he just invented, which is played by the violins at the very beginning of the fourth scene - “The Countess’s Bedroom.” This is one of the best places in the opera. Tchaikovsky wrote down the beginning of this melody in a book and added: “and similar erotic whining...”

Major works

Voivode (1868)
Ondine (1869)
Oprichnik (1872)
Evgeny Onegin (1878)
The Maid of Orleans (1879)
Mazepa (1883)
Cherevichki (1885)
The Enchantress (1887)
Queen of Spades (1891)
Iolanta (1891)

Swan Lake (1876)
Sleeping Beauty (1889)
The Nutcracker (1892)

Symphonic works

"The Thunderstorm", overture to a drama (1864)
Symphony No. 1 “Winter Dreams” (1866)
"Fatum", symphonic fantasy (1868)
Symphony No. 2 (1872)
Concerto No. 1 for piano and orchestra (1875)
Symphony No. 3 (1875)
"Francesca da Rimini", symphonic fantasy (1876)
Variations on a Rococo Theme, for cello and orchestra (1878)
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (1878)
Symphony No. 4 (1878)
"1812", solemn overture (1880)
"Romeo and Juliet", fantasy overture (1869, 1870, 1880)
Concerto No. 2 for piano and orchestra (1880)
"Manfred", symphony (1885)
Pezzo capriccioso (1887)
Symphony No. 5 (1888)
Concerto No. 3 for piano and orchestra (1893)
Symphony No. 6 (1893)

Piano music

"The Seasons" Op.37b, 12 characteristic scenes (1876)
Children's Album Op.39, 24 easy pieces (1878)
18 pieces, Op.72 (1892)

Selected orchestral works

Slavic March (1876)
March of the Voluntary Fleet (1878)

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born on April 25 (May 7), 1840 in the city of Votkinsk in a large family of an engineer. Music was often played in Tchaikovsky's house. His parents were fond of playing the piano and organ.

In the biography of Tchaikovsky, it is important to note that at the age of five he already knew how to play the piano, and three years later he played the notes perfectly. In 1849, the Tchaikovsky family moved to Alapaevsk and then to St. Petersburg.

Education

Tchaikovsky received his initial education at home. Then Peter studied at a boarding school for two years, after which he studied at the St. Petersburg Law School. Tchaikovsky's creativity during this period was manifested in optional music classes. The death of his mother in 1862 greatly affected the vulnerable child. After graduating from college in 1859, Peter began serving in the Department of Justice.

In his free time, he often visited the opera house; he was especially impressed by the productions of operas by Mozart and Glinka.

Having shown a penchant for composing music, Tchaikovsky became a student at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. Further studies in the life of Pyotr Ilyich with the excellent teachers N. Zaremba and A. Rubinstein greatly helped in the formation of a musical personality. After graduating from the conservatory, composer Tchaikovsky was invited by Nikolai Rubinstein (the teacher’s brother) to the Moscow Conservatory as a professor.

Creative and personal life

Many of Tchaikovsky's concertos were written while working at the conservatory. The opera Ondine (1869) was not staged; the author destroyed it. Only a small part of it was later presented as Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake.

It is worth briefly noting that in 1877, in order to get rid of gossip about his unconventional orientation, Tchaikovsky decided to marry a conservatory student Antonina Milyukova. Having no feelings for his wife, a few weeks later he left her forever. Since then, the couple lived separately; they were never able to divorce due to various circumstances.

In 1878 he left the conservatory and went abroad. At the same time, Tchaikovsky communicates closely with Nadezhda von Meck, a wealthy fan of his music. She corresponds with him, supports him financially and morally.

During his two-year stay in Italy and Switzerland, new magnificent works by Tchaikovsky appeared - the opera “Eugene Onegin”, the Fourth Symphony.

In May 1878, Tchaikovsky made a contribution to children's musical literature - he wrote a collection of plays for children called “Children's Album”.

After financial assistance from Nadezhda von Meck, the composer travels a lot. From 1881 to 1888 he wrote many works. In particular, waltzes, symphonies, overtures, suites.

Finally, a calm creative period was established in the biography of Pyotr Tchaikovsky, at which time the author himself was able to conduct concerts.

Death and legacy

Tchaikovsky died in St. Petersburg on October 25 (November 6), 1893 from cholera. He was buried in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra in St. Petersburg.

Streets, conservatories in Moscow and Kyiv, as well as other musical institutions (institutes, colleges, schools) in many cities of the former USSR are named after the great composer. Monuments have been erected in his honor, a theater and a concert hall, a symphony orchestra and an international music competition are named after him.

Other biography options

• There were no professional musicians in Pyotr Ilyich’s family, but everyone loved music very much: the head of the family played the flute, his mother played the harp and piano. The future composer received initial lessons in playing the piano at the age of five from Maria Markovna Palchikova.
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Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born on May 7, 1840 in the village of Votkinsk, located on the territory of modern Udmurtia. His father was Ilya Petrovich Tchaikovsky, an engineer descended from the Cossack family of Chaeks, famous in Ukraine. The mother of the future famous composer was Alexandra Andreevna Assier, who studied at the School for Women's Orphans shortly before her father's death. Alexandra Andreevna was trained in literature, geography, arithmetic, rhetoric and foreign languages.

The family ended up in the Urals because Ilya Petrovich was offered the position of head of the Kama-Votkinsk steel plant, which at that time was a very large enterprise. In Votkinsk, Tchaikovsky Sr. received a large house with servants and even his own army, consisting of a hundred Cossacks. Nobles, young people from the capital, English engineers and other respectable personalities often visited this house.

Pyotr Tchaikovsky in his youth

Peter was the second child in his family. He also had an older brother, Nikolai, a younger brother, Ippolit, and a younger sister, Alexandra. In the large house of the Tchaikovskys lived not only the couple themselves with their children, but also numerous relatives of Ilya Petrovich. A French governess, Fanny Durbach, was summoned from St. Petersburg to teach the children, who later became practically a member of the Tchaikovsky family.

Music has always been a welcome guest in the parental home of Pyotr Ilyich. His father could play the flute, his mother could play the piano and harp, and she also performed romances very skillfully. The governess was deprived of a musical education, but she also had a passion for music. In the Tchaikovskys' house there was an orchestrion (mechanical organ) and a piano. The young musician took piano lessons from the serf Marya Palchikova, who was musically literate.

Another hobby of the young Tchaikovsky, in addition to learning the basics of playing the piano, was poetry. Peter enthusiastically composed numerous poems in French. In addition, he tried to learn everything he could from the biography of Louis XVII. He carried his reverence for this historical figure throughout his entire life.

In 1848, the Tchaikovskys moved to Moscow, as Ilya Petrovich retired and intended to find private employment. Just a couple of months later, the family moved again, this time to St. Petersburg. There the eldest sons were sent to the Schmelling boarding school.

In St. Petersburg, Pyotr Ilyich continued to study music, and also became more familiar with ballet, opera and the symphony orchestra. There, the young man contracted measles, which subsequently caused him to periodically have seizures.

In 1849, Nikolai Tchaikovsky, Peter’s older brother, was assigned to the Institute of the Corps of Mining Engineers, and the rest of the children and their parents returned to the Urals, to the city of Alapaevsk. There, the head of the family took the post of head of the plant of Yakovlev’s heirs. Fanny Durbach had left the Tchaikovsky family by that time, and another governess, Anastasia Petrova, was hired to prepare the grown-up Pyotr Ilyich for further education.

In the same year, the young musician had two more younger brothers: twins Modest and Anatoly.

Education and civil service

Although young Pyotr Tchaikovsky had been demonstrating an increased interest in music for several years, was delighted with famous operas and loved going to ballet, his parents did not at all consider music as a worthy profession for their son. At first they wanted to send him to the Institute of the Corps of Mining Engineers, like his eldest son Nicholas, but then they gave preference to the Imperial School of Law, located in St. Petersburg. Pyotr Ilyich entered it in 1850.

The musician studied at the school until 1859. The first years of study were the most difficult for Tchaikovsky: he had a hard time parting with his family, who could not visit him often. And the guardianship of family friend Modest Vakar was overshadowed by the fact that ten-year-old Tchaikovsky accidentally brought scarlet fever into his house, which is why Modest’s little son died suddenly.

In 1852, when Ilya Petrovich left the service, the whole family moved to St. Petersburg. During these years, Pyotr Ilyich actively became acquainted with Russian opera and ballet, and also became friends with a classmate, the poet Alexei Apukhtin, who had a great influence on his views and beliefs.

In 1854, Tchaikovsky's mother died after a long battle with cholera. Ilya Petrovich sent his older children to closed educational institutions, and with his four-year-old twins he temporarily settled with his brother.

In the period from 1855 to 1858, Pyotr Ilyich took piano lessons from the famous German pianist Rudolf Kündinger. His father hired him for the young Tchaikovsky, but in the spring of 1858 the lessons had to be stopped: due to an unsuccessful scam, Ilya Petrovich lost almost all his money, and there was nothing to pay the foreign musician. Fortunately, soon Tchaikovsky Sr. was offered to head the management of the Technological Institute and was offered a large government apartment, where he moved with the children.

Pyotr Ilyich completed his studies at the School of Law in 1859. Interestingly, he enjoyed great sympathy both from teachers and from other students of the school. Unlike many other talented creative figures, who were distinguished by unsociability and poor socialization, Pyotr Tchaikovsky felt comfortable in society and fit perfectly into any company.

Upon completion of his studies, the young man got a job at the Ministry of Justice. There he was most often involved in managing various affairs of the peasants. In his free time, he continued to go to the opera house and study music. In 1861, Pyotr Ilyich traveled abroad for the first time, visiting Hamburg, Berlin, Antwerp, Brussels, Paris, Ostend and even London. By that time, he was fluent in Italian and French, and therefore was able to accompany engineer V.V. Pisarev. (his father's friend) as a translator.

Creation

Surprisingly, even at the age of 21, Pyotr Ilyich, who had received an education and entered the public service, had not yet really thought about a musical career. He, like his parents once, did not take his hobby seriously. But, fortunately, the father of the future composer Ilya Petrovich still felt that his son was destined to become a great musician.

Tchaikovsky Sr. even went to Rudolf Kündinger to find out his opinion regarding his son’s talent. The German pianist categorically stated that Tchaikovsky Jr. has no special musical abilities, and 21 years old is not the age to start a creative career. And Pyotr Ilyich himself initially took his father’s offer to combine work with receiving a music education as a joke.

But when he learned that a new conservatory was opening in St. Petersburg, which would be headed by the famous Anton Rubinstein, everything changed radically. Tchaikovsky decided to enter the St. Petersburg Conservatory at any cost, which he did, becoming one of the first students of this educational institution in the composition class. And soon after that, he completely abandoned jurisprudence, deciding, despite the problems with money that arose, to devote himself entirely to music.

As his graduation work, Pyotr Ilyich wrote the cantata “To Joy.” It was created for the Russian translation of Friedrich Schiller's ode with the same name. The cantata made a bad impression on the musicians of St. Petersburg. The critic Cesar Cui was especially harsh, saying that Tchaikovsky was extremely weak as a composer, and also accusing him of conservatism. And this despite the fact that for Pyotr Ilyich music was freedom, and his idols were Borodin, Mussorgsky, Balakirev - composers who did not recognize authorities and rules.

But such a reaction did not bother the young composer at all. Having received his well-deserved silver medal for the successful completion of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, which was then the highest award, he set to work with even greater zeal and passion. In 1866, the composer moved to Moscow at the invitation of his mentor's brother. Nikolai Rubinstein offered him a job as a professor at the Moscow Conservatory.

Career blossoming

At the Moscow Conservatory, Tchaikovsky showed himself to be an excellent teacher. In addition, he put a lot of effort into the quality organization of the educational process. Since there were few worthy textbooks for his students at that time, the composer began translating foreign literature and even creating his own teaching materials.

However, in 1878, Pyotr Ilyich, tired of being torn between teaching and his own creativity, left his position. His place was taken by Sergei Taneyev, who became Tchaikovsky’s most beloved student. A wealthy patron, Nadezhda von Meck, helped Tchaikovsky make ends meet. Being a wealthy widow, she idolized the composer and annually provided him with subsidies in the amount of 6,000 rubles.

It was after moving to Moscow that the real rise of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s creative career began and his significant growth as a composer occurred. At this time, he met the composers participating in the creative community “The Mighty Handful”. On the advice of Mily Balakirev, the head of the commonwealth, Tchaikovsky in 1869 created a fantasy overture based on the work “Romeo and Juliet”.

In 1873, Pyotr Ilyich wrote another of his famous works - the symphonic fantasy “The Tempest”, the idea for which was suggested to him by the then authoritative music critic Vladimir Stasov. Around the same time, Tchaikovsky began to travel again, gaining inspiration abroad and using the images imprinted in his memory to form the basis of his subsequent creations.

In the 1870s, the composer wrote such works as the ballet “Swan Lake”, the opera “The Oprichnik”, the Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, the Second and Third Symphonies, the fantasy “Francesca da Rimini”, the opera “Eugene Onegin”, the piano cycle “The Times” of the year" and many others. In the 1880-1890s, Pyotr Tchaikovsky traveled abroad even more often than before, and in the vast majority of cases, as part of concert trips.

During such trips, the musician met and became friends with many musicians from Western Europe: Gustav Mahler, Arthur Nikisch, Edvard Grieg, Antonin Dvorak and others. The composer himself acted as a conductor during the concerts. In the early 1890s, Tchaikovsky even managed to visit the USA. There, stunning success awaited him during a concert where Pyotr Ilyich conducted his own works. Written at the time of creative maturity, they no longer raised any doubts about the composer’s talent.

Tchaikovsky spent his last years before his death in the vicinity of the town of Klin near Moscow. There, he agreed to open a school, dissatisfied with the quality of life of local peasants, and donated money for its maintenance. In 1885, he helped Klinov residents fight a fire that burned several dozen houses in the city.

During this period of his life, the composer wrote the ballet “The Nutcracker”, the opera “The Queen of Spades”, the overture “Hamlet”, the opera “Iolanta”, and the Fifth Symphony. At the same time, the international recognition of Pyotr Ilyich’s talent was confirmed: in 1892 he was elected a corresponding member of the Academy of Fine Arts in Paris, and in 1893 an honorary doctor of the University of Cambridge.

Tchaikovsky died on November 6, 1893 from cholera. He was buried in the Kazan Cathedral and buried in the Necropolis of Masters of Arts.

Personal life

There are many photographs preserved where Pyotr Tchaikovsky is captured in a more than decent manner with his male friends. Even during his lifetime, the composer's orientation became the subject of speculation: some accused the musician of being a homosexual. It was assumed that his men (men for whom he had platonic affection) were Joseph Kotek, Vladimir Davydov and even brothers Alexey and Mikhail Safronov.

It is difficult to judge whether there is reliable evidence that the composer loved men. His connections with the individuals mentioned above could well have been simply friendly. Be that as it may, there were also women in Tchaikovsky’s life, although some researchers claim that this was the composer’s way of trying to hide the fact that he was gay.

Thus, the failed wife of Pyotr Ilyich was the young French prima donna Artaud Desiree, who preferred the Spaniard Marian Padilla to him. And in 1877, Antonina Milyukova, who was eight years younger than her newly-made husband, became his official wife. However, this marriage lasted only a few weeks, although Antonina and Peter never officially divorced.

It is worth recalling his connection with Nadezhda von Meck, who admired the composer’s talent and supported him financially for many years.