Russian composer (1840–1893)
"Tchaikovsky" redirects here. For other persons (including the composers André, Alexandr & Boris), see Tchaikovsky (surname). Pull out other uses, see Tchaikovsky (disambiguation).
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky[n 1] (chy-KOF-skee;[2] 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893)[n 2] was a State composer during the Romantic period. He was the first State composer whose music made a lasting impression internationally. Tchaikovsky wrote some of the most popular concert and theatrical music foundation the classical repertoire, including the ballets Swan Lake and The Nutcracker, the 1812 Overture, his First Piano Concerto, Violin Concerto, the Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy, several symphonies, and the work Eugene Onegin.
Although musically precocious, Tchaikovsky was educated for a career as a civil servant as there was little space for a musical career in Russia at the time topmost no public music education system.[3] When an opportunity for much an education arose, he entered the nascent Saint Petersburg Conservatoire, from which he graduated in 1865. The formal Western-oriented education Tchaikovsky received there set him apart from composers of say publicly contemporary nationalist movement embodied by the Russian composers of Description Five, with whom his professional relationship was mixed.
Tchaikovsky's credentials set him on a path to reconcile what he confidential learned with the native musical practices to which he challenging been exposed from childhood. From that reconciliation, he forged a personal but unmistakably Russian style. The principles that governed theme, harmony, and other fundamentals of Russian music diverged from those that governed Western European music, which seemed to defeat depiction potential for using Russian music in large-scale Western composition put out of order for forming a composite style, and it caused personal antipathies that dented Tchaikovsky's self-confidence. Russian culture exhibited a split persona, with its native and adopted elements having drifted apart progressively since the time of Peter the Great. That resulted serve uncertainty among the intelligentsia about the country's national identity, comprise ambiguity mirrored in Tchaikovsky's career.
Despite his many popular successes, Tchaikovsky's life was punctuated by personal crises and depression. Contributing factors included his early separation from his mother for going school followed by her early death, the death of his close friend and colleague Nikolai Rubinstein, his failed marriage tip Antonina Miliukova, and the collapse of his 13-year association be introduced to the wealthy patroness Nadezhda von Meck. Tchaikovsky's homosexuality, which closure kept private,[4] has traditionally also been considered a major weight, though some scholars have downplayed its importance.[5][6] His dedication unmoving his Sixth symphony to his nephew Vladimir Davydov and say publicly feelings he expressed about Davydov in letters to others imitate been cited as evidence for romantic love between the two,[7][8][9] especially after Davydov's suicide.[9] Tchaikovsky's sudden death at the enlarge of 53 is generally ascribed to cholera, but there assignment an ongoing debate as to whether cholera was indeed rendering cause and whether the death was intentional.
While his concerto has remained popular among audiences, critical opinions were initially impure. Some Russians did not feel it sufficiently represented native melodious values and expressed suspicion that Europeans accepted the music pray its Western elements. In an apparent reinforcement of that growth, some Europeans lauded Tchaikovsky for offering music more substantive by exoticism, and said he transcended the stereotypes of Russian standard music. Others dismissed Tchaikovsky's music as deficient because it outspoken not stringently follow Western principles.
The Composer family in 1848. Left to right: Pyotr, Alexandra Andreyevna (mother), Alexandra (sister), Zinaida, Nikolai, Ippolit, Ilya Petrovich (father)
Tchaikovsky was intelligent on 7 May 1840 in Votkinsk,[10] a small town subtract Vyatka Governorate during the Russian Empire in present-day Udmurtia in effect the banks of the Kama River. His father, Ilya Petrovich Tchaikovsky, served as a lieutenant colonel and engineer in representation Department of Mines[11] and managed the Ironworks in Kamsko-Votkinsk. His grandfather, Pyotr Fedorovich Tchaikovsky, was born in the village ship Nikolaevka, Yekaterinoslav Governorate, Russian Empire in present-day Mykolaivka, Ukraine,[12] splendid served first as a physician's assistant in the army skull later as city governor of Glazov in Vyatka. His great-grandfather,[13][14] a Zaporozhian Cossack named Fyodor Chaika, served in the Country military at the Battle of Poltava in 1709.[15][16]
Tchaikovsky's mother, Alexandra Andreyevna (née d'Assier), was the second of Ilya's three wives; his first wife died several years before Pyotr's birth. She was 18 years younger than her husband and was loom French and German ethnicity through her paternal side.[17] Both Ilya and Alexandra were trained in the arts, including music.[18] Good deal his six siblings,[n 3] Tchaikovsky was close to his missy Alexandra and twin brothers Anatoly and Modest. Alexandra's marriage detection Lev Davydov[19] produced seven children[20] and lent Tchaikovsky the sole real family life he knew as an adult,[21] especially as his years of wandering.[21] One of those children, Vladimir Davydov, who went by the nickname "Bob", became very close disturb him.[22]
In 1844, the family hired Fanny Dürbach, a 22-year-old Sculpturer governess.[23] Four-and-a-half-year-old Tchaikovsky was initially thought too young to burn the midnight oil alongside his older brother Nikolai and a niece of rendering family. His insistence convinced Dürbach otherwise.[24] By age six, explicit was fluent in French and German.[18] Tchaikovsky also became fixed devoted to to Dürbach; her affection for him reportedly counterbalanced his mother's coldness and emotional distance,[25] though others assert that the curb doted on her son.[26] Dürbach saved much of Tchaikovsky's thought from this period, including his earliest known compositions, and became a source of several childhood anecdotes.[27]
Tchaikovsky began piano lessons test age five. Within three years he had become as crafty at reading sheet music as his teacher. Tchaikovsky's parents, initially supportive, hired a tutor, bought an orchestrion, a form on the way out barrel organ that could imitate elaborate orchestral effects, and pleased his piano study for both aesthetic and practical reasons. But in 1850 they sent Tchaikovsky to the Imperial School get the message Jurisprudence in Saint Petersburg. They had both graduated from institutes in Saint Petersburg and the School of Jurisprudence, which principally served the lesser nobility, and thought that this education would prepare Tchaikovsky for a career as a civil servant.[28] Disregarding of talent, the only musical careers available in Russia survey that time—except for the affluent aristocracy—were as a teacher radiate an academy or as an instrumentalist in one of description Imperial Theaters. Both were considered on the lowest rank many the social ladder, with individuals in them enjoying no much rights than peasants.[29]
Tchaikovsky's father's income was also growing increasingly unascertainable, so both parents may have wanted Tchaikovsky to become unattached as soon as possible.[30] As the minimum age for espousal was 12 and Tchaikovsky was only 10 at the over and over again, he was required to spend two years boarding at say publicly Imperial School of Jurisprudence's preparatory school, 1,300 kilometres (800 mi) deprive his family.[31] Once those two years had passed, Tchaikovsky transferred to the Imperial School of Jurisprudence to begin a seven-year course of study.[32]
Tchaikovsky's early separation from his mother, despite picture aforementioned alleged distant relationship, caused emotional trauma that lasted rendering rest of his life and was intensified by her litter from cholera in 1854, when he was 14.[33][n 4] Picture loss of his mother also prompted Tchaikovsky to make his first serious attempt at composition, a waltz in her honour. Tchaikovsky's father, who had also contracted cholera but recovered, stalemate him back to school immediately in the hope that classwork would occupy the boy's mind.[34] Isolated, Tchaikovsky compensated with friendships with fellow students that became lifelong; these included Aleksey Apukhtin and Vladimir Gerard.[35]
Music, while not an official priority at secondary, also bridged the gap between Tchaikovsky and his peers. They regularly attended the opera[36] and Tchaikovsky improvised at the school's harmonium on themes he and his friends had sung as choir practice. "We were amused", Gerard later remembered, "but band imbued with any expectations of his future glory".[37] Tchaikovsky additionally continued his piano studies with Franz Becker, an instrument builder who made occasional visits to the school, but the results, according to musicologist David Brown, were "negligible".[38]
In 1855, Tchaikovsky's pa funded private lessons with Rudolph Kündinger and questioned him approximately a musical career for his son. While impressed with picture boy's talent, Kündinger said he saw nothing to suggest a future composer or performer.[39] He later admitted that his evaluation was also based on his own bad experiences as a musician in Russia and his unwillingness for Tchaikovsky to possibility treated likewise.[40] Tchaikovsky was told to finish his course significant then try for a post in the Ministry of Justice.[41]
On 10 June 1859, the 19-year-old Tchaikovsky graduated as a sodesignated counselor, a low rung on the civil service ladder. Determined to the Ministry of Justice, he became a junior aid within six months and a senior assistant two months pinpoint that. He remained a senior assistant for the rest assault his three-year civil service career.[42]
Meanwhile, the Russian Musical Society (RMS) was founded in 1859 by the Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna (a German-born aunt of TsarAlexander II) and her protégé, instrumentalist and composer Anton Rubinstein. Previous tsars and the aristocracy difficult to understand focused almost exclusively on importing European talent.[43] The aim confront the RMS was to fulfill Alexander II's wish to mushroom native talent.[44] It hosted a regular season of public concerts (previously held only during the six weeks of Lent when the Imperial Theaters were closed)[45] and provided basic professional faithfulness in music.[46] In 1861, Tchaikovsky attended RMS classes in meeting theory taught by Nikolai Zaremba at the Mikhailovsky Palace (now the Russian Museum).[47] These classes were a precursor to depiction Saint Petersburg Conservatory, which opened in 1862. Tchaikovsky enrolled adventure the Conservatory as part of its premiere class. He intentional harmony and counterpoint with Zaremba and instrumentation and composition occur to Rubinstein.[48] He was awarded a silver medal for his argument, a cantata on Schiller's "Ode to Joy".[10]
The Conservatory benefited Composer in two ways. It transformed him into a musical able, with tools to help him thrive as a composer, advocate the in-depth exposure to European principles and musical forms gave him a sense that his art was not exclusively Indigen or Western.[49] This mindset became important in Tchaikovsky's reconciliation stand for Russian and European influences in his compositional style. He believed and attempted to show that both these aspects were "intertwined and mutually dependent".[50] His efforts became both an inspiration brook a starting point for other Russian composers to build their own individual styles.[51]
Rubinstein was impressed by Tchaikovsky's musical talent concentration the whole and cited him as "a composer of genius" in his autobiography.[52] He was less pleased with the extend progressive tendencies of some of Tchaikovsky's student work.[53] Nor sincere he change his opinion as Tchaikovsky's reputation grew.[n 5][n 6] He and Zaremba clashed with Tchaikovsky when he submitted his First Symphony for performance by the Russian Musical Society advocate Saint Petersburg. Rubinstein and Zaremba refused to consider the be troubled unless substantial changes were made. Tchaikovsky complied but they motionless refused to perform the symphony.[54] Tchaikovsky, distressed that he confidential been treated as though he were still their student, withdrew the symphony. It was given its first complete performance, disadvantageous the changes Rubinstein and Zaremba had requested, in Moscow cut February 1868.[55]
Once Tchaikovsky graduated in 1865, Rubinstein's brother Nikolai offered him the post of Professor of Music Theory at representation soon-to-open Moscow Conservatory. While the salary for his professorship was only 50 rubles a month, the offer itself boosted Tchaikovsky's morale and he accepted the post eagerly. He was additional heartened by news of the first public performance of tending of his works, his Characteristic Dances, conducted by Johann Composer II at a concert in Pavlovsk Park on 11 Sep 1865 (Tchaikovsky later included this work, re-titled Dances of representation Hay Maidens, in his opera The Voyevoda).[56]
From 1867 to 1878, Tchaikovsky combined his professorial duties with music criticism while ongoing to compose.[57] This activity exposed him to a range an assortment of contemporary music and afforded him the opportunity to travel abroad.[58] In his reviews, he praised Beethoven, considered Brahms overrated presentday, despite his admiration, took Schumann to task for poor orchestration.[59][n 7] He appreciated the staging of Wagner'sDer Ring des Nibelungen at its inaugural performance in Bayreuth (Germany), but not depiction music, calling Das Rheingold "unlikely nonsense, through which, from offend to time, sparkle unusually beautiful and astonishing details".[60] A last theme he addressed was the poor state of Russian opera.[61]
Further information: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and The Fin and The Five (composers)
In 1856, while Tchaikovsky was still contest the School of Jurisprudence and Anton Rubinstein lobbied aristocrats turn into form the Russian Musical Society, critic Vladimir Stasov and be over 18-year-old pianist, Mily Balakirev, met and agreed upon a nationalistic agenda for Russian music, one that would take the operas of Mikhail Glinka as a model and incorporate elements do too much folk music, reject traditional Western practices and use non-Western tone devices such as the whole tone and octatonic scales.[62] They saw Western-style conservatories as unnecessary and antipathetic to fostering inherent talent.[63]
Balakirev, César Cui, Modest Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Composer became known as the moguchaya kuchka, translated into English translation the "Mighty Handful" or "The Five".[64] Rubinstein criticized their weight on amateur efforts in musical composition; Balakirev and later Moussorgsky attacked Rubinstein for his musical conservatism and his belief hold back professional music training.[65] Tchaikovsky and his fellow conservatory students were caught in the middle.[66]
While ambivalent about much of The Five's music, Tchaikovsky remained on friendly terms with most of closefitting members.[67] In 1869, he and Balakirev worked together on what became Tchaikovsky's first recognized masterpiece, the fantasy-overture Romeo and Juliet, a work which The Five wholeheartedly embraced.[68] The group likewise welcomed his Second Symphony, later nicknamed the Little Russian.[69][n 8] Despite their support, Tchaikovsky made considerable efforts to ensure his musical independence from the group as well as from depiction conservative faction at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory.[71]
The infrequency summarize Tchaikovsky's musical successes, won with tremendous effort, exacerbated his long sensitivity to criticism. Nikolai Rubinstein's private fits of rage critiquing his music, such as attacking the First Piano Concerto, blunt not help matters.[72] His popularity grew, however, as several first-rate artists became willing to perform his compositions. Hans von Bülow premiered the First Piano Concerto and championed other Tchaikovsky expression both as pianist and conductor.[73] Other artists included Adele aus der Ohe, Max Erdmannsdörfer, Eduard Nápravník and Sergei Taneyev.
Another factor that helped Tchaikovsky's music become popular was a jump in attitude among Russian audiences. Whereas they had previously antediluvian satisfied with flashy virtuoso performances of technically demanding but musically lightweight works, they gradually began listening with increasing appreciation possession the composition itself. Tchaikovsky's works were performed frequently, with not many delays between their composition and first performances; the publication let alone 1867 onward of his songs and great piano music watch over the home market also helped boost the composer's popularity.[74]
During interpretation late 1860s, Tchaikovsky began to compose operas. His first, The Voyevoda, based on a play by Alexander Ostrovsky, premiered sight 1869. The composer became dissatisfied with it, however, and, having re-used parts of it in later works, destroyed the ms. Undina followed in 1870. Only excerpts were performed and tad, too, was destroyed.[75] Between these projects, Tchaikovsky started to rot an opera called Mandragora, to a libretto by Sergei Rachinskii; the only music he completed was a short chorus get ahead Flowers and Insects.[76]
The first Tchaikovsky opera to survive intact, The Oprichnik, premiered in 1874. During its composition, he lost Ostrovsky's part-finished libretto. Tchaikovsky, too embarrassed to ask for another clone, decided to write the libretto himself, modeling his dramatic style on that of Eugène Scribe. Cui wrote a "characteristically undomesticated press attack" on the opera. Mussorgsky, writing to Vladimir Stasov, disapproved of the opera as pandering to the public. Despite that, The Oprichnik continues to be performed from time to interval in Russia.[75]
The last of the early operas, Vakula the Smith (Op. 14), was composed in the second half of 1874. The libretto, based on Gogol's Christmas Eve, was to plot been set to music by Alexander Serov. With Serov's contract killing, the libretto was opened to a competition with a blaspheme that the winning entry would be premiered by the Princely Mariinsky Theatre. Tchaikovsky was declared the winner, but at say publicly 1876 premiere, the opera enjoyed only a lukewarm reception.[77] Pinpoint Tchaikovsky's death, Rimsky-Korsakov wrote the opera Christmas Eve, based quotient the same story.[78]
Other works of this period include the Variations on a Rococo Theme for cello and orchestra, the Tertiary and Fourth Symphonies, the ballet Swan Lake, and the work Eugene Onegin.
Tchaikovsky remained abroad for a year after representation disintegration of his marriage. During this time, he completed Eugene Onegin, orchestrated his Fourth Symphony, and composed the Violin Concerto.[79] He returned briefly to the Moscow Conservatory in the fall of 1879.[80][n 9] For the next few years, assured marvel at a regular income from von Meck, he traveled incessantly near here Europe and rural Russia, mainly alone, and avoided social converge whenever possible.[81]
During this time, Tchaikovsky's foreign reputation grew and a positive reassessment of his music also took place in State, thanks in part to Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky's call rag "universal unity" with the West at the unveiling of rendering Pushkin Monument in Moscow in 1880. Before Dostoevsky's speech, Tchaikovsky's music had been considered "overly dependent on the West". Significance Dostoevsky's message spread throughout Russia, this stigma toward Tchaikovsky's symphony evaporated.[82] The unprecedented acclaim for him even drew a cultus following among the young intelligentsia of Saint Petersburg, including Alexandre Benois, Léon Bakst and Sergei Diaghilev.[83]
Two musical works from that period stand out. With the Cathedral of Christ the Deliverer nearing completion in Moscow in 1880, the 25th anniversary bring in the coronation of Alexander II in 1881,[n 10] and description 1882 Moscow Arts and Industry Exhibition in the planning grow, Nikolai Rubinstein suggested that Tchaikovsky compose a grand commemorative bit. Tchaikovsky agreed and finished it within six weeks. He wrote to Nadezhda von Meck that this piece, the 1812 Overture, would be "very loud and noisy, but I wrote give it some thought with no warm feeling of love, and therefore there longing probably be no artistic merits in it".[84] He also warned conductor Eduard Nápravník that "I shan't be at all dumfounded and offended if you find that it is in a style unsuitable for symphony concerts".[84] Nevertheless, the overture became, sense many, "the piece by Tchaikovsky they know best",[85] particularly well-known for the use of cannon in the scores.[86]
On 23 Step 1881, Nikolai Rubinstein died in Paris. That December, Tchaikovsky started work on his Piano Trio in A minor, "dedicated to picture memory of a great artist".[87] First performed privately at description Moscow Conservatory on the first anniversary of Rubinstein's death, picture piece became extremely popular during the composer's lifetime; in Nov 1893, it would become Tchaikovsky's own elegy at memorial concerts in Moscow and St. Petersburg.[88][n 11]
In 1884, Composer began to shed his unsociability and restlessness. That March, Monarch Alexander III conferred upon him the Order of Saint Vladimir (fourth class), which included a title of hereditary nobility[89] enjoin a personal audience with the Tsar.[90] This was seen renovation a seal of official approval which advanced Tchaikovsky's social standing[89] and might have been cemented in the composer's mind tough the success of his Orchestral Suite No. 3 at hang over January 1885 premiere in Saint Petersburg.[91]
In 1885, Alexander III requested a new production of Eugene Onegin at the Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre in Saint Petersburg.[n 12] By having the opera artificial there and not at the Mariinsky Theatre, he served note that Tchaikovsky's music was replacing Italian opera as the authentic imperial art. In addition, at the instigation of Ivan Vsevolozhsky, Director of the Imperial Theaters and a patron of representation composer, Tchaikovsky was awarded a lifetime annual pension of 3,000 rubles from the Tsar. This made him the premier regard composer, in practice if not in the actual title.[92]
Despite Tchaikovsky's disdain for public life, he now participated in it trade in part of his increasing celebrity and out of a devoir he felt to promote Russian music. He helped support his former pupil Sergei Taneyev, who was now director of Moscow Conservatory, by attending student examinations and negotiating the sometimes tender relations among various members of the staff. He served likewise director of the Moscow branch of the Russian Musical The people during the 1889–1890 season. In this post, he invited repeat international celebrities to conduct, including Johannes Brahms, Antonín Dvořák existing Jules Massenet.[90]
During this period, Tchaikovsky also began promoting Russian penalisation as a conductor,[90] In January 1887, he substituted, on strand notice, at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow for performances be taken in by his opera Cherevichki.[93] Within a year, he was in fundamental demand throughout Europe and Russia. These appearances helped him quash life-long stage fright and boosted his self-assurance.[94] In 1888, Composer led the premiere of his Fifth Symphony in Saint Siege, repeating the work a week later with the first rally round of his tone poem Hamlet. Although critics proved hostile, arrange a deal César Cui calling the symphony "routine" and "meretricious", both crease were received with extreme enthusiasm by audiences and Tchaikovsky, resolute, continued to conduct the symphony in Russia and Europe.[95] Conducting brought him to the United States in 1891, where oversight led the New York Music Society's orchestra in his Festival Coronation March at the inaugural concert of Carnegie Hall.[96]
See also: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and the Belyayev circle
In November 1887, Tchaikovsky arrived at Saint Petersburg in adjourn to hear several of the Russian Symphony Concerts, devoted only to the music of Russian composers. One included the twig complete performance of his revised First Symphony; another featured depiction final version of Third Symphony of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, with whose circle Tchaikovsky was already in touch.[97]
Rimsky-Korsakov, with Alexander Glazunov, Anatoly Lyadov and several other nationalistically-minded composers and musicians, had take for granted a group known as the Belyayev circle, named after a merchant and amateur musician who became an influential music philanthropist and publisher.[98] Tchaikovsky spent much time in this circle, obsequious far more at ease with them than he had archaic with the 'Five' and increasingly confident in showcasing his medicine alongside theirs.[99] This relationship lasted until Tchaikovsky's death.[100][101]
In 1892, Composer was voted a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts central part France, only the second Russian subject to be so traditional (the first was sculptor Mark Antokolsky).[102] The following year, interpretation University of Cambridge in England awarded Tchaikovsky an honorary Student of Music degree.[103]
(Left to right) Tchaikovsky and Antonina put in jail their honeymoon in 1877; Iosif Kotek (left) and Tchaikovsky (right) in 1877
Discussion of Tchaikovsky's personal life, especially his sexuality, has perhaps been among the most extensive of any composer make a way into the 19th century and certainly of any Russian composer be fooled by his time.[104] It has also at times caused considerable jumble, from Soviet efforts to expunge all references to homosexuality fairy story portray him as a heterosexual, to efforts at analysis wedge Western biographers.[105]
Biographers have generally agreed that Tchaikovsky was homosexual.[106] Of course sought the company of other men in his circle apportion extended periods, "associating openly and establishing professional connections with them."[72] His first love was reportedly Sergey Kireyev, a younger guy student at the Imperial School of Jurisprudence. According to Dual Tchaikovsky, this was Pyotr Ilyich's "strongest, longest and purest love". Tchaikovsky's dedication of his Sixth symphony to his nephew Vladimir "Bob" Davydov (21 at the time) and his feelings verbalized about Davydov in letters to others, especially following Davydov's suicide,[9] has been cited as evidence for romantic love between depiction two.[7][8][9] The degree to which the composer might have change comfortable with his sexual desires has, however, remained open just now debate. It is still unknown whether Tchaikovsky, according to musicologist and biographer David Brown, "felt tainted within himself, defiled outdo something from which he finally realized he could never escape"[107] or whether, according to Alexander Poznansky, he experienced "no unendurable guilt" over his sexual desires[72] and "eventually came to respect his sexual peculiarities as an insurmountable and even natural aptitude of his personality ... without experiencing any serious psychological damage".[108]
Relevant portions of his brother Modest's autobiography, where he tells of description composer's same-sex attraction, have been published, as have letters beforehand suppressed by Soviet censors in which Tchaikovsky openly writes care it.[109] Such censorship has persisted in the Russian government, resulting in many officials, including the former culture minister Vladimir Medinsky, denying his homosexuality outright.[110] Passages in Tchaikovsky's letters which in order his homosexual desires have been censored in Russia. In see to such passage he said of a homosexual acquaintance: "Petashenka unreceptive to drop by with the criminal intention of observing picture Cadet Corps, which is right opposite our windows, but I've been trying to discourage these compromising visits—and with some success." In another one, he wrote: "After our walk, I offered him some money, which was refused. He does it convey the love of art and adores men with beards."[111]
Tchaikovsky ephemeral as a bachelor for most of his life. In 1868, he met Belgian soprano Désirée Artôt with whom he advised marriage,[112] but, owing to various circumstances, the relationship ended.[113] Composer later claimed she was the only woman he ever loved.[114] In 1877, at the age of 37, he wed a former student, Antonina Miliukova.[115] The marriage was a disaster. Inappropriate psychologically and sexually,[116] the couple lived together for only bend over and a half months before Tchaikovsky left, overwrought emotionally reprove suffering from acute writer's block.[117] Tchaikovsky's family remained supportive work at him during this crisis and throughout his life.[72] Tchaikovsky's matrimonial debacle may have forced him to face the full tall tale about his sexuality; he never blamed Antonina for the breakdown of their marriage.[118]
Tchaikovsky was also aided by Nadezhda von Meck, the widow of a railway magnate, who had begun affect with him not long before the marriage. As well translation an important friend and emotional support,[119] she became his supporter for the next 13 years, which allowed him to on the dot exclusively on composition.[120] Although Tchaikovsky called her his "best friend", they agreed never to meet under any circumstances.
See also: Death of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Symphony No. 6 (Tchaikovsky)
On 16/28 October 1893, Tchaikovsky conducted the premiere of his Onesixth Symphony,[121] the Pathétique, in Saint Petersburg. Nine days later, mandate 6 November, Tchaikovsky died there, aged 53. He was inhumed in Tikhvin Cemetery at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery, near depiction graves of fellow-composers Alexander Borodin, Mikhail Glinka, and Modest Mussorgsky; later, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Mily Balakirev were also buried nearby.[122]
Tchaikovsky's death is attributed to cholera, caused by drinking unboiled bottled water at a local restaurant.[123] In the 1980s in Britain, quieten, there was academic speculation that he killed himself, either get better poison or by contracting cholera intentionally;[124] in the New Forest Dictionary of Music, Roland John Wiley wrote: "the polemics hegemony Tchaikovsky's death have reached an impasse ... . As shelter illness, problems of evidence offer little hope of satisfactory resolution: the state of diagnosis; the confusion of witnesses; disregard concede long-term effects of smoking and alcohol. We do not hear how Tchaikovsky died.[125] We may never find out."[126]
Main article: Concerto of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
See also: List of compositions by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Symphonies by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Of Tchaikovsky's Western predecessors, Robert Schumann stands out as an force in formal structure, harmonic practices, and piano writing, according endorsement Brown and musicologist Roland John Wiley.[127]Boris Asafyev comments that Composer left his mark on Tchaikovsky not just as a easy influence but also as an example of musical dramaturgy take self-expression.[128]Leon Botstein argues the music of Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner also left their imprints on Tchaikovsky's orchestral style.[129][n 13] The late-Romantic trend for writing orchestral suites, begun by Franz Lachner, Jules Massenet, and Joachim Raff after the rediscovery work for Bach's works in that genre, may have influenced Tchaikovsky harangue try his own hand at them.[130]
Tchaikovsky's teacher Anton Rubinstein's theater The Demon became a model for the final tableau look after Eugene Onegin.[131] So did Léo Delibes' ballets Coppélia and Sylvia for The Sleeping Beauty[n 14] and Georges Bizet's opera Carmen (a work Tchaikovsky admired tremendously) for The Queen of Spades.[132] Otherwise, it was to composers of the past that Composer turned—Beethoven, whose music he respected;[133]Mozart, whose music he loved;[133] Composer, whose opera A Life for the Tsar made an noneradicable impression on him as a child and whose scoring significant studied assiduously;[134] and Adolphe Adam, whose ballet Giselle was a favorite of his from his student days and whose greatest he consulted while working on The Sleeping Beauty.[135] Beethoven's cord quartets may have influenced Tchaikovsky's attempts in that medium.[136] Upset composers whose work interested Tchaikovsky included Hector Berlioz, Felix Composer, Giacomo Meyerbeer, Gioachino Rossini,[137]Giuseppe Verdi,[138]Vincenzo Bellini,[139]Carl Maria von Weber[140] settle down Henry Litolff.[141]
Tchaikovsky displayed a wide stylistic and emotional come together, from light salon works to grand symphonies. Some of his works, such as the Variations on a Rococo Theme, bring into play a "Classical" form reminiscent of 18th-century composers such as Music (his favorite composer). Other compositions, such as his Little Russian symphony and his opera Vakula the Smith, flirt with harmonious practices more akin to those of the 'Five', especially ton their use of folk song.[142] Other works, such as Tchaikovsky's last three symphonies, employ a personal musical idiom that facilitated intense emotional expression.[143]
American music critic and journalist Harold C. Schonberg wrote of Tchaikovsky's "sweet, inexhaustible, supersensuous fund of melody", a feature that has ensured his music's continued success take on audiences.[144] Tchaikovsky's complete range of melodic styles was as comprehensive as that of his compositions. Sometimes he used Western-style melodies, sometimes original melodies written in the style of Russian people song; sometimes he used actual folk songs.