Peter tchaikovsky biography operas

Home / General Biography Information / Peter tchaikovsky biography operas

After graduation, Tchaikovsky received an offer to teach in the Moscow Conservatory under the direction of Anton’s brother Nikolai.

After several years in the classroom, a lucky break came: a reclusive, recently widowed heiress with a passion for music, Nadezhda Filaretovna von Meck (née Fralovskaya, 1831–94), offered him a stipend to compose. This leads me on to the next part of this Tchaikovsky biography...


Tchaikovsky Biography Part 2: Growing Reputation

In 1870, Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet was premiered.

He was almost like a social exile. 6), completed in August 1893 just after the death of his poet friend Alexei Apukhtin. His three Pushkin-based operas—Eugene Onegin, The Queen of Spades, and Mazeppa—are staples of major opera houses. Several films have been made about the composer and his life and times, all of which tendentiously distort his achievement to reinforce stereotypes about Russia and romantic suffering. 

Early Years: The St.

Petersburg Conservatory and a Widowed Heiress

Tchaikovsky was born in Votkinsk, an industrial town in Russia’s Udmurt Republic. He also suffered from all kinds of illnesses. Tchaikovsky fell in love with Mozart (click for biography)'s music by listening to the orchestrion.

Tchaikovsky biography Contents:


Tchaikovsky Biography Part 1: Early Life

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born in 1840 in Votkinsk, a tiny town 1000 miles east of St Petersburg.

They communicated entirely through sending letters to each other though, and only met once (where they were too embarrassed to say anything to each other).

Von Meck was a dear friend, and Tchaikovsky was extremely upset when she suddenly stopped sending letters and money in 1891.

So, with his new freedom, Tchaikovsky finally resigned from the Moscow Conservatory in 1878 and traveled around Europe and Russia.

There, his mentor was Anton Rubinstein, a virtuoso pianist and composer much enamored of the German musical traditions. This was the beginning of Tchaikovksy's wider fame. So he sent Peter Ilich to train as a civil servant in the School of Jurisprudence.

peter tchaikovsky biography operas

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky | Free Famous Composer Biography (Digital Print)

from the Meet the Composer Curriculum Index

Free

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky | Composer Biography

Format: PDF/Digital Print

Pages: 1

About Composer ‘Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born in 1840 in present-day Udmurtia, Russia.

He could think and compose in tranquility, and didn't have to be around irritating distractions like traffic and other people.


Tchaikovsky Biography Part 3

The Tsar eventually gave Tchaikovsky a life pension and the Order of St. Vladimir, and personally requested a performance of the composer's opera Eugene Onegin.

So Tchaikovsky himself offered to play the castanets!

Click to listen to and explore the dazzling Capriccio Espagnol, a musical picture of Spain

I would have liked to have seen that performance. I've tried to include some interesting anecdotes that illustrate the composer as a person, as well as a timeline of the most important events in his life and most popular pieces.

His isolated lifestyle suited him very well. The marriage completely failed after a few months, with Tchaikovsky unable to return his wife's affection.

He was severely distraught, and tried to drown himself in an icy river.

In 1877, he began a strange relationship with Nadezhda von Meck, the widow of a rich railway magnate.

But he resigned from the drudgery four years later, to start a musical career.

Once, as a boy, he was looking at a map of Europe. The event deeply marked the young boy, and altered his character towards the melancholy man he was in later life.

His mother died of cholera in 1854. Tchaikovsky was wretched and devastated. thanks!

Peter began piano lessons at the age of five, and within three years he could read music as well as his teacher.

He wasn’t of aristocratic lineage and knew he didn’t look and behave like an aristocrat, so he quickly abandoned any attempt to fit in.