Tchaikovsky was a Russian composer of the Romantic era. While not part of the nationalistic music group known as "The Five", Tchaikovsky wrote music which was distinctly Russian: plangent, introspective, with modally-inflected melody and harmony.[2]

Tchaikovsky considered himself a professional composer. He felt his professionalism in combining skill and high standards in his musical works separated him from his colleagues in "The Five." He shared several of their ideals, including an emphasis on national character in music. His aim, however, was linking those ideals with a professional standard high enough to satisfy European criteria. His professionalism also fueled his desire to reach a broad public, not just nationally but internationally, which he would eventually do.[3]

Aesthetically, Tchaikovsky remained open to all aspects of St Petersburg musical life. He was impressed by Serov and Balakirev as well as the classical values upheld by the conservatory. Both the progressive and conservative camps in Russian music at the time attempted to win him over. Tchaikovsky charted his compositional course between these two factions, retaining his individuality as a composer as well as his Russian identity.[4] A clear summation of Tchaikovsky's approach can be found in Hermann Laroche's review of Sleeping Beauty:



Childhood
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born in Votkinsk, a small town in present-day Udmurtia (at the time the Vyatka Guberniya of Imperial Russia). His father, Ilya Petrovitch, was the son of a government mining engineer. His mother, Alexandra, was a Russian woman of partial French ancestry and the second of Ilya's three wives. Pyotr was the older brother (by some ten years) of the dramatist, librettist, and translator Modest Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

In 1843, Tchaikovsky acquired a French governess, Fanny Dürbach. Her love and affection for her charge provided a counter to Alexandra, a cold, unhappy, distant parent not given to displays of physical affection.[6] For all her undemonstrativeness, however, Alexandra doted on Pyotr.[7] Also, by her aloofness and demeanor, she may have seeded her son's lifetime fascination and sympathy for deprived, suffering or otherwise doomed women[8]—one he would later express musically in such works as Romeo and Juliet, Swan Lake, Francesca da Rimini and The Queen of Spades.[9]

Pyotr began piano lessons at age five with a local woman. Musically precocious, he could read music as well as his teacher within three years. However, his parents' passion for his musical talent soon cooled. Feeling inferior due to their humble origins, the family sent Pyotr in 1850 to a school for the "lesser nobility" or gentry called the School of Jurisprudence in St. Petersburg to secure him a career as a civil servant. The minimum age for acceptance was 12. For Pyotr, this meant two years boarding at the School of Jurisprudence's preparatory school, 800 miles (1,300 km) from his family. Pyotr adored Alexandra and was already hypersensitive emotionally. He lacked self-confidence and often clung to his mother's skirts.[10] Her abandonment of him at the preparatory school was extremely traumatic. It was to be the first of two brutally symbolic departures.

Early manhood
The second brutal leave-taking came on June 25, 1854 with her death from cholera. This was such a harsh blow that Pyotr could not inform his former governness Fanny Dürbach of it until two years later.[11][12][13][14] He reacted to her loss by turning to music; within a month of her death, he was making his first serious efforts at composition, a waltz in her memory. Several writers, including Poznansky, Holden, and Warrack, have claimed that the loss of his mother was formative on Tchaikovsky's sexual development, in particular because of the close emotional connection he had to her. Regardless, the same-sex practices widespread among students at the all-male School of Jurisprudence,[15][16][17] became his norm. With these proclivities came friendships with fellow students, such as Aleksey Apukhtin and Vladimir Gerard, intense enough to make up for the loss of his mother and isolation from the rest of his family. Some of these friendships would last the rest of his life.[18]

While music was not considered a high priority at the Institite, Tchaikovsky was taken to the theater and the opera with classmates regularly. He was fond of works by Rossini, Bellini, Verdi and Mozart. A piano manufacturer, Franz Becker, made occasional visits as a token music teacher and gave lessons. This was the only music instruction Tchaikovsky received at school. In 1855, Ilya Tchaikovsky funded private studies outside the Institute for his son with Rudolph Kündinger, a well-known piano teacher from Nuremberg. Ilya also questioned Kündinger about a musical career for his son. He replied that nothing suggested a potential composer or even a fine performer. Tchaikovsky was told to finish his course work, then try for a post in the Ministry of Justice.

Tchaikovsky graduated on May 25, 1859 with the rank of titular counselor, the lowest rung of the civil service ladder. On June 15, he was appointed to the Ministry of Justice. Six months later he became a junior assistant to his department; two months after that, a senior assistant. There Tchaikovsky remained for the rest of his three-year civil service career. In 1861, he attended classes in music theory taught by Nikolai Zaremba through the Russian Musical Society (RMS). The following year he followed Zaremba to the new St Petersburg Conservatory. Tchaikovsky followed but did not give up his civil service post until his father agreed to support him. From 1862 to 1865, he studied harmony, counterpoint and fugue with Zaremba. Anton Rubinstein, director and founder of the Conservatory, taught him instrumentation and composition. Rubinstein was impressed by Tchaikovsky's talent.

Anton Rubinstein's younger brother Nikolai asked Tchaikovsky after graduation to become professor of harmony, composition, and the history of music at the Moscow Conservatory. Tchaikovsky gladly accepted the position as Ilya had retired and lost his property.

Dealings with the Five
As Tchaikovsky studied with Zaremba at the Western-oriented St. Petersburg Conservatory, critic Vladimir Stasov and composer Mily Balakirev espoused a nationalistic, less Western-oriented and more locally idiomatic school of Russian music. Stasov and Balakirev recruited what would be known as The Mighty Handful or kuchka (better known in English as "The Five") in St. Petersburg. Balakirev considered academicism to be not a help but a threat to musical imagination. Along with Stasov, he attacked Rubinstein and the Conservatory relentlessly in print as well as verbally at every opportunity.[19]

Since Tchaikovsky became Rubinstein's best known student, he was initially considered by association as a natural target for attack, especially as fodder for Cesar Cui's criticism.[20] This attitude changed slightly when Rubinstein exited the St. Petersburg musical scene in 1867. Tchaikovsky entered into a working relationship with Balakirev. The result was Tchaikovsky's first masterpiece, the fantasy-overture Romeo and Juliet, a work the kuchka wholeheartedly embraced.[21] When Tchaikovsky wrote a positive review of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's Fantasy on Serbian Themes, he was welcomed into the circle despite concerns about his academic background.[22]

He remained friendly but never intimate with most of the Five, ambivalent about their music; their goals and aesthetics did not match his.[23] He took pains to insure his musical independence from them as well as from the conservative faction at the Conservatory—a course of action facilitated by his accepting the professorship at the Moscow Conservatory offered to him by Nikolai Rubinstein.[24] When Rimsky-Korsakov was offered a professorship at the St. Petersburg Conservatory after Zaremba had left, it was Tchaikovsky to whom he turned for advice and guidance.[25] Later, Tchaikovsky enjoyed closer relations with Alexander Glazunov, Anatoly Lyadov and, at least on the surfache elder Rimsky-Korsakov.[26]

Dostoyevskian turmoil in music
Beginning with his Fourth Symphony, Tchaikovsky's music became an intense psychic outlet, allowing him to voice frustrations and emotions previously kept bottled up. The importance of Tchaikovsky's homosexuality and its consequences on the personal expression in his compositions cannot be underestimated. Tchaikovsky's gayness in itself has been known to the West for at least 75 years, gathered from the composer's own writings as well as those of his brother Modest, who was also gay.[27][28] More debatable is how well he accepted his sexuality or was comfortable with it.[29]

Pivotal in letting loose his psychic cataract was Tchaikovsky's ill-starred marriage to one of his former composition students, Antonina Miliukova. Tchaikovsky had decided to "marry whoever will have me" just before Antonina appeared on the scene. His favorite pupil Vladimir Shilovsky had married suddenly in late April 1877.[30] Shilovsky, like Tchaikovsky, was gay.[31] They had shared a mutual bond of affection for just over a decade.[32][33] Shilovsky's wedding may, in turn, have spurred Tchaikovsky to consider such a step himself.[34] He may have hoped in marrying Antonina that marriage would lend him public respectability while he continued having sex privately with other men.[35] The brief time with his wife drove him to the brink of emotional ruin.[36]

Paradoxically, the marriage's strain on Tchaikovsky may have actually enhanced his creativity.[37] The Fourth Symphony and the opera Eugene Onegin could be considered proof of this. He finished both these works in the six months from his engagement to his "rest cure" in Clarens, Switzerland following his marriage. They are arguably two of his finest compositions.[38]

The intensity of personal emotion now flowing through Tchaikovsky's works was entirely new to Russian music.[39] It prompted Russians to place his name alongside that of novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky.[39] Like Dostoyevsky's characters, they felt the musical hero in Tchaikovsky's music persisted in exploring the meaning of life while trapped in a fatal love-death-faith triangle.[39] A typical passage about the two reads, "With a hidden passion they both stop at moments of horror, total spiritual collapse, and finding acute sweetness in the cold trepidation of the heart before the abyss, they both force the reader to experience those feelings, too."[40]

Timely benefactress
Four months prior to Antonina's first letter came another at least as significant. Nadezhda von Meck, wealthy widow of a Russian railway tycoon and an influential patron of the arts, wanted to commission some chamber pieces. She eventually paid Tchaikovsky an annual subsidy of 6,000 rubles. This would also allow him to resign from the Moscow Conservatory in October 1878 and concentrate primarily on composition.[41] With von Meck's patronage came a relationship that, at her insistence, was mainly epistolary. They exchanged over 1,200 letters, some of them quite lengthy, between 1877 and 1890. For both of them, these letters would become a solace and a safety valve, filled with details extraordinary for two people who would never meet. Tchaikovsky was more open to von Meck about much of his life and his creative processes than to any other person.

Some could claim legitimately that Tchaikovsky and von Meck's friendship rose to a level similar to that of his future attachment to his nephew, Vladimir "Bob" Davydov.[42] This arrangement can often take place between a woman and a gay man who is spiritually and artistically oriented.[42] A parallel relationship would be the platonic affair between Michelangelo and Vittoria Colonna, marchioness of Pescara. Like von Meck, Vittoria was a mature widow. She withdrew into a convent, from which she exchanged passionate sonnets with Michelangelo. Von Meck remained a fully dedicated supporter of Tchaikovsky and all his works. She took the place of the mother figure he had lost—and more. She also became a vital enabler in his day-to-day existence. As he explained to her,


Tchaikovsky and von Meck also became related by marriage. One of her sons, Nikolay, married Tchaikovsky's niece Anna Davydova in 1884. However, after 13 years von Meck suddenly ended the relationship. She claimed bankruptcy. Tchaikovsky, now a success throughout Europe, no longer needed her money. Her friendship and encouragement were another matter. Losing that companionship devastated him.[44][45][46][47]

Later career
Tchaikovsky returned to Moscow Conservatory in the fall of 1879. He had been away from Russia a year after his marriage disintegrated. Shortly into that term, however, he resigned. He settled in Kamenka yet travelled incessantly. Assured of a regular income from von Meck, he wandered around Europe and rural Russia. Not staying long in any one place, he lived mainly alone, avoiding social contact whenever possible. This may have been due partly to troubles with Antonina. She alternately accepted and refused divorce and at one point exacerbated matters by moving into the apartment directly above her husband's.[48][49] Perhaps understandably, his music suffered in quality. Except for his piano trio, which he wrote upon the death of Nikolai Rubinstein, his best work from this period is found in genres which did not depend heavily on personal expression.[48]

While Tchaikovsky's reputation grew rapidly outside Russia, "it was considered obligatory [in progressive musical circles in Russia] to treat Tchaikovsky as a renegade, a master overly dependent on the West," Alexandre Benois wrote in his memoirs.[50] In 1880, this assessment changed practically overnight. During commemoration ceremonies for the Pushkin Monument in Moscow, Dostoyevsky called for the Russian "to become brother to all men, uniman, if you will."[50] Dostoyevsky had been a fervent nationalist. Like Tchaikovsky, though, he also had what Osip Mandelstam termed "a longing for world culture."[50] Focusing on the "European" essence of Pushkin's work, Dostoyevsky's charged that the poet had given a prophetic call to Russia for "universal unity" with the West[50] An unprecedented acclaim for Dostoyevsky's message rushed throughout Russia. Disdain for Tchaikovsky's music dissipated. He even drew a cult following among the young intelligentsia of St. Petersburg, including Benois, Leon Bakst and Sergei Diaghilev.

During 1884, Tchaikovsky began to shed his unsociability and restlessness.[51] In 1885 Tsar Alexander III conferred upon Tchaikovsky the Order of St. Vladimir (fourth class). With it came hereditary nobility. The tsar's decoration was a visible seal of official approval that helped the composer's social rehabilitation.[51] That year he resettled in Russia. 1885 also saw his debut as a guest conductor. Within a year, he was in considerable demand throughout Europe and Russia in appearances which helped him overcome a life-long stage fright and boosted his self-assurance. He wrote von Meck, "Would you now recognize in this Russian musician traveling across Europe that man who, only a few years ago, had absconded from life in society and lived in seclusion abroad or in the country!!!"[52] Conducting brought him to America in 1891. He led the New York Music Society's orchestra in his Marche Slave[53] at the inaugural concert of New York's Carnegie Hall.

In 1893, the University of Cambridge awarded Tchaikovsky an honorary Doctor of Music degree. Other composers similarly honored on the same occasion included Camille Saint-Saëns, Max Bruch and Arrigo Boito. Edvard Grieg was also to be honored but could not attend due to illness.

Death
Tchaikovsky died in St. Petersburg on November 6, 1893, nine days after the premiere of his Sixth Symphony, the Pathétique. His death has traditionally been attributed to cholera, most probably contracted through drinking contaminated water several days earlier. However, some have theorized his death was a suicide. In one variation of the theory, a sentence of suicide was imposed in a "court of honor" by Tchaikovsky's fellow alumni of the St. Petersburg School of Jurisprudence, as a censure of the composer's sexual preferences.[54][55][56]

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Final days
Alexander Poznansky writes that on 20 October 1893 (Wednesday) Tchaikovsky had gone to the theatre to see Alexander Ostrovsky's play The Ardent Heart. Afterwards, he went with his brother Modest, his nephew Bob Davidov, the composer Alexander Glazunov, and other friends to a restaurant named Leiners, in St. Petersburg. Tchaikovsky was fond of pasta and ordered macaroni. As was his custom, Tchaikovsky always drank water with his meals. He ordered mineral water along with some white wine[1].

According to later accounts, Tchaikovsky also ordered a glass of water from the kitchen. There had been public health warnings about unboiled drinking water and, by law, water had to be boiled before being served. Tchaikovsky was told by the waiter that no boiled water was then available. Tchaikovsky then reportedly requested cold unboiled water, which the waiter reportedly brought. When the composer was warned by others in his party not to drink it, according to these accounts, he said he did not fear contracting cholera and drank the water anyway. After the meal was over, the friends departed and Tchaikovsky and his brother Modest returned home on foot and arrived at 2am at Modest's fifth floor apartment at 13 Malaya Morskaya Street in St. Petersburg. There was no indication of illness[2].

The next morning, Modest arose and found that Pyotr was not in the sitting room drinking tea as usual and went to his bedroom. There he found Pyotr in bed and complaining about having a bad night with bouts of diarrhea and stomach upset. Pyotr tried to follow his normal routine despite being sick, but was not able to and Modest asked if he could call a doctor. Pyotr repeatedly refused permission. He had suffered from stomach upsets all his life, and often took cod liver oil for them. He did so now, to no avail[3].

Three days later, Tchaikovsky was suffering from full blown cholera. His conditioned worsened, but he still refused to see a doctor. A doctor was finally sent for but he was not home so another one was called. The diagnosis of cholera was finally made by Dr. Lev Bertenson. Bertenson was blamed in the newspapers of the day for Tchaikovsky's death because he failed to order baths, then thought to help at that time, until it was too late[4].

In the meantime, Pyotr seemed improved but then would regress and get much worse, all the while having severe painful chest pains and cramps. Pyotr's kidneys began to fail. A priest was called from St. Isaac's Cathedral to administer last rites but the composer was too far gone to recognize what was going on around him. He called for Nadezhda von Meck in his delirium, and died at 3am on 6 November 1893 in Modest's apartment[5].

After the death
Tchaikovsky biographer David Brown argues that even before the doctors' accounts on Tchaikovsky's death had appeared, what happened at his brother Modest's flat had been totally inconsistent with standard procedures for a death from cholera. The authorities knew well this disease could be highly contagious; regulations stipulated the corpse was to be removed from the scene of death immediately in a closed coffin[6].

Instead of its immediate removal, Tchaikovsky's body was displayed in Modest's flat. Moreover, the flat was freely opened to visitors wishing to pay their last respects. Among the guests was composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, who was seemingly bewildered by what he saw[7]: "How strange that, although death had resulted from cholera, still admission to the Mass for the dead was free to all! I remember how [Alexander] Vyerzhbilovich [a cellist and professor at the St. Petersburg Conservatory], totally drunk ... kept kissing the deceased man's head and face[8]."

Rimsky-Korsakov's own comments, however, would seem to conflict with his actions as later told by Sergei Diaghilev. Diaghilev, who would become known as the founder and impresario of the Ballets Russes, was at that time a university student in St. Petersburg and had met and occasionally conversed with the composer[9]. On hearing of Tchaikovsky's death, Diaghilev recalls,


Before the first requiem service, scheduled for 2:00 that afternoon, the apartment was choked with mourners. By 1:00, so many people had gathered that it was impossible to push past the entrance hall. Gradually a line of waiting people stretched along all four flights of stairs leading up from the street[11].

At 2:00, the doors to a corner reception room were opened. Tchaikovsky's body, dressed in a black suit, lay exposed on a low catafalque draped in white satin[12]. "[O]nly the presence near the head of someone continually touching the lips and the nostrils of the deceased with a bit of light-colored material soaked in carbolic reminds one of the terrible illness that struck down the deceased," wrote a reporter for the Petersburg Gazette[13]. Nevertheless, Diaghilev states, "Everyone kept his mouth covered with a handkerchief and spat constantly into it, which we were advised to do to avoid catching cholera[14]."

Another biographer, Alexander Poznansky, counters Brown's claim with a few of his own. He argues that, despite Rimsky-Korsaskov's comment, there was nothing odd about what went on. He writes that despite lingering prejudice, the prevailing medical opinion was that cholera was less contagious than previously supposed. Though public gatherings for cholera victims had previously been discouraged, the Central Medical Council in the spring of 1893 specifically allowed public services and rituals in connection with the funerals of cholera victims[15].

There was also the medical opinion, reported by the Petersburg Gazette, that Tchaikovsky had not died not from the disease itself, but from a resulting blood infection. (The disease had reportedly been arrested on Friday, November 3, three days before the composer's passing[16].) With the added precaution of the constant disinfectant of the lips and nostrils of the body, Poznansky claims, even the drunken cellist kissing the face of the deceased had little cause for worry[17].

After a second requiem service that evening, Tchaikovsky was placed in his coffin, with all prescribed measures against the spread of cholera taken. The body was wrapped in a sheet soaked in a solution of mercuric chloride. The metal inner coffin was soldered shut and the oaken outer coffin screwed shut. All this was done in the presence of the police, as required for victims of cholera. Tchaikovsky's friend Nikolay Kashkin, who arrived the next day for Tchaikovsky's funeral with a delegation from the Moscow Conservatory, remembered finding the coffin both sealed and shut[18].

The funeral
When Tsar Alexander III received news of Tchaikovsky's death, he volunteered to pay the costs of the composer's funeral himself and instructed the Directorate of the Imperial Theatres to organize the event. According to Poznansky, this action showed the exceptional regard with which the Tsar regarded the composer. Only twice before had a Russian monarch shown such favor toward a fallen artistic or scholarly figure. Nicholas I had written a letter to the dying Alexander Pushkin following the poet's fatal duel. Nicholas also came personally to pay his final respects to historian Nikolay Karamzin on the eve of his burial[19]. Moreover, Alexander III gave special permission for Tchaikovsky's memorial service to be held at Kazan Cathedral[20].

The outpouring of grief over Tchaikovsky's death, and the resulting interest in his funeral, was extremely great. Tchaikovsky's funeral took place on November 9, 1893 in St. Petersburg. Participation in the funeral procession was by special ticket only. This ticket included entrance to Kazan Cathedral and access to the cemetery of Alexander Nevsky Monastery. Kazan Cathedral holds 6,000 people, but 60,000 people — 10 times the cathedral's capacity — applied for tickets. Finally, 8,000 people were crammed in[21].

In addition, Poznansky writes that on the day of the funeral, "[i]t seemed that all the inhabitants of St. Petersburg had come out on to the streets to pay their last respects. The whole of Nevsky Prospect was packed with people[22]. Solomon Volkov adds that all lectures in the city's schools were cancelled so that students could be at the procession. Crowds of students took part, since St. Petersburg had dozens of Gymnasiums and other schools, plus over 20 colleges—the esteemed Petersburg University and various academies and institutes. Also out in force were young professionals, intellectuals, Russian intelligentsia, teachers, doctors, lawyers, engineers and journalists. It seemed as if the whole of "thinking" Petersburg paid tribute to one of its greatest representatives, intuiting the role that Tchaikovsky's works would play in evolving the city's mythos[23].

What those people saw as they lined the streets was equally great. Behind entire rows of wreaths marched the clergy, wearing white cassocks. Behind them was the coffin, on a hearse pulled by three pairs of horses. Tchaikovsky's family followed the hearse. After them, in order of importance, came the representatives of various institutions[24].

Diaghilev adds that, though the procession occurred in broad daylight, the street lamps remained lit all the way along the processional route. Riding in a hearse with Rimsky-Korsakov, he heard the composer remark, "Here's a man gone in good time. Look at Gounod — he so long outlived his fame that no one noticed his death." Gounod had died the previous year[25].

After a short liturgy, the coffin was placed on a hearse to be taken to Kazan Cathedral, following a special route that took the procession past the Mariinsky Theatre. Grand Duke Konstantin and other members of the imperial family arrived at the cathedral in time for the main religious service, which lasted until 5 o'clock in the afternoon[26]. Alexander III had also been scheduled to attend but did not do so[27].

Particularly absent from Tchaikovsky's funeral was Nadezhda von Meck, though she sent a very expensive wreath. She was already gravely ill and moved with great difficulty. When Anna Davydova-von Meck was later asked how her mother-in-law had endured the news of the composer's death, Anna replied, "She did not endure it," adding that von Meck soon felt much worse. Madame von Meck died three months after Tchaikovsky, in Nice[28].

He was interred in Tikhvin Cemetery at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery. His grave is located near those of fellow-composers Alexander Borodin, Mikhail Glinka, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Mily Balakirev and Modest Mussorgsky[29].

Cholera in Russia
Biographer Anthony Holden writes that cholera had arrived in Europe less than a century before Tchaikovsky's death. An initial pandemic had hit the continent in 1818. Three others had followed and a fifth, which had begun in 1881 was raging[30]. The disease had been imported by pilgrims from Bombay to Arabia, and from there crossed the Russian border[31].

The first reported cases in Russia from this pandemic occurred in Vladivostok in 1888. By 1892, Russia was by far the worst hit of the 21 countries affected. In 1893, no fewer than 70 regions and provinces were combatting epidemics[32].

Holden adds that, according to contemporary Russian medical records, the specific epidemic which claimed Tchaikovsky's life began on May 14, 1892 and ended on February 11, 1896. During this time, 504,924 contracted cholera. From that number, 226,940 (44.9 percent) died from it[33].

A social stigma
Even with these numbers, the attribution of Tchaikovsky's death to cholera was at least as surprising to many people as the suddenness of his demise. While cholera in fact touched all levels of society, it was largely considered a disease of the poor, thus a vulgar and socially demeaning manner of demise. That such a famous composer as Tchaikovsky would pass from such a disease appeared to degrade his reputation among the upper classes and struck many as inconceivable[34].

True to its reputed form, the cholera outbreak that began in the summer of 1893 in St. Petersburg had been confined primarily to the city's slums, where the poor "lived in crowded, insanitary conditions without observing elementary medical conditions.... [Cholera] did not usually touch the affluent and more educated families because they observed strict precautions. Medical advice not only forbade the drinking of unboiled water; it recommended that water for washing should also be boiled[35]."

Also, we know from Tchaikovsky's friend Hermann Laroche that the composer was scrupulous in his personal hygiene[36]. In the hope of avoiding doctors, Laroche writes, "he relied above all on hygiene, of which he seemed (to my layman's view) to be a true master[37]."

The media also seemed to note this as they questioned the composer's death. "How could Tchaikovsky, having just arrived in Petersburg and living in excellent hygienic conditions, have contracted the infection?" asked a reporter for the Petersburg Gazette[38]. A writer for Russian Life noted, "[E]veryone is astounded by the uncommon occurrence of the lightning-fast infection with Asiatic cholera of a man so very temperate, modest, and austere in his daily habits[39]

Moreover, this epidemic had begun waning with the arrival of the cold autumn weather. On October 13, 200 cases of cholera were reported. By November 6, the day of Tchaikovsky's death, this number had been more than halved to only 68 cases, accompanied by "a sharp decline in mortality[40]." Though these figures were taken from Novosti i Birzhevaya Gazets, Poznansky challenges them as inaccurate[41].

Doctors not prepared
Holden maintains that since cholera was rarely encountered in the upper echelons in which they practiced, physicians Valery and Lev Bertenson, who treated Tchaikovsky during his final days, may have never treated or even seen a case of cholera previous to the composer's case. All they might have known of the disease was what they had read in textbooks and medical journals[42].

Holden questions whether the senior brother's description of Tchaikovsky's condition came from his observation of the patient, or from what he had once read, thus using the terminology in the wrong sequence. He raises Russian musicologist Alexandra Orlava hypothesis that perhaps the physicians were "forced by circumstances to lie[43]." Was cholera, Holden asks, a subsequently convenient camouflage for a very different affliction[44]?

The glass of unboiled water
If Tchaikovsky did contract cholera, it is impossible to know precisely when or how he became infected. Unboiled water was naturally assumed to be the source[45]. If this is the case, though, when and where did Tchaikovsky drink it?

Newspapers printed accounts given by confused relatives of Tchaikovsky's drinking a glass of unboiled water at Leiner's restaurant. Tchaikovsky's brother Modest does not mention this story. Instead, he suggests his brother drank the fateful glass at Modest's apartment during lunch on Thursday[46]. "[I]t was right in the middle of our conversation about the medication he had taken that he poured a glass of water and took a sip from it. The water was unboiled. We were all frightened: he alone was indifferent to it and told us not to worry[47]."

The problem with both these stories is that the incubation period for cholera is between one and three days[48]. Tchaikovsky started having difficulties early Thursday morning. This means the latest the composer could have been infected would have been Wednesday morning, earlier than either the dinner at Leiner's that evening or lunch at Modest's the following afternoon[49].

Also, the possibility of there even being unboiled water available at a restaurant such as Leiner's was a surprise to some. "We find it extremely strange that a good restaurant could have served unboiled water during an epidemic," wrote a reporter for the newspaper Son of the Fatherland. "There exists, as far as we can recollect, a binding decree that commercial establishments, eating houses, restaurants, etc., should have boiled water[50]."

Nor were newspaper reporters the only ones questioning these accounts. Diaghilev recalls, "Various myths soon sprang up about the death of Tchaikovsky. Some said he caught cholera by drinking a glass of tap water at the Restaurant Leiner. Certainly, we used to see Piotr Ilyitch eating there almost every day, but nobody at that time drank unbottled water, and it seemed inconceivable to us that Tchaikovsky should have done so[51]."

The same lack of credibility would seem to hold true for Modest's story. As Poznansky points out, "What was a pitcher of unboiled, potentially lethal water doing on the dining room table [in Modest's flat] in the first place? Modest fails to enlighten us[52]."


Cholera from tainted water
Even with the discrepancy in timelines, Poznansky does not rule out Tchaikovsky's contracting cholera from drinking contaminated water. On the contrary, he ventures the possibility that Tchaikovsky could have drunk that water very unwittingly before the Wednesday supper at Leiner's[53]. On this point, he and Holden concur. Holden adds that Tchaikovsky may have even known he had contracted cholera before the dinner at Leiner's Wednesday night[54].

Tchaikovsky habitually drank cold water at meals. Poznansky points out that in July 1893, while visiting his brother Nikolay, the composer had to delay his departure[55]. Tchaikovsky later wrote his nephew Vladimir "Bob" Davydov that he had "became terribly ill ... from the abuse of cold water at dinner and supper[56]."

Also, Poznansky ventures that the cholera bacillus was more prevalent in the St. Petersburg water supply than had been imagined. Just weeks after the composer's death, the cholera bacillus was discovered not only in the water of the river Neva, but even in the water supply of the Winter Palace. Also, a special sanitary commission found that some restaurants, to cool boiled water more quickly for patrons, mixed it with unboiled water[57]

Another factor Pozansky mentions is that Tchaikovsky, already in gastric distress Thursday morning, drank a glass of the alkaline mineral water Huniadi-Jannos in an attempt to ease his stomach. The alkaline in the mineral water would have neutralized the stomach acids. This might have stimulated the cholera bacillus if it were present by giving it a more favorable environment in which to flourish[58].

Cholera from other means
Holden mentions another theory — that drinking unboiled water may not have been the only way Tchaikovsky could have contracted cholera. Referencing cholera specialist Dr. Valentin Pokovsky, Holden mentions the "faecal-oral route" — that Tchaikovsky could have possibly contracted cholera from less than hygienic sexual practices with male prostitutes in St. Petersburg. This theory was advanced separately in The Times of London by its then veteran medical specialist, Dr. Thomas Stuttaford[59].

Holden admits that, while there is no further evidence to support this theory, if it had been true, Tchaikovsky and Modest would have both gone to great pains to conceal the truth. By mutual agreement, they could have staged the drinking of the glass of unboiled water for the sake of family, friends, admirers and posterity. In the case of an almost sacred national figure, as Holden claims Tchaikovsky was by the end of his career, the doctors involved with Tchaikovsky's case might have permitted their medical consciences to go along with such a deception[60].

Suicide ordered by "court of honor"
This mutual agreement with Modest and the doctors could have just as easily proved true regarding the "court of honor" theory first broached publicly by Russian musicologist Alexandra Orlova in 1979, when she emigrated to the West. This "court of honor" was an assembly of Tchaikovsky's fellow alumni of the St. Petersburg School of Jurisprudence.

The key witness in Orlova's case was Alexander Voitrov, a pupil at the School of Jurisprudence before the First World War. Voitrov had amassed a great deal of information about some of the history and people of his alma mater and shared this story, which Orlova wrote down from his dictation:


Orlova suggests this court of honor could have been convened on October 31. This is the only day during which nothing is known about Tchaikovsky's activities until evening. Brown suggests that perhaps it is significant that Modest records his brother's last days from that evening, when Tchaikovsky attended Rubinstein's opera Die Makkabäer[62]

Moreover, once Tchaikovsky fell ill, he long refused to have a doctor summoned. Had Tchaikovsky taken a poison that would mimic the symptoms of cholera, his stalling would have possibly ensured time for his body to absorb the poison past the point at which he could be saved[63]

In her never-published book Tchaikovsky Day by Day, she argues for suicide based on oral evidence and various circumstantial events surrounding his death (such as discrepancies over death dates, and handling of Tchaikovsky's body), suggesting that Tchaikovsky poisoned himself with arsenic. Orlova cites no documentary reference for these claims, however, relying on oral commentary. Holden goes into detail over the various trials Orlova and her husband suffered at the hands of Soviet censors, since the subjects of Tchaikovsky's death and his reputed homosexuality were both forbidden topics of discussion[64].

In November 1993 the BBC aired a documentary entitled Pride or Prejudice, which investigated various theories regarding Tchaikovsky's death. Among those interviewed were Orlova, Brown, Poznansky and Karlinsky, along with various experts on Russian history. The conclusion reached in the documentary leaned largely in favor of the "court of honor" sentencing to death[65].

Dr John Henry of Guy's Hospital, an expert witness working in the British National Poison Unit at the time, concluded in the documentary that all the reported symptoms of Tchaikovsky's illness "fit very closely with arsenic poisoning." He suggested that people would have known that acute diarrhoea, dehydration and kidney failure resembled the manifestations of cholera. This would help bolster a potential illusion of the death as a case of cholera[66].

Other well-respected studies of the composer have challenged Orlova's claims in detail, and concluded that the composer's death was due to natural causes.[67] Among other challenges to Orlova's thesis, Alexander Poznansky revealed that there was no Duke Stenbock-Fermor (a major player in Orlova's case), but there was a Count of that name. However, he was an equerry to Tsar Alexander III, and would not have needed an intermediary to deliver a letter to his own boss. As for the supposed threat to the reputation of the St Petersburg School of Jurisprudence represented by Tchaikovsky's gay rampages, Poznansky depicts the school as a hotbed of all-male debauchery which even had its own song hymning the delights of homosexuality.[68].

Suicide ordered by the Tsar
One other theory regarding Tchaikovsky's death is that it was ordered by Tsar Alexander III himself. This story was told by a Swiss musician named Robert Aloys Mooser, who supposedly learned it from two others — Riccardo Drigo, composer and kapellmeister to the St. Petersburg Imperial Theatres, and the composer Alexander Glazunov. According to their scenario the composer had seduced the son of the caretaker of his brother Modest's apartment block[69].

On learning of Tchaikovsky's indiscretion, the Tsar had reportedly decreed that the composer must leave the capital forthwith. Realizing his career was at an end and that his reputation would be irreparably damaged, Tchaikovsky had poisoned himself[70]. One variant of the story has the Tsar offering Tchaikovsky the choice of a revolver or a ring filled with poison for this purpose, with Tchaikovsky choosing the poison[71].

The plausibility of this story for many people was that Glazunov reportedly confirmed it. Mooser considered Glazunov a reliable witness, stressing his "upright moral character, veneration for the composer and friendship with Tchaikovsky." Mooser claims Glazunov confirmed the story was true, weeping as he did so. More recently the French scholar André Lischke has confirmed Glazunov's confession. Lische's father was a student of the composer in Petrograd in the 1920's. Glazunov confided the story to Lische's father, who in turn passed it to his son.[72]

However, Poznansky counters, Glazunov could not have confirmed the suicide story unless he were absolutely certain of its truth. The only way that could have been possible, though, was if he had been told by someone in Tchaikovsky's innermost circle—in other words, someone who was present at the composer's deathbed. It was exactly this circle of intimates, however, that Drigo accused of concealing the "truth," [Poznansky's quote marks for emphasis] demanding false testimonies from authorities, physicians and priests. Only by swearing Glazunov to the strictest secrecy would anyone in this circle have revealed the "truth." That Glazunov would then share this information with Mooser, Poznansky concludes, is virtually inconceivable since it would have compromised Glazunov entirely[73].

Moreover, Holden points out that Alexander III was well aware of the homosexuality said to be rife amid his own courtiers and close relatives. Some of those relatives were, in fact, ensconced in high public positions. Also, Tchaikovsky was the Tsar's favorite composer. As the Tsar is supposed to have said upon hearing of the composer's death, "We have many dukes and barons, but only one Tchaikovsky." In all likelihood, Holden writes, had the monarch received a letter of complaint about Tchaikovsky's indiscretions, he probably would have consigned it to the nearest waste-paper basket.[74].

Holden maintains, though, that this final point actually strengthens the theory that Tchaikovsky committed suicide, because it underlines what Holden calls "the fundamental assumption" that Tchaikovsky would have preferred death to public exposure of his sexual proclivities.[75]

Suicide by reckless action
Another version holds that Tchaikovsky had been undergoing a severe personal crisis. This crisis was precipitated, according to some accounts, by his infatuation for his nephew, Bob Davydov. This would reportedly explain the agonies expressed in the Sixth Symphony, as well as the mystery surrounding its program. Many analysts, working from this tangent, have since read the Pathétique as intensely autobiographical[76].

The theory goes that Tchaikovsky realized the full extent of his feelings for Bob, plus the unlikelihood of their physical fulfillment. He supposedly poured his misery onto this one last great work as a conscious prelude to suicide, then drank unboiled water in the hope of contracting cholera. In this way, as with his wading into the Moscow river in 1877 in frustration over his marriage, Tchaikovsky could commit suicide without bringing disgrace upon his family[77].

Glazunov was with Tchaikovsky's party at Leiner's when the composer reportedly drank the glass of unboiled water. He left no personal account of the meal but may have seen what happened, since Brown claims he told at least two independent people about the incident and that Tchaikovsky's death was suicide[78]. The fact Glazunov may have been confirming this story and not Tchaikovsky's being poisoned on order of the Tsar would explain why he would tell it so readily. With no intimate to whom he would have had sworn secrecy, what did Glazunov have to hide?

Nor was this story exclusive to Glazunov. Diaghilev also remembers it, adding the rumor seemed to be fueled by two facts: that Tchaikovsky was one of the last to die in the epidemic and that, if Tchaikovsky had truly died of cholera, the flat in which he had died would have been sealed off immediately[79].

Diaghilev writes, however, that he placed little credence in this theory for lack of evidence. He also mentions not only knowing all of Tchaikovsky's inner circle but also being a friend of Bob Davydov[80]. Presumably, then, if there had been any truth to this conjecture circulating among Tchaikovsky's intimates, Diaghilev might have heard about it.

No strong evidence
Without strong evidence for any of these cases, it is possible that no definite conclusion may be drawn and that the true nature of the composer's end may never be known.[81] Conclusive evidence, Holden suggests, would mean exhuming Tchaikovsky's corpse for tests to determine the presence of arsenic, as has been done with the body of Napoleon Bonaparte, since arsenic can remain in the human body even after 100 years[82]. He adds this suggestion has been made more than once. However, this proposal has yet to be acted upon[83].

The English composer Michael Finnissy composed a short opera, Shameful Vice, about Tchaikovsky's last days and death.

Pathétique as requiem
Volkov writes that even before Tchaikovsky's death, his Sixth Symphony, the Pathetique, was heard by at least some as the composer's artistic farewell to this world. After the last rehearsal of the symphony under its composer's baton, Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, a talented poet and fervent admirer of the composer, ran into the green room weeping and exclaiming, "What have you done, it's a requiem, a requiem![84]"

As for the première itself, Volkov writes,


This would seem to contradict descriptions of this event by other biographers. Holden, for example, writes that the work had been greeted with respectful applause for its composer but general bewilderment about the work itself[86]. However, Diaghilev apparently confirms Volkov's account. Though he mentions "At the rehearsal opinions were greatly divided[87], he adds, "The concert's success was naturally overwhelming[88]...."

Regardless of its initial reception, two weeks after Tchaikovsky's death, on November 18, 1893, the composer's longtime friend, conductor Eduard Nápravník, led the second performance of the Pathétique Symphony at a memorial concert in St. Petersburg. This was three weeks to the day after the composer had led the première in the same hall, before much the same audience.

"It is indeed a sort of swan song, a presentiment of impending death, and hence its tragic impression" wrote the reviewer for the Russkaya Muzykal'naya Gazeta[89]. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, who attended both performances, attributed the public's change in opinion to "the composer's sudden death ... stories about his presentiments of approaching demise (to which mankind is so prone), and a tendency to link these presentiments with the gloomy mood of the last movement of this splendid ... famed, even fashionable work[90]." Diaghilev adds that Nápravník wept throughout the performance[91]

Though some modern musicologists, such as David Brown, dispute the view that Tchaikovsky wrote the Pathétique as his own requiem, many others, notably Milton Cross and David Ewen, accord it credence. The musical clues include one in the development section of the first movement, where the rapidly progressing evolution of the transformed first theme suddenly "shifts into neutral" in the strings, and a rather quiet, harmonized chorale emerges in the trombones. The trombone theme bears no relation to the music that either precedes or follows it. It appears to be a musical "non sequitur" — but it is from the Russian Orthodox Mass for the Dead, in which it is sung to the words: "And may his soul rest with the souls of all the saints."

---

Characteristics
Tchaikovsky demonstrated the Romantic ideals of color, emotional expressiveness, and dramatic intensity. Tchaikovsky was also typically Romantic in his choice of subject matter in his operas and symphonic poems. He leaned toward doomed lovers and heroines — Romeo and Juliet, Francesca and Paolo (Francesca da Rimini), Tatiana (Eugene Onegin), even the title character from his abandoned opera Undina. Sometimes, as in his final opera, Iolanta, and in his final tone poem, The Voyevode, the love music could outshine the rest of the composition, especially if the music or story was otherwise sub-standard.

Tchaikovsky stood out from many of his contemporaries in his great fund of melody and quality of that melody—sweet and at times bittersweet in tone, sensuous in the undulations of the melodic line, and lush in texture, yet providing a clear periodic structure. That structure can be obscured by the sheer expansiveness of the musical phrase, as well as by its sequential extension. The love theme in Romeo and Juliet is an example. The theme starts as an eight-bar phrase, the second half a free sequence of the first. This sequence establishes a principle of growth which is used on the theme's recurrence to expand freely and unpredictably. Unlike The Five's work, folk songs and folk-like melodies appear only sporadically in Tchaikovsky's work.

Tchaikovsky was also extremely imaginative in orchestration; he never stopped seeking new timbral combinations. This penchant was drilled into him early, through Anton Rubinstein's exercises at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. It also caused him to run afoul of Rubinstein, choosing instruments his conservative teacher would never use himself.

The major leap Tchaikovsky made in terms of orchestral skill was through the first three orchestral suites.[57] Through these works two changes took place. First, Tchaikovsky's orchestration became tremendously subtler and more sophisticated when needed. Second, he allowed the instrumental sound he desired to dictate the music he would write, instead of vice versa. There would still be touches of novelty, such as his using four accordions in the Second Orchestral Suite and, much later, the celesta solos in The Nutcracker and The Voyevoda. More often, though, his ability to conjure an atmosphere or scene with the colors he chose would become increasingly keener and further ranging, allowing him to expand into the various degrees of fantasy which would incorporate some of his finest work.

Imperial style
Tchaikovsky's musical cosmopolitanism made him especially adept in writing in an Italo-Franco "Imperial style." This style was favored by Tsar Alexander III and the Russian upper classes over the "Russian" harmonies of Mussorgsky, Borodin and Rimsky-Korsakov.[58]

Imperial style was symbolized by the polonaise, imported into Russia near the end of the 18th century by Jozef Kozlowski, a Polish composer who served in the Russian Army. Kozlowski's greatest musical successes were with his polonaises. He wrote a triumphal polonaise on a text by Derzhavin, "Thunder of Victory, Resound," to celebrate the Russian victory over the Turks in the Ukraine. After that, the polonaise became the preeminent ceremonial gesture in Russia. It became an expression of tsarist patriotism and imperialism.[59] With this cachet came both an opulence and importance in the dance's use:


Tchaikovsky's phenomenal success in St. Petersburg with the premiere of his Third Orchestral Suite may have been due in large part to his concluding the work with a polonaise.[61] He also used a polonaise for the final movement of his Third Symphony. This led to a misunderstanding when the symphony was performed in the West. Western nations, more familiar with the polonaise as used by Frédéric Chopin, subtitled the symphony Polish. They considered the finale an expression of a Polish longing for freedom and national resurgence. The real meaning of the polonaise in the symphony was the exact opposite. Like the finales of Tchaikovsky's first two symphonies, the finale of the Third was meant to appeal to the patriotic sentiment of the Russian aristocracy—precisely the people who wanted to keep the Poles yoked to the tsarist regime.[62]

Tchaikovsky used a Russian folk song in the finale of the First Symphony and a Ukranian folk song in the finale of the Second. Both times, as with the Third, he did so to glorify the Russian empire and the victories of Russian arms.[63] This theme, traditional in Russian culture, was first sounded by Pushkin. The defeat of Napoleon led to a rapid expansion of the empire and the ethnic variety of its peoples. A subsequent and growing appetite in the capital for further conquests was reflected in Russian music.[63] Even the finales of the Fourth and Fifth Symphonies could be argued to be in imperial vein.[64] Neither finale works satisfactorily as either a strictly formal or psychological apotheosis for their respective works. However, as patriotic and heroic appeals—the Fourth by repeating the opening motto at a climactic point and the Fifth with a version of the opening melody of the introduction transposed to a major key—both could be heard to serve just that purpose.[65]

Tchaikovsky made full use of the emotional and symbolic possibilities of the Russian anthem "God Save the Tsar" in several commemorative works, including two of his most popular compositions, the Marche Slave and the 1812 Overture. Tchaikovsky wrote Marche Slave in support of Pan-Slavism. This was one of the most cherished ideas of imperial Russia. When Serbia rebelled against Turkish rule in 1876, the atmosphere in Russia toward the Serbs became electric. Performances of the Marche Slave, with its Serbian folk melodies, inevitably elicited outbursts of patriotism. This was something the equally patriotic composer did not mind one bit. The 1812 Overture likewise glorified the greatest military and political victory of the Romanov dynasty, in the Patriotic War against Napoleon.

Aesthetics
Tchaikovsky differed aesthetically from his contemporaries, with his art as well as his artistic sensibilities leaning closer to Mozart and Mendelssohn than to the music of Russians such as Mussorgsky and the other members of The Five. In one sense this is not a surprise. Russia in Tchaikovsky's day was considered in some respects "the last eighteenth-century state." This placed him in circumstances Mozart or Beethoven might have found congenial. He enjoyed an extensive system of artistic patronage. Nadezhda von Meck was not his only sponsor, simply his most noted one. Others were more closely connected to the tsarist court. These included Ivan Vsevolozhsky, Director of the Imperial Theatres; Prince Meshchersky, a leading politician and counselor to Alexander III; and Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantonovich, a cousin of Alexander III.[66]

From 1885, Tchaikovsky also enjoyed the direct patronage of Alexander III. The tsar asked personally for a new production of Eugene Onegin to be staged in St. Petersburg. The opera had previously been seen only in Moscow, produced by a student ensemble from the conservatory. He had Onegin staged not at the Mariyinsky Theater but in the Bolshoi kamennïy theater. This act served notice that Tchaikovsky's music was replacing Italian opera as the official imperial art. Thanks to Vsevolozhsky, Tchaikovsky received a lifetime pension of 3000 rubles per year from the tsar. This essentially made him the premier court composer, at least in practice if not in actual title.[67]

Russia's society was paternalistic. Members of the higher classes patronized those of the lower. Tchaikovsky could therefore count on the support of the higher ranks of the aristocracy. An essential feature of this artistic patronage was that patron and artist were considered equals. While it is well-known that Tchaikovsky and von Meck discussed a variety of subjects as equals, he and Konstantin Konstantonovich enjoyed a similarly straightforward (though less intimate) relationship.[68] Dedications of works to patrons were not gestures of humble gratitude but expressions of artistic partnership. The dedication of the Fourth Symphony to von Meck is known to be a seal on their friendship. However, by dedicating the work to her, he was also affirming her as an equal partner in its creation.[69] His relationship with Konstantin Konstantinovich bore creative fruit in the Six Songs, Op. 63, for which the grand duke wrote the words.[69]

As his career advanced, Tchaikovsky increasingly became the embodiment of the artistic values cherished by the aristocracy.[68] For Tchaikovsky, there was no conflict between the artist and his public. Highly sensitive to external circumstances and expectations, he searched constantly for new ways of reaching the public. He saw no harm in playing on the tastes of particular audiences. The patriotic themes and stylization of 18th-century melodies in his works lined up with the values of the Russian aristocracy; and using the polonaise, the musical symbol of Russian patriotism, as a finale was one of Tchaikovsky's recepes for success.[70]

Tchaikovsky's idea of music was to a large extent based on its aesthetic impact. He felt the high demands of Wagner's music on its audiences conflicted with this criterion. His objections to Brahms were similar. He felt Brahms's music lacked what was most important—beauty. He sought tne expressive value in music that was immediately comprehensible and appreciable—in other words, what was apparent on the surface. He admired Bizet's Carmen for exactly this reason. "This music has no pretensions to profundity, but it is so charming in its simplicity, so vigorous, not contrived but instead sincere, that I learned all of it from beginning to end almost by heart." Mozart aroused tremendous fascination in Tchaikovsky. While he loved Mozart's music, it was also a mystery to him, especially in the way Mozart combined simplicity with profundity.[71]

While many may immediately think of self-expression when they hear the name "Tchaikovsky", it was not necessarily central to him.[72] In a letter to von Meck dated December 5, 1878, he explained there were two kinds of inspiration for a symphonic composer, a subjective and an objective one:


This meant program music such as Francesca da Rimini or the Manfred Symphony was as much a part of their composer's artistic credo as the expression of his "lyric ego."[73] While he could feel a great deal of sympathy for his subjects, sympathy does not necessarily mean identification. Labeling all his works based on literary subjects as confessional music would be unwarranted. The character of Hermann in Pique Dame has sometimes been mentioned as an expression of the composer's morbidity and suicidal tendencies. Tchaikovsky's letters and diary entries disprove this notion, showing that he did not identify with Hermann. His diary entry for March 2, 1890, when he had just completed the opera, shows a characteristic mixture of empathy and detachment. "Wept terribly when Hermann breathed his last. The result of exhaustion, or maybe it is truly good."[74]

There is also a group of compositions which fall outside the dichotomy of program music versus "lyrical ego," where he hearkens toward pre-Romantic aesthetics. Works in this group include the orchestral suites, Capriccio Italien and the Serenade for Strings.[75] He displays his clearest link to pre-Romantic sensitivities in retrospective works such as the Variations on a Rococo Theme and Mozartiana, a collection of orchestrations based on Mozart piano pieces and a Liszt transcription of a Mozart work. The Violin Concerto also looks back to pre-Romantic aesthetics. While Tchaikovsky does not follow classical practice, most notably in the lack of a double exposition in the first movement, he also does not follow the conventions of other 19th-century violin concertos. It is not written as a virtuosic work for virtuosity's sake, like Paganini's concertos, nor virtuosity used to express a symphonic concept, as in the Brahms Violin Concerto. The tone of the orchestral introduction could almost be considered classicist; the same is true for the transparent orchestration, with the orchestra itself relegated for the most part to background for the soloist.[76]

Few compositions are as far removed from the idea of Tchaikovsky as musical confessor as the orchestral suites, yet they are entirely true to his pre-Romantic ideal. They were an outgrowth of a trend beginning in Germany following the rediscovering of Bach's orchestral suites, and he valued the genre for formal freedom as well as its unrestricted musical fantasy.[77] Capriccio italien, an urban tableau evoking Italian urban folklore, was the continuation of a tradition begun with Haydn and Mozart.[76] The Serenade for Strings was intended as a tribute to Mozart. While not copying any style, Tchaikovsky attempts to convert the spirit of the Classicl approach into his own compositional idiom. The Serenade's unique tone comes from a subtle balance between Tchaikovsky's lyrical sentimentality and his attention to classical measure and clarity.[78]

Tchaikovsky may have best summed his perception of music himself to von Meck: "It alone clarifies, reconciles, and consoles. But it is not a straw just barely clutched at. It is a faithful friend, protector, and comforter, and for its sake alone, life in this world is worth living."[74]

1 Note: His names are also transliterated Piotr, Petr, or Peter; Ilitsch, Ilich, Il'ich or Illyich; and Tschaikowski, Tschaikowsky, Chajkovskij and Chaikovsky (and other versions; Russian transliteration can vary between languages) 2 Schonberg, Harold C., Lives of the Great Composers (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 3rd ed 1997), 366. 3 Maes, Francis, tr. Arnold J. Pomerans and Erica Pomerans, A History of Russian Music: From Kamarinskaya to Babi Yar (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 2002), 73. 4 Maes, 73, 76. 5 Wiley, Tchaikovsky's Ballets, 191-192. 6 Holden, Anthony, Tchaikovsky: A Biography (New York: Random House, 1995), 6. 7 Poznansky, 5. 8 Holden, 7. 9 Holden, 7. 10 Holden, 6, 13. 11 Brown, Tchaikovsky: The Early Years, 1840-1874 (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1978, 47; Tchaikovsky: The Man and His Music (New York: Pegasus Books, 2007), 12. 12 Holden, 23. 13 Tchaikovsky, P., Polnoye sobraniye sochinery: literaturnïye proizvedeniya i perepiska [Complete edition: literary works and correspondence] In progress (Moscow, 1953-present), 5:56-57. 14 Warrack, 29. 15 Holden, 22, 26. 16 Poznansky, 32-37. 17 Warrack, 30 18 To be fair, most graduates of the School of Jurisprudence, as in their British counterparts, grew up as orthodox heterosexuals, however damaged their attitudes toward women may have become. A number of other factors in Tchaikovsky's case may have been the loss of his mother and a "reverse reaction" against his father's reputation as a ladies' man. His father's own gentle nature, much as Pyotr's would become, may have merely added another dimension of femininity to the overall mix. 19 Maes, 39. 20 Holden, 52. 21 Brown, Tchaikovsky: Man and Music, 49. 22 Maes, 44. 23 Maes, 49. 24 Holden, 64. 25 Maes, 48. 26 Rimsky-Korsakov, 308. 27 Some historians still consider this evidence scant or non-existent. Dr. Petr Beckmann claims Tchaikovsky's homosexuality has been asserted "not without bias ... too often ... done by tone setters who had a stake in the outcome." (Petr Beckmann, Musical Musings, Golem Press, August 1989.) Beckmann cites musicologist E. Yoffe's assurance that "there is nothing in Tchaikovsky's voluminous correspondence (5,000 letters) or in his eleven diaries (1873, 1884, 1886-1891) that refers directly to his alleged homosexuality." However, Modest clearly states in his unpublished autobiography that both he and his brother Pyotr were gay. Tchaikovsky biographer André Lischké saw this autobiography, writing that most papers dealing with the composer's homosexuality were censured in official publications. 28 Most biographers, including Rictor Norton and Alexander Poznansky, conclude not ony that Tchaikovsky was gay but that some of the composer's closest relationships were of the same sex. They cite his servant Aleksei Sofronov and nephew, Vladimir "Bob" Davydov, as romantic interests. E.M. Forster, in fact, mentions Tchaikovsky and Davydov in his homosexual love story Maurice, written in 1913-14 but not published until 1971. Forster writes in Chapter 32 that "...Tchaikovsky had fallen in love with his own nephew, and dedicated his masterpiece [Symphonie pathétique] to him." 29 Poznansky surmises that the composer "eventually came to see his sexual peculiarities as an insurmountable and even natural part of his personality ... without experiencing any serious psychological damage." British musicologist and scholar Henry Zajaczkowski is not convinced. He claims his research "along psychoanalytical lines" points instead to "a severe unconscious inhibition by the composer of his sexual feelings", adding, "If the composer's response to possible sexual objects was either to use and discard them or to idolize them, it shows that he was unable to form an integrated, secure relationship with another man. That, surely, was [Tchaikovsky's] tragedy. (Zajaczkowski, Henry, The Musical Times, cxxxiii, no. 1797, November 1992, 574. As quoted in Holden, 394.)

30 Poznansky, 204. 31 Poznansky, 126. 32 Poznansky, 95. 33 Tchaikovsky, M.I., Zhizn' Petra Il'icha Chaikovskoyo [Life of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky], 3 vols. (Moscow and Leipzig, 1900-1902), 1:258-259. 34 Poznansky, 204. 35 Holden, 126. 36 Holden, 145, 148, 150. 37 Poznansky, page cit. needed. 38 Brown, Tchaikovsky: The Man and His Music, 143. 39 a b c Volkov, 115. 40 Osoovskii, A.V., Muzykal'no-kritcvheskie stat'i, 1894-1912 (Musical Criticism articles, 189401912) (Lenningrad, 1971), 171. As quoted in Volkov, 116. 41 Compared to average wages of the time, 6,000 rubles a year was a small fortune. A minor government official had to support his family on 300-400 rubles a year. 42 a b Poznansky, 200. 43 Letter to von Meck, January 21, 1878. As quoted in Holden, 159. 44 Brown, Tchaikovsky: The Final Years, 1885-1893 (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1991), 287-289; Tchaikovsky: The Man and His Music, 385-386. 45 Chaikovskii, P.I., Perepiska s N.F. fon Meck (1876-1890) [Correspondence with N.F. von Meck], ed. Zhdanov, Vladimir and Zhegin, Nikolai, 3 vols. (Moscow and Lenningrad, 1980), 3:611. 46 Holden, 289. 47 Poznansky, 521, 526. 48 a b Brown, New Grove, 18:619. 49 He listed Antonina's accusations to him in detail to Modest: "I am a deceiver who married her in order to hide my true nature ... I insulted her every day, her sufferings at my hands were great ... she is appalled by my shameful vice, etc., etc." He may have lived the rest of his life in dread of Antonina's power to expose publically his sexual leanings (Holden, 155). 50 a b c d Volkov, 126. 51 a b Brown, New Grove, 18:621. 52 As quoted in Brown, Tchaikovsky: The Man and His Music, 329. 53 So identified by the New York press. According to Carnegie Hall archivist Gino Francesconi, Tchaikovsky may have actually conducted his Festival Coronation March. 54 Brown, Tchaikovsky: The Final Years, 1885-1893, 482-484 + ft. 38-39; Tchaikovsky: The Man and His Music, 433-435. 55 Holden, 379-383. 56 Orlova, Alexandra, "Tchaikovsky: The Last Chapter" in Music & Letters, Vol. 62 (1981), 133-134. 57 Since what we now consider the Fourth Orchestral Suite consisted of arrangements of other composers' music, primarily Mozart's, Tchaikovsky did not number it with the three orchestral suites of his own material. Instead, he called it a separate work under the title Mozartiana. 58 Volkov, 96. 59 Maes, 78. 60 Figis, Orlando, Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2002), 274. 61 Maes, 137. 62 Maes, 78-79. 63 a b Volkov, 113. 64 Maes, 164. 65 Maes, 163-164. 66 Maes, 139-140. 67 Maes, 140. 68 a b Maes, 141. 69 a b Maes, 140-141. 70 Maes, 137. 71 Maes, 138. 72 Maes, 154. 73 Maes, 154. 74 a b Maes, 139. 75 Maes, 154-155. 76 a b Maes, 156. 77 Maes, 155. 78 Maes, 157.

• Brown, David, ed. Stanley Sadie, The New Grove Encyclopedia of Music and Musicians (London: MacMillian, 1980), 20 vols. ISBN 0-333-23111-2.
• Brown, David, Tchaikovsky: The Early Years, 1840-1874 (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1978). ISBN 0-393-07535-2.
• Brown, David, Tchaikovsky: The Crisis Years, 1874-1878, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1983). ISBN 0-393-01707-9.
• Brown, David, Tchaikovsky: The Years of Wandering, 1878-1885, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1986). ISBN 0-393-02311-7.
• Brown, David, Tchaikovsky: The Final Years, 1885-1893, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1991). ISBN 0-393-03099-7.
• Brown, David, Tchaikovsky: The Man and His Music (New York: Pegasus Books, 2007). ISBN 0-571-23194-2.
• Cooper, Martin, ed Abraham, Gerald, Music of Tchaikovsky (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1946). ISBN n/a.
• Figes, Orlando, Natasha's Dance: A Cultural History of Russia (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2002). ISBN 0-8050-5783-8 (hc.).
• Hanson, Lawrence and Hanson, Elisabeth, Tchaikovsky: The Man Behind the Music (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company). Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 66-13606.
• Holden, Anthony, Tchaikovsky: A Biography (New York: Random House, 1995). ISBN 0-679-42006-1.
• Maes, Francis, tr. Arnold J. Pomerans and Erica Pomerans, A History of Russian Music: From Kamarinskaya to Babi Yar (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 2002). ISBN 0-520-21815-9.
• Mochulsky, Konstantin, tr. Minihan, Michael A., Dostoyevsky: His Life and Work (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1967). Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 65-10833.
• Poznansky, Alexander Tchaikovsky: The Quest for the Inner Man (New York: Schirmer Books, 1991). ISBN 0-02-871885-2.
• Rimsky-Korsakov, Nikolai, Letoppis Moyey Muzykalnoy Zhizni (St. Petersburg, 1909), published in English as My Musical Life (New York: Knopf, 1925, 3rd ed. 1942). ISBN n/a.
• Schonberg, Harold C. Lives of the Great Composers (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 3rd ed. 1997).
• Steinberg, Michael, The Symphony (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).
• Tchaikovsky, Modest, Zhizn P.I. Chaykovskovo [Tchaikovsky's life], 3 vols. (Moscow, 1900-1902).
• Tchaikovsky, Pyotr, Perepiska s N.F. von Meck [Correspondence with Nadzehda von Meck], 3 vols. (Moscow and Lenningrad, 1934-1936).
• Tchaikovsky, Pyotr, Polnoye sobraniye sochinery: literaturnïye proizvedeniya i perepiska [Complete Edition: literary works and correspondence], 17 vols. (Moscow, 1953-1981).
• Volkov, Solomon, tr. Bouis, Antonina W., St. Petersburg: A Cultural History (New York: The Free Press, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1995). ISBN 0-02-874052-1.
• Warrack, John, Tchaikovsky Symphonies and Concertos (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1969). Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 78-105437.
• Warrack, John, Tchaikovsky (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973). SBN 684-13558-2.
• Wiley, Roland John, Tchaikovsky's Ballets (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1985). ISBN 0-198-16249-9.

• Greenberg, Robert "Great Masters: Tchaikovsky – His Life and Music"
• Kamien, Roger. Music : An Appreciation. Mcgraw-Hill College; 3rd edition (August 1, 1997). ISBN 0-07-036521-0.
• ed. John Knowles Paine, Theodore Thomas, and Karl Klauser (1891). Famous Composers and Their Works, J.B. Millet Company.
• Meck Galina Von, Tchaikovsky Ilyich Piotr, Young Percy M. Tchaikovsky Cooper Square Publishers; 1st Cooper Square Press ed edition (October, 2000) ISBN 0-8154-1087-5.
• Meck, Nadezhda Von Tchaikovsky Peter Ilyich, To My Best Friend: Correspondence Between Tchaikovsky and Nadezhda Von Meck 1876-1878 (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993) ISBN 0-19-816158-1.
• Poznansky, Alexander & Langston, Brett The Tchaikovsky Handbook: A guide to the man and his music. (Indiana University Press, 2002).
  
  - Vol. 1. Thematic Catalogue of Works, Catalogue of Photographs, Autobiography. ISBN 0-253-33921-9. - Vol. 2. Catalogue of Letters, Genealogy, Bibliography. ISBN 0-253-33947-2.
• Poznansky, Alexander, Tchaikovsky's Last Days, (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), ISBN 0-19-816596-X.
• Poznansky, Alexander. Tchaikovsky through others' eyes. (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1999). ISBN 0-253-33545-0.

• 1.) Poznansky, Alexander, Tchaikovsky: The Quest for the Inner Man, page cit. needed.
• 2.) Poznansky, Tchaikovsky: The Quest for the Inner Man, page cit. needed.
• 3.) Poznansky, Tchaikovsky: The Quest for the Innner Man, page cit. needed.
• 4.) Poznansky, Tchaikovsky: The Quest for the Inner Man, page cit. needed.
• 5.) Poznansky, Tchaikovsky: The Quest for the Inner Man, page cit. needed.
• 6.) Brown, David, Tchaikovsky: The Final Years, 1885-1893 (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1991), 481.
• 7.) Brown, Tchaikovsky: The Final Years, 481.
• 8.) Rimsky-Korsakov, My Musical Life, 340.
• 9.) Diaghilev, Sergei, Memoirs (unpublished). As quoted in Buckle, Richard, Diaghilev (New York: Athenum, 1979), 17-18.
• 10.) As quoted in Buckle, 23.
• 11.) Poznansky, Alexander, Tchaikovsky: The Search for the Inner Man (New York: Schirmer Books, 1991), 591.
• 12.) Poznansky, 591,
• 13.) Petersburgaia gazeta, October 26 [November 6], 1893. As quoted in Poznansky, 591.
• 14.) As quoted in Buckle, 23.
• 15.) Poznansky, 592.
• 16.) Petersburgaia gazeta, October 26 [November 6], 1893. As quoted in Poznansky, 592.
• 17.) Poznansky, 592.
• 18.) Poznansky, 592-593.
• 19.) Poznansky, 594
• 20.) Volkov, Solomon, St. Petersburg: A Cultural History (New York: The Free Press, 1995), 128.
• 21.) Brown, Tchaikovsky: The Final Years, 486.
• 22.) Poznansky, 594
• 23.) Volkov, 128.
• 24.) Poznansky, 595
• 25.) As quoted in Buckler, 23-24.
• 26.) Poznansky, 594-595
• 27.) Volkov, 128
• 28.) Poznansky, 611
• 29.) Brown, Tchaikovsky: The Final Years, 487.
• 30.) See cholera: History: Origin and spread.
• 31.) >"Asiatic Cholera," Encyclopedia of Brogkauz & Efron (St. Petersburg, 1903), vol. 37a, 507-151. As quoted in Holden, 359.
• 32.) >"Asiatic Cholera," Encyclopedia of Brogkauz & Efron (St. Petersburg, 1903), vol. 37a, 507-151. As quoted in Holden, 359
• 33.) "Asiatic Cholera," Encyclopedia of Brogkauz & Efron (St. Petersburg, 1903), vol. 37a, 507-151. As quoted in Holden, 359.
• 34.) Poznansky, Tchaikvovsky: The Quest for the Inner Man, 596-597.
• 35.) Orlova, Alexandra, "Tchaikovsky: The Last Chapter," 128. As quoted in Holden, Anthony, Tchaikovsky: A Biography (New York: Random House, 1995), 387.
• 36.) Holden, 360.
• 37.) As quoted in Holden, 360.
• 38.) .Peterburgskaia gazets, November 7, 1893 As quoted in Poznansky, Tchaikovsky: The Quest for the Inner Man, 597.
• 39.) 'Russkaia zhizn, November 9, 1893. As quoted in Poznansky, Tchaikovsky: The Quest for the Inner Man, 597.
• 40.) Orlova, 128, footnote 12. As quoted in Holden, 387.
• 41.) Poznansky, "Tchaikovsky's Suicide: Myth and Reality, 217, note 81. As quoted in Holden, 474, footnote 36.
• 42.) Holden, 360.
• 43.) Orlava, Alexandra, Tchaikovsky: A Self-Portrait (1990), 408. As quoted by Holden, 360.
• 44.) Holden, 360.
• 45.) Poznansky, Tchaikovsky: The Quest for the Inner Man, 582.
• 46.) Poznansky, Tchaikovsky: The Quest for the Inner Man, 582.
• 47.) As quoted in Poznansky, Tchaikovsky: The Quest for the Inner Man, 582.
• 48.) ed. Berkow, Robert, The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy, 15th ed. (New York, 1987); Entsiklopedicheskii slovar, s.v. "kholera." As quoted in Poznansky, 582.
• 49.) Poznansky, The Quest for the Inner man, 582.
• 50.) . Syn otechestva, November 9, 1893. As quoted in Poznansky, Tchaikovsky: The Quest for the Inner Man, 597.
• 51.) As quoted in Buckle, Richard, Diaghilev (New York: Athenum, 1979), 24.
• 52.) Poznansky, Tchaikovsky: The Quest for the Inner Man, 358.
• 53.) Poznansky, Tchaikovsky: The Quest for the Inner Man, 583.
• 54.) Holden, 391.
• 55.) Poznansky, Tchaikovsky: The Quest for the Inner Man, 583.
• 56.) Vospominaniia o P.I. Chaikovskom [Reminiscences of Tchaikovsky], 4th ed. (Moscow-Lenningrad, 1980, 1962), 345. As quoted in Poznansky, Tchaikovsky: The Quest for the Inner Man, 583.
• 57.) Tolstoi, L., Polnoe sobranie sochinenli, 84:200-1. As quoted in Poznansky, Tchaikovsky: The Quest for the Inner Man, 583.
• 58.) Poznansky, Tchaikovsky: The Quest for the Inner Man, 583.
• 59.) Holden, 390
• 60.) Holden, 391
• 61.) As quoted in Brown, Tchaikovsky: The Final Years, 483-484; Brown, David, Tchaikovsky: The Man and His Music (New York: Pegasus Books, 2007), 434-435.
• 62.) Brown, Tchaikovsky: The Final Years, 484.
• 63.) Brown, Tchaikovsky: The Final Years, 484.
• 64.) See Holden, 375-386
• 65.) As cited in Norton, Rictor, "Gay Love-Letters from Tchaikovsky to his Nephew Bob Davidof", The Great Queens of History, 19 October 2002, updated 5 November 2005 . Retrieved July 11, 2007.
• 66.) As cited in Norton.
• 67.) See, e.g., Tchaikovsky's Last Days by Alexander Poznansky.
• 68.) The Daily Telegraph: "http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml;jsessionid=AAHCFNMHZ13QZQFIQMGSFFWAVCBQWIV0?xml=/arts/2007/01/15/bmbbc15.xml&page=2 "How did Tchaikovsky die?" Retrieved March 25, 2007.
• 69.) Holden, 374.
• 70.) Holden, 373.
• 71.) Holden, 374.
• 72.) Holden, 374.
• 73.) Poznansky, Tchaikovsky: The Story of the Inner Man, 606.
• 74.) Holden, 399.
• 75.) Holden, 399
• 76.) Holden, 374.
• 77.) Holden, 374-375.
• 78.) Brown, Tchaikovsky: The Man and His Music, 432.
• 79.) As quoted in Buckle, 24
• 80.) As quoted in Buckle, 24.
• 81.) The Daily Telegraph: "http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml;jsessionid=AAHCFNMHZ13QZQFIQMGSFFWAVCBQWIV0?xml=/arts/2007/01/15/bmbbc15.xml&page=2 "How did Tchaikovsky die?" Retrieved March 25, 2007.
• 82.) Henry, Dr. John, "Pride or Prejudice?" BBC Radio 3, November 5, 1993. As quoted in Holden, 399.
• 83.) Holden, page cit. needed.
• 84.) Volkov, 115.
• 85.) Volkov, Solomon, St. Petersburg: A Cultural History (New York: The Free Press, 1995), 115.
• 86.) Holden, 371
• 87.) As quoted in Buckle, 23.
• 88.) As quoted in Buckle, 23.
• 89.) As quoted in Holden, 371
• 90.) Brown, David, Tchaikovsky Remembered (London: Faber & Faber, 1993) xv
• 91.) As quoted in Buckle, 23.

• Brown, David, Tchaikovsky: The Final Years, 1885-1893 (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1991).
• Brown, David, The Man and His Music (New York: Pegasus Books, 2007).
• Buckle, Richard, Diaghilev (New York: Athenum, 1979).
• Holden, Anthony, Tchaikovsky: A Biography (New York: Random House, 1995).
• Norton, Rictor, "Gay Love-Letters from Tchaikovsky to his Nephew Bob Davidof", The Great Queens of History, 19 October 2002, updated 5 November 2005 .
• Poznansky, Alexander Tchaikovsky: The Quest for the Inner Man (New York: Schirmer Books, 1991)
• Poznansky, Alexander, Tchaikovsky's Last Days.
• Rimsky-Korsakov, Nikolai, Letoppis Moyey Muzykalnoy Zhizni (St. Petersburg, 1909), published in English as My Musical Life (New York: Knopf, 1925, 3rd ed. 1942).
• Volkov, Solomon, St. Petersburg: A Cultural History (New York: The Free Press, 1995).

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky wrote several works well known among the general classical public—Romeo and Juliet, the 1812 Overture, his Nutcracker, Swan Lake, and Sleeping Beauty ballets, and Marche Slave. These, along with two of his concertos and three of his latter symphonies, are probably his most familiar works—brimming with melody, color and passion, they are what most people think of when they hear the name "Tchaikovsky." However, there is much more to Tchaikovsky's output than that.

Works with opus numbers are listed in this section, together with their dates of composition. For a complete list of Tchaikovsky's works, including those without opus numbers, see [1]. For more detail on dates of composition, see [2].

• Op. 1 2 Pieces, for piano (1867)
• Op. 2 Souvenir de Hapsal, 3 pieces for piano (1867)
• Op. 3 Voyevoda, opera (1868)
• Op. 4 Valse-caprice in D Major, for piano (1868)
• Op. 5 Romance in F minor, for piano (1868)
• Op. 6 6 Romances (1869), including "None but the lonely heart"
• Op. 7 Valse-scherzo in A, for piano (1870)
• Op. 8 Capriccio in G-flat, for piano (1870)
• Op. 9 3 Morceaux, for piano (1870)
• Op. 10 2 Morceaux, for piano (1871)
• Op. 11 String Quartet No. 1 in D (1871)
• Op. 12 Snegurochka, incidental music (1873)
• Op. 13 Symphony No. 1 in G minor Winter Daydreams (1866)
• Op. 14 Vakula the Smith, (revised as Cherevichki), opera (1874)
• Op. 15 Festival Overture in D on the Danish National Anthem, for orchestra (1866)
• Op. 16 6 Songs (1872)
  
  o No. 1 Lullaby (Cradle Song)
  o No. 2 Wait!
  
  
• Op. 17 Symphony No. 2 in C minor Little Russian (1872)
• Op. 18 The Tempest, symphonic fantasia in F minor, after Shakespeare (1873)
• Op. 19 6 Pieces, for piano (1873)
• Op. 20 Swan Lake, ballet (1876)
• Op. 21 6 Morceaux, for piano (1873)
• Op. 22 String Quartet No. 2 in F (1874)
• Op. 23 Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor (1875)
• Op. 24 Eugene Onegin, opera (1878)
• Op. 25 6 Songs (1874)
  
  o No. 2 As When Upon Hot Ashes (Over Burning Ashes)
  
  
• Op. 26 Sérénade mélancolique in B minor, for violin and orchestra (1875)
• Op. 27 6 Songs (1875)
• Op. 28 6 Songs (1875)
• Op. 29 Symphony No. 3 in D Polish (1875)
• Op. 30 String Quartet No. 3 in E-flat minor (1876)
• Op. 31 Marche slave in B-flat minor, for orchestra (1876)
• Op. 32 Francesca da Rimini, symphonic fantasia in E minor, after Dante Alighieri (1876)
• Op. 33 Variations on a Rococo Theme in A, for cello and orchestra (1876)
• Op. 34 Valse-scherzo in C, for violin and orchestra (1877)
• Op. 35 Violin Concerto in D (1878)
• Op. 36 Symphony No. 4 in F minor (1877)
• Op. 37a Piano Sonata No. 1 in G (1878)
• Op. 37b The Seasons, 12 pieces for piano (1876)
• Op. 38 6 Songs (1878)
• Op. 39 Album pour enfants, 24 pieces for piano (1878)
• Op. 40 12 Morceaux de difficulté moyenne, for piano (1878)
• Op. 41 Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, for unaccompanied chorus (1878)
• Op. 42 Souvenir d'un lieu cher, 3 pieces for violin and piano (1878)
• Op. 43 Orchestral Suite No. 1 in D (1879)
• Op. 44 Piano Concerto No. 2 in G (1880)
• Op. 45 Capriccio italien in A, for orchestra (1880)
• Op. 46 6 Vocal duets, with piano (1880)
• Op. 47 7 Songs (1880)
• Op. 48 Serenade in C for Strings (1880)
• Op. 49 Festival Overture in E-flat The Year 1812 (1880)
• Op. 50 Piano Trio in A minor (1882)
• Op. 51 6 Pieces, for piano (1882)
• Op. 52 Vespers, for unaccompanied chorus (1882)
• Op. 53 Orchestral Suite No. 2 in C (1883)
• Op. 54 16 Children's songs (1883)
• Op. 55 Orchestral Suite No. 3 in G (1884)
• Op. 56 Concert Fantasy in G, for piano and orchestra (1884)
• Op. 57 6 Songs (1884)
• Op. 58 Manfred Symphony in B minor (1885)
• Op. 59 Dumka in C minor, for piano (1886)
• Op. 60 12 Songs (1886)
  
  o No. 6 Wild Nights (Frenzied Nights)
  o No. 7 Gypsy's Song
  o No. 12 Gentle Stars Shone For Us (The Mild Stars Shone For Us)
  
  
• Op. 61 Orchestral Suite No. 4 "Mozartiana" (1887)
• Op. 62 Pezzo capriccioso in B minor, for cello and orchesta (or piano) (1887)
• Op. 63 6 Songs (1887)
• Op. 64 Symphony No. 5 in E minor (1888)
• Op. 65 6 Songs on French texts (1888)
• Op. 66 The Sleeping Beauty, ballet (1889)
• Op. 67 Hamlet, fantasy overture in F minor (1889)
• Op. 67a Hamlet, incidental music
• Op. 68 The Queen of Spades, opera (1890)
• Op. 69 Iolanta, opera (1891)
• Op. 70 String Sextet in D minor Souvenir de Florence (1890)
• Op. 71 The Nutcracker, ballet (1892)
• Op. 71a The Nutcracker, suite from the ballet (1892)
• Op. 72 18 Pieces, for piano (1893)
• Op. 73 6 Songs (1893)
• Op. 74 Symphony No. 6 in B minor Pathétique (1893)

Opp. 75–80 were published posthumously.

• Op. 75 Piano Concerto No. 3 in E-flat (1893)
• Op. 76 The Storm, overture in E (1864)
• Op. 77 Fate, symphonic poem in C minor (1868)
• Op. 78 The Voyevoda, symphonic ballad in A minor (1893; unrelated to the earlier opera of the same name, Op. 3)
• Op. 79 Andante in B-flat and Finale in E-flat, for piano and orchestra (1893)
• Op. 80 Piano Sonata No. 2 in C-sharp minor (1865)

Ballets
Tchaikovsky is well known for his ballets, although it was only in his last years, with his last two ballets, that his contemporaries came to really appreciate his finer qualities as ballet music composer.

• Swan Lake, Op. 20, (1875–1876): Tchaikovsky's first ballet, it was first performed (with some omissions) at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow in 1877.
• The Sleeping Beauty, Op. 66, (1888–1889): This work Tchaikovsky considered to be one of his best. Commissioned by the director of the Imperial Theatres, Ivan Vsevolozhsky, its first performance was in January, 1890 at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg.
• The Nutcracker, Op. 71, (1891–1892): In Western countries, this ballet has become among the most popular ballets performed, primarily around Christmas time. In addition, George Balanchine choreographed some of Tchaikovsky's orchestral works:
• Mozartiana (1934). Music from the Orchestral Suite No. 4, Mozartiana.
• Ballet Imperial (later referred to as the Tschaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 2) (1941). Music from the Piano Concerto No. 2.
• Theme and Variations (1947). Music from the final movement of Orchestral Suite No. 3.
• Allegro Brillante (1956). Music from Piano Concerto No. 3.
• Tschaikovsky Pas de Deux (1960). Music excerpted from Act III of Swan Lake.
• Tschaikovsky Suite No. 3 (1970)
  
  o Tschaikovsky Festival (1981)
    + Garland Dance
    + Mozartiana
  
  
• Diamonds last 4 movements of Symphony No.3

Tchaikovsky completed ten operas, although one of these is mostly lost and another exists in two significantly different versions. In the West his most famous operas are Eugene Onegin and The Queen of Spades.

• Voyevoda (The Voivode, Op. 3, 1867—1868)
  
  - Full score destroyed by composer, but posthumously reconstructed from sketches and orchestral parts. Not related to the much later symphonic ballad The Voyevoda, Op. 78.
  
  
• Undina
  
  - Not completed. Only a march sequence from this opera saw the light of day, as the second movement of his Symphony No.2 in C Minor and a few other segments are occasionally heard as concert pieces. Interestingly, while Tchaikovsky revised the Second symphony twice in his lifetime, he did not alter the second movement (taken from the Undina material) during either revision. The rest of the score of Undina was destroyed by the composer.
• The Oprichnik, 1870–1872
  
  - Premiere April 24 [OS April 12], 1874, Saint Petersburg
  
  
• Vakula the Smith, Op. 14, 1874;
  
  - Revised later as Cherevichki, premiere December 6 [OS November 24], 1876, Saint Petersburg
  
  
• Eugene Onegin, Op. 24, 1877–1878
  
  - Premiere March 29 [OS March 17] 1879 at the Moscow Conservatory
  
  
• The Maid of Orleans, 1878–1879
  
  - Premiere February 25 [OS February 13], 1881, Saint Petersburg
  
  
• Mazepa (Mazeppa, Masena) 1881–1883
  
  - Premiere February 15 [OS February 3] 1884, Moscow
  
  
• Cherevichki 1885
  
  - Premiere January 31 [OS January 19], 1887, Moscow)
  
  
• The Enchantress (or The Sorceress, or Charodeyka), 1885–1887
  
  - Premiere November 1 [OS October 20] 1887, Saint Petersburg
  
  
• The Queen of Spades (Pikovaya dama), Op. 68, 1890
  
  - Premiere December 19 [OS December 7] 1890, Saint Petersburg
  
  
• Iolanta (Iolanthe), Op. 69, 1891
  
  - First performance: Maryinsky Theatre, Saint Petersburg, 1892. Originally performed on a double-bill with The Nutcracker
  
  

(Note: A "Chorus of Insects" was composed for the projected opera Mandragora of 1870).

Tchaikovsky's earlier symphonies are generally optimistic works of nationalistic character, while the later symphonies are more intensely dramatic, particularly the Sixth, generally interpreted as a declaration of despair. The last three of his numbered symphonies (the fourth, fifth and sixth) are recognized as highly original examples of symphonic form and are frequently performed.

• No. 1 in G minor, Op. 13, Winter Daydreams (1866)
• No. 2 in C minor, Op. 17, Little Russian (1872)
• No. 3 in D major, Op. 29, Polish (1875)
• No. 4 in F minor, Op. 36 (1877–1878)
• Manfred Symphony, B minor, Op. 58; inspired by Byron's poem Manfred; Tchaikovsky labelled this work "a symphonic poem in four movements" (1885)
• No. 5 in E minor, Op. 64 (1888)
• No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74, Pathétique (1893)
• Symphony in E flat (sketched 1892 but not finished; reconstructed during the 1950s and subsequently published as Symphony No. 7)

In the ten years between the Fourth and Fifth Symphonies, Tchaikovsky also wrote four orchestral suites. He originally intended to designate one of these a symphony—the Third, he told Taneyev, "but the title is of no importance[1]." The four suites contain a great deal of attractive music, giving the composer full rein to his prowess in writing short genre pieces and orchestration without the constraints of symphonic form. More importantly, Tchaikovsky used the suites to research new instrummental combinations, reassessing radically how he orchestrated his music and refined his orchestral technique to a great degree of sophisication.

• Orchestral Suite No. 1 in D minor, Op. 43 (1878-1879)
• Orchestral Suite No. 2 in C major, Op. 53 (1883)
• Orchestral Suite No. 3 in G major, Op. 55 (1884)
• Orchestral Suite No. 4 in G major, "Mozartiana", Op. 61 (1887)

In addition to the above suites, Tchaikovsky made a short sketch for a Suite in 1889 or 1890, which was not subsequently developed.

Tchaikovsky himself arranged the suite from the ballet The Nutcracker. He also considered making suites from his two other ballets, Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty. He ended up not doing so, but after his death, others compiled and published suites from these ballets.

• Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23 (1874–1875): Initially rejected by its dedicaté, pianist Nikolai Rubinstein, as poorly composed and unplayable, this work is now the best known and most highly regarded of Tchaikovsky's three piano concerti, and one of the most popular piano concertos ever written.
• Serenade Melancolique, Op.26, for Violin and Orchestra
• Variations on a Rococo theme Op.33 for violoncello and orchestra, (1876), The piece was written between December 1876 and March 1877, for and with the help of the German cellist Wilhelm Fitzenhagen. Though not really a concerto, it was the closest Tchaikovsky ever came to writing a full concerto for cello.
• Valse-Scherzo, Op.34, for Violin and Orchestra
• Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35, (1878). This violin concerto—like the First Piano Concerto called unplayable by its initial dedicaté, Leopold Auer—is today one of the most popular and frequently performed concertos for the instrument.
• Piano Concerto No. 2, Op. 44, (1879), is an eloquent, less extroverted piece with a violin and cello added as soloists in the second movement.
• Concert Fantasia in G, Op.56, for piano and orchestra
• Pezzo capriccioso, Op.62, (1888), for Cello and Orchestra
• Piano Concerto No. 3, Op. 75 posth. (1892): Commenced after the Symphony No. 5, what became the Third Piano Concerto and Andante and Finale for piano and orchestra was intended initially to be the composer's next (i.e., sixth) symphony.
• Andante and Finale, Op. 79 posth. (1895): After Tchaikovsky's death, the composer Sergei Taneyev completed and orchestrated the Andante and Finale from Tchaikovsky's piano arrangement of these two movements, publishing them as Op. 79.
• Concertstück for Flute and Strings, TH 247 op. posth. (1893): the piece, after having been lost for 106 years, was found and reconstructed by James Strauss in 1999 in Saint Petersburg.
• Cello Concerto (1893): Completed by Yuriy Leonovich and Brett Langston in 2006.

For orchestra

• Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture, (1869 revised 1870, 1880). This piece contains one of the world's most famous melodies. The "love theme" has been used countless times in commercials and movies, frequently as a spoof to traditional love scenes.
• Festival Overture on the Danish national anthem, Op. 15, (1866).
• The Tempest, Symphonic Fantasia after Shakespeare, Op. 18, (1873)
• Slavonic March/Marche Slave, Op. 31, (1876). This piece is another well-known Tchaikovsky piece and is often played in conjunction with the 1812 Overture.
• Francesca da Rimini, Op. 32, (1876). This piece has been described as "pure melodrama" similar to stretches of Verdi operas; [3] some passages are similar to sword-fight clashes in Romeo and Juliet.
• Capriccio Italien, Op. 45, (1880). Tchaikovsky stayed in Italy in the late 1870s to early 1880s and throughout the various festivals he heard many themes, some of which were played by trumpets, samples of which can be heard in this capriccio.
• Serenade in C for String Orchestra, Op. 48, (1880). The first movement, In the form of a sonatina, was an homage to Mozart. The second movement is a Waltz, followed by an Elegy and a spirited Russian finale, Tema Russo. In his score, Tchaikovsky supposedly wrote, "The larger the string orchestra, the better will the composer's desires be fulfilled."
• 1812 Overture, Op. 49, (1880). Written by Tchaikovsky to commemorate the Russian victory over Napoleon in the Napoleonic Wars, it is known for its traditional Russian themes (such as the old Tsarist National Anthem) as well as its 16 cannon shots and chorus of church bells in the coda.
• Festival Coronation March, Op. 50, (1883). The mayor of Moscow commissioned this piece for performance in May 1883 at the coronation of Tsar Alexander III. Tchaikovsky's arrangement for solo piano and E. L. Langer's arrangement for piano duet were published in the same year.
• Concert Overture The Storm, Op. 76, (1860).
• Fatum, Op. 77, (1868).
• The Voyevoda, symphonic ballad, Op. 78, (1891).

For voices and orchestra

• Snegurochka (The Snow Maiden) (1873), incidental music for Alexander Ostrovsky's play of the same name. Ostrovsky adapted and dramatized a popular Russian fairy tale,[2] and the score that Tchaikovsky wrote for it was always one of his own favorite works. It contains much vocal music, but it is not a cantata, nor an opera.
• Hamlet (1891), incidental music for Shakespeare's play. The score uses music borrowed from Tchaikovsky's overture of the same name, as well as from his Symphony No. 3, and from The Snow Maiden, in addition to original music that he wrote specifically for a stage production of Hamlet. The two vocal selections are a song that Ophelia sings in the throes of her madness, and a song for the First Gravedigger to sing as he goes about his work.

Solo and chamber music

• String Quartet in B-Flat Major, Op.Posth. (1865)
• String Quartet No. 1 in D major, Op. 11 (1871)
• String Quartet No. 2 in F major, Op. 22 (1874)
• String Quartet No. 3 in E-Flat minor, Op. 30 (1875)
• The Seasons (Les saisons), Op. 37b (1876), a set of 12 short pieces for piano
• Piano Sonata in G major, Op.37 (1878)
• Souvenir d'un lieu cher (Memory of a Cherished Place) for violin and piano, Op. 42 (Meditation, Scherzo and Melody) (1878)
• Russian Vesper Service, Op. 52 (1881)
• Piano Trio in A minor, Op. 50 (1882)
• Dumka, Russian rustic scene in C minor for piano, Op. 59 (1886)
• String Sextet Souvenir de Florence (Recollections of Florence), Op. 70 (1890)
• 18 Piano Pieces, Op.72 (1892). Some of these pieces were used in a cello concerto arrangement by Gaspar Cassadó.

• 1. As quoted in Warrack, Tchaikovsky (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1973), 161.
• 2. Russian Fairy Tales, Spring 1998: Snow Maiden

The purpose of our video library is to maintain a high quality index of the classical recordings available on YouTube. As these videos are not hosted on our own web page they might be deleted without our knowledge. If you come across a video that won't play please contact us and we will do our best to resolve the issue.

All videos are played in this browser window without interfering with your browsing of this site. So feel free to watch anything that peaks your interest.

If you find a video on YouTube that deserves to be in our index - contact us!

Chamber Music
Piano trio part 1 performed by Pletnev
Piano trio part 2 performed by Pletnev

Orchestral
1812 overtyre part 1 performed by Berliner Philharmonic
1812 overtyre part 2 performed by Berliner Philharmonic
Marche Slave performed by Unknown
Nutcracker part 01 performed by Unknown
Nutcracker part 02 performed by Unknown
Nutcracker part 03 performed by Unknown
Nutcracker part 04 performed by Unknown
Nutcracker part 05 performed by Unknown
Nutcracker part 06 performed by Unknown
Nutcracker part 07 performed by Unknown
Nutcracker part 08 performed by Unknown
Nutcracker part 09 performed by Unknown
Nutcracker part 10 performed by Unknown
Nutcracker part 11 performed by Unknown
Nutcracker part 12 performed by Unknown
Nutcracker part 13 performed by Unknown
Nutcracker part 14 performed by Unknown
Nutcracker part 15 performed by Unknown
Nutcracker part 16 performed by Unknown
Symphony No. 4 Mov 1 Part 1 performed by Unknown
Symphony No. 4 Mov 1 Part 2 performed by Unknown
Symphony No. 4 Mov 2 performed by Unknown
Symphony No. 4 Mov 3 performed by Unknown
Symphony No. 4 Mov 4 performed by Unknown
Symphony No. 5 Mov 1 Part 1 performed by Falcon symphony orchestra
Symphony No. 5 Mov 1 Part 2 performed by Falcon symphony orchestra
Symphony No. 5 Mov 2 Part 1 performed by Falcon symphony orchestra
Symphony No. 5 Mov 2 Part 2 performed by Falcon symphony orchestra
Symphony No. 5 Mov 3 performed by Falcon symphony orchestra
Symphony No. 5 Mov 4 Part 1 performed by Falcon symphony orchestra
Symphony No. 5 Mov 4 Part 2 performed by Falcon symphony orchestra
Symphony No. 6 Mov 1,1 performed by Karajan
Symphony No. 6 Mov 1,2 performed by Karajan
Symphony No. 6 Mov 2 performed by Karajan
Symphony No. 6 Mov 3 performed by Karajan
Symphony No. 6 Mov 4 performed by Karajan
Violin concerto Mov 1,1 performed by David Oistrakh
Violin concerto Mov 1,2 performed by David Oistrakh
Violin concerto Mov 2 performed by David Oistrakh
Violin concerto Mov 3 performed by David Oistrakh

Piano
April, May from the seasons performed by Victor Merzhanov
August from the seasons performed by Victor Merzhanov
December from The Season performed by Dong-Hyek
Dumka Op.59 performed by Dong-Hyek
June from The Seasons performed by Dong-Hyek
November from the seasons performed by Victor Merzhanov
October from The Seasons performed by Dong-Hyek

This is a collection of links to the best free music available on the net. The collection is evergrowing - or perhaps everchanging - since we do not host these files ourselves. We try to keep our database as up to date as possible but sometimes we just can't keep up with all the changes. If you find a dead link please contact us and we will remove it as soon as possible.

If you find some other high quality recording that is not featured in our database, and which is free to the public. Please contact us as well so we can keep the quality of this database as high as possible.

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Tchaikovsky - 1812 Overture
Tchaikovsky - Romeo and Juliet Overture
Tchaikovsky - Symphony No. 4
Tchaikovsky - Twelve Pieces for piano
Tchaikovsky - Violin Concerto, 3rd movement

Let's see if I can read your mind! Your first thought about this page was - "Why make a page with almost the same content as Wikipedias classical section, YouTube and the top free classical music download sites on the internet?". Were I right? Well even if that wasn't your first thought it is a question worth answering!

The internet is a wonderful place - never before has so much information been so easily accessible and never before have so many people been able to work together so easily. However, the strength of the web is also it's weakness - for too much information published in an unorganized fashion will deter most people from ever digging deep enough to find the real nuggets.

In other words - the internet is full of amazing content but sometimes it can be hard to find.

That's where Al Segno comes in, well at least that's the idea. If what you're looking for is related to classical music and classical composers we hope that you will be able to find it here! For the first release of this website we have added four composers - Ludvig van Beethoven, Johann Sebastian Bach, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. For each of these composers you will find:

• An extensive biography including a list of their works (From Wikipedia)
• A comprehensive and easily browseable index of videos of high quality performances (YouTube)
• MP3s, podcasts and recordings of their music (Different pages).

As of now - August, 27th 2008 - Al Segnos composer portraits database has been officially launched.