Tchaikovsky

          Tchaikovsky was born in Votkinsk, in the western Urals, in 1840. He was a very sensitive, loving boy, and had to be held back when his mother left him at boarding school in St. Petersburg during his early teens. He was frightfully loyal to his country of Russia, and once was seen to kiss Russia on a map, and then spit upon Europe. He studied law in St. Petersburg, but reluctantly, and preferred to write music. All his life, he’d been skilled in the writing of music.

          Tchaikovsky had a strange social life. As a homosexual, he had to bear the brunt of many spurious comments. Finally, he married a student who had professed her love to him, to silence this. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out so well. He attempted suicide twice during their marriage, and then escaped to St. Petersburg. His wife tried to blackmail him into returning, but failed. She died in 1917, after spending twenty years in a mental institution.

          Tchiakovsky is perhaps most famous for his ballets, The Nutcracker and Swan Lake. He wrote both of these pieces in the period of time between 1876 and 1890, during which time he was being sponsored by a rich baroness. Unfortunately, in 1890, she was financially ruined, and withdrew her funding. Tchaikovsky took this very personally, and never forgave her.

          Tchaikovsky took many things as a personal insult. Finally, when his Symphony No. 6, the Pathetique, was received indifferently, he supposedly died of cholera. But modern scholars have all but affirmed that he committed suicide.

          Tchaikovsky was a skilled Russian composer of the Romantic era. He won’t be forgotten soon.