60 Fun Facts About Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

In which small town in the Russian Empire was Tchaikovsky born in 1840?

His father managed the ironworks there as an engineer in the Department of Mines.

To which musical period does Tchaikovsky belong?

He was the first Russian composer whose music made a lasting impression internationally.

Tchaikovsky's great-grandfather Fyodor Chaika fought at which decisive clash of 1709?

He was a Zaporozhian Cossack; the composer's grandfather was later city governor of Glazov.

What was the name of the French governess hired in 1844 who saved Tchaikovsky's earliest compositions?

By six he was fluent in French and German; her affection reportedly made up for his mother's coldness.

At what age did Tchaikovsky begin piano lessons?

Within three years he read sheet music as well as his teacher, Maria Palchikova.

What orchestra-imitating barrel organ did Tchaikovsky's parents buy for the household?

They encouraged his piano playing for both aesthetic and practical reasons.

For which career was Tchaikovsky educated at the Imperial School of Jurisprudence in Saint Petersburg?

Musical careers in Russia then ranked with peasants; there was no public music education system.

How far from his family was the ten-year-old Tchaikovsky sent to boarding school?

The separation left lifelong trauma, deepened when his mother died of cholera when he was 14.

What did Tchaikovsky's mother die of in 1854, prompting his first serious composition?

He wrote a waltz in her memory; his father caught the same disease and recovered.

In which branch of government did Tchaikovsky work for three years after graduating in 1859?

He rose from titular counselor to senior assistant within eight months and stayed there.

Which pianist and composer co-founded the Russian Musical Society and taught Tchaikovsky composition?

He called Tchaikovsky 'a composer of genius' but refused to perform his First Symphony without changes.

Tchaikovsky's conservatory thesis, which won a silver medal, was a cantata on which text?

He was in the Saint Petersburg Conservatory's very first class in 1862.

What was Tchaikovsky's monthly salary as Professor of Music Theory at the new Moscow Conservatory?

Nikolai Rubinstein offered the post; the money was poor but the offer boosted his morale.

Which famous conductor led the first public performance of a Tchaikovsky work, in 1865?

It was in Pavlovsk Park; the piece later went into his opera The Voyevoda as Dances of the Hay Maidens.

How did Tchaikovsky the critic describe Wagner's Das Rheingold?

He praised Beethoven, thought Brahms overrated and criticised Schumann's orchestration.

What was the nationalist group of five Russian composers with whom Tchaikovsky had a mixed relationship?

Balakirev, Cui, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Borodin; they wholeheartedly embraced his Romeo and Juliet.

On which work, his first recognised masterpiece, did Tchaikovsky collaborate with Balakirev in 1869?

His Second Symphony, the 'Little Russian', was also welcomed by the nationalist camp.

Which pianist premiered Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto after a Moscow colleague savaged it?

Rubinstein later changed his mind; a 1992 critic still called the concerto 'entirely hollow'.

What did Tchaikovsky do with the manuscripts of his first two operas, The Voyevoda and Undina?

He reused parts of both in later works first.

Why did Tchaikovsky end up writing the words of The Oprichnik himself?

He modelled his dramatic technique on Eugène Scribe; Cui savaged the result.

Which Gogol story is the basis of Tchaikovsky's opera Vakula the Smith, which won a competition in 1874?

Rimsky-Korsakov later set the same story after Tchaikovsky's death.

Whom did Tchaikovsky marry in 1877, in a union that lasted about two and a half months?

He never blamed her for the failure, and the debacle may have forced him to face his sexuality.

Which Belgian soprano did Tchaikovsky consider marrying in 1868, later calling her his only love?

The relationship ended 'owing to various circumstances'.

Nadezhda von Meck, Tchaikovsky's patroness for 13 years, was the widow of a tycoon in which industry?

He called her his 'best friend', but they agreed never to meet.

What unusual condition governed Tchaikovsky's relationship with Nadezhda von Meck?

Her support let him give up teaching and focus entirely on composition.

Which three works did Tchaikovsky complete abroad in the year after his marriage collapsed?

Von Meck's allowance let him wander Europe and rural Russia, mostly alone.

How long did Tchaikovsky take to write the 1812 Overture?

He told von Meck it would be 'very loud and noisy' with 'probably no artistic merits'.

For what is the 1812 Overture especially well known in performance?

Tchaikovsky warned conductor Nápravník it might be 'in a style unsuitable for symphony concerts'.

Tchaikovsky's Piano Trio in A minor is dedicated 'to the memory of a great artist'; who?

It became Tchaikovsky's own elegy at memorial concerts in November 1893.

Which honour did Alexander III confer on Tchaikovsky in 1884, bringing hereditary nobility?

It was fourth class, but it was seen as a seal of official approval.

How large was the lifetime annual pension Tchaikovsky received from the Tsar from 1885?

It made him the premier court composer in practice if not in title.

Which three foreign composers did Tchaikovsky invite to conduct in Moscow in 1889-90?

He held the post for the 1889-90 season.

Which famous New York venue did Tchaikovsky help inaugurate as a conductor in 1891?

He led the New York Music Society's orchestra in his Festival Coronation March.

How did the critic César Cui describe Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony at its 1888 premiere?

Audiences loved it and Tchaikovsky kept conducting it across Russia and Europe.

Which English university awarded Tchaikovsky an honorary doctorate in 1893?

The year before, France's Académie des Beaux-Arts elected him, only the second Russian so honoured.

To whom did Tchaikovsky dedicate his Sixth Symphony?

Scholars read the dedication and his letters as evidence of a romantic attachment.

How old was Tchaikovsky when he died in Saint Petersburg in November 1893?

The Piano Trio he had written for Rubinstein was played at his own memorial concerts.

To what is Tchaikovsky's death traditionally attributed?

British scholars in the 1980s speculated about suicide; the New Grove concludes 'we may never find out'.

Where is Tchaikovsky buried, near Borodin, Glinka and Mussorgsky?

It lies within the Alexander Nevsky Monastery; Rimsky-Korsakov and Balakirev joined them later.

Which composer did Tchaikovsky consider his favourite?

His Variations on a Rococo Theme are a homage to the 18th-century style he loved.

Which Bizet opera, which Tchaikovsky 'admired tremendously', served as a model for The Queen of Spades?

Delibes's ballets Coppélia and Sylvia were the models for The Sleeping Beauty.

Which violinist first rejected Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto, then championed and taught it?

Critic Eduard Hanslick called the concerto a piece 'whose stink one can hear'.

How did the critic Eduard Hanslick describe the Violin Concerto?

Another critic said the Fifth Symphony sounded like 'a horde of demons struggling in a torrent of brandy'.

Which cellist altered the Variations on a Rococo Theme so much it was published with his changes?

Tchaikovsky was angry but did nothing about it.

Which choreographer worked with Tchaikovsky on The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker?

When dancers found The Sleeping Beauty too complicated, Petipa talked them into the extra effort.

Which dance was Tchaikovsky's musical code for the Romanovs and Russian patriotism?

Putting one in a finale could virtually guarantee success with Russian audiences.

Which harmonic device, more typical of The Five, did Tchaikovsky use in his Second Symphony's finale?

His music tutor Kündinger had been 'astonished' by his flair for harmony.

Which twin brother of Tchaikovsky wrote the libretto for The Queen of Spades?

Modest's account of his brother's same-sex attraction was suppressed by Soviet censors.

Whose 1880 Pushkin Monument speech helped Russians stop seeing Tchaikovsky as too Western?

A cult following soon grew among young Petersburg intellectuals including Diaghilev and Bakst.

Which member of The Five savaged Tchaikovsky's opera The Oprichnik in the press?

Mussorgsky privately called it pandering to the public, yet it is still occasionally staged in Russia.

How did the composer's brother describe his youthful attachment to fellow student Sergey Kireyev?

Soviet officials long denied the composer's homosexuality and censored his letters.

Which ballet did Tchaikovsky write in the same mid-1870s period as the Rococo Variations and Eugene Onegin?

The Third and Fourth Symphonies date from the same stretch, before his disastrous marriage in 1877.

Tchaikovsky's mother Alexandra was of which ancestry through her father's side?

She was 18 years younger than her husband Ilya, and both parents had been trained in the arts, including music.

Which Glinka opera made an indelible impression on Tchaikovsky as a child?

He studied Glinka's scoring assiduously; only Glinka had preceded him in fusing Russian elements with Western technique.

Which Western composer stands out as an influence on Tchaikovsky's formal structure, harmony and piano writing?

Leon Botstein argues Liszt and Wagner also left their imprint on his orchestral style.

Which Adolphe Adam ballet, a favourite since student days, did Tchaikovsky consult while writing The Sleeping Beauty?

Delibes' ballets Coppélia and Sylvia also served as models for the score.

Which tone poem did Tchaikovsky premiere a week after conducting his Fifth Symphony in 1888?

Critics were hostile but audiences were enthusiastic, and he kept conducting the symphony across Russia and Europe.

In January 1887 Tchaikovsky stepped in at short notice at the Bolshoi to conduct which of his operas?

Within a year he was in demand as a conductor across Europe, which helped him overcome lifelong stage fright.

Tchaikovsky's beloved sister Alexandra married which man, whose family estate became his refuge?

The marriage produced seven children, among them 'Bob', the nephew to whom the Sixth Symphony is dedicated.

At whose instigation did the Tsar grant Tchaikovsky his lifetime pension in 1885?

As Director of the Imperial Theaters and a patron of the composer, he helped make Tchaikovsky the premier court composer in practice.