Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Born in Votkinsk, in the Russian Empire, in 1840, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky first studied law before turning to music and entering the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, where he studied, among others, with Anton Rubinstein. He later settled in Moscow, where he taught at the conservatory from 1866. Tchaikovsky developed a late‑Romantic compositional voice that combined forms inherited from Western Europe with Russian melodic inflections, a pronounced sense of lyricism and carefully wrought orchestration. His catalogue spans symphony, opera, ballet, concerto and chamber music, with works such as Symphony No. 1 “Rêves d’hiver” (1866), the fantasy‑overture Romeo and Juliet (1869), Piano Concerto No. 1 (1874–1875), Eugene Onegin (1878), the Violin Concerto (1878), The Sleeping Beauty (1889), The Queen of Spades (1890), The Nutcracker (1892) and Symphony No. 6 “Pathétique” (1893). Supported for many years by Nadezhda von Meck, Tchaikovsky also pursued a career as a conductor, leading performances in Europe and the United States, took part in the inauguration of Carnegie Hall in 1891 and received an honorary doctorate from the University of Cambridge in 1893, a few months before his death in Saint Petersburg.