Russian musical culture did not fully flower until the second half of the 19th century, when genuine masterpieces were created by several composers. The most important of them, from our perspective today, was Peter (Pyotr) Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Tchaikovsky was born as the son of a mining engineer and his high-strung wife, in the provincial town of Votkinsk. His musical talent manifested itself early, and he took piano lessons, first in Votkinsk and then in St Petersburg, where the family moved in 1848. Educated for a career in the civil service, he broke away and followed an inner calling to become a composer, and graduated with a silver medal from the St Petersburg Conservatory in 1865. Among the best known of the works he produced during little more than a quarter-century are the ballets Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker, the opera Eugene Onegin, the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, the First Piano Concerto and the Violin Concerto. All were written in a highly personal style that was neither as wholeheartedly Germanic as his Russian detractors claimed nor as wholeheartedly nationalistic as his foreign detractors claimed. Tchaikovsky suffered greatly from the secrecy to which his homosexuality condemned him in the society of his day, and an ill-advised marriage with a woman he hardly knew ended quickly in a nervous breakdown for him and a permanent separation for both. A close, long-term relationship with his wealthy patroness, Nadezhda von Meck, was carried out entirely by correspondence. Despite his depressive, self-pitying nature, he was a polyglot who travelled as far afield as the United States, where he participated in the opening of Carnegie Hall in 1891. In 1893 he conducted a triumphant performance of his Fourth Symphony at a Royal Philharmonic concert in London and received an honorary doctorate in Cambridge. His death, in St Petersburg on 6 November, was probably a suicide, but the story that it was provoked by a threat to reveal his liasion with a young aristocrat has not been substantiated. Professionally, Tchaikovsky experienced both fame and reproach in his lifetime, but his enduring, worldwide popularity came only posthumously.

Harvey Sachs

Biographical notes (c) 1996, reprinted by permission of Deutsche Grammophon GmbH, Hamburg

A selection of major works:

Orchestral: 6 Symhonies, "Manfred" Symphony, Ouverture solennele "1812", Serenade for Strings, Slavonic March (Marche slave), 4 Suites (the best know being the "Mozartiana"), Tone Poems (Fate, Francesca da Rimini, Hamlet, Romeo and Julia, The Storm, The Tempest, Voyevoda), 3 Piano Concertos (No. 3 unfinished), Violin Concerto, Andante cantabile, Variations on a Rococo Theme.

Chamber: Souvenir de Florence (string sextet), 3 String Quartets, Piano Trio, Souvenir d'un lieu cher, 50 Russian Folksongs (piano duet).

Instrumental solo: 2 Piano Sonatas, Morceaux, The Seasons, 3 Souvenirs de Hapsal.

Vocal: Songs Choral: Liturgy of St John Chrysostom, Motets.

Stage works: Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker (ballets); The Enchantres, Eugene Onegin, Iolanta, Mazeppa, Oprichnik, Pique Dame, Oprichnik (operas).