Biography
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893), born in Votkinsk in the Urals, was the first Russian composer to achieve sustained international recognition and the greatest Russian composer of lyrical, emotionally direct music. His ten completed operas include Eugene Onegin (1879) and The Queen of Spades (1890), both drawn from Pushkin. His three ballets—Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker—form the central classical ballet repertoire to this day. Tchaikovsky's symphonies (especially the Fourth, Fifth, and Pathétique Sixth), his piano and violin concertos, and the orchestral fantasia Romeo and Juliet have remained concert hall staples since their premieres. Tchaikovsky lived in tension with his homosexuality in imperial Russia and died in Saint Petersburg of cholera under contested circumstances—some scholars argue for suicide under threat of scandal, though the evidence remains disputed.
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