RomanticPiotr Ilitch Tchaïkovski
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born in Russia, near the Ural Mountains.
Piotr Ilitch Tchaïkovski’s life
The big moments of this life, and what was happening in the world at the same time.
A life at a glance
- 1840👶 Birth
Born in Votkinsk on 7 May, son of a mining engineer
- 1840🌍 Meanwhile
Adolphe Sax invents the saxophone (c. 1840)
- 1850📚 Trainingage 10
School of Jurisprudence in St Petersburg
- 1854❤️ Private lifeage 14
Death of his mother, a shock he never got over
- 1859🎩 Careerage 19
Clerk at the Ministry of Justice
- 1866🎩 Careerage 26
Professor of harmony at the Moscow Conservatory
- 1874🌍 Meanwhile
First exhibition of the Impressionist painters
- 1875🎼 Workage 35
Piano Concerto No. 1
- 1875🌍 Meanwhile
The Palais Garnier opera house opens in Paris
- 1876🎼 Workage 36
Swan Lake
- 1879🎼 Workage 39
Eugene Onegin
- 1889🌍 Meanwhile
The Eiffel Tower opens for the World’s Fair
- 1891🧳 Journeyage 51
Conducts at the opening of Carnegie Hall in New York
- 1893🕯️ Deathage 53
Dies in St Petersburg on 6 November
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Excerpts of up to 90 seconds, freely licensed recordings from Wikimedia Commons.
Once upon a time…
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born in Russia, near the Ural Mountains. He was a very sensitive child: his governess called him “the porcelain child”. He discovered music through a mechanical organ that played Mozart.
At first he worked in a ministry, but he was bored. So he went to the Conservatory and became a composer. A rich lady helped him by sending him money, on one strange condition: they must never meet! They wrote each other more than a thousand letters.
He composed magical ballets: Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker, in which toys come to life on Christmas night. For the Sugar Plum Fairy he used a brand-new instrument, the celesta, which sounds like little bells.
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