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Julia Heaslet
Although musically precocious, Tchaikovsky was educated for a career as a civil servant as there was little opportunity for a musical career in Russia at the time and no system of public music education. When an opportunity for such an education arose, he entered the nascent Saint Petersburg Conservatory, from which he graduated in 1865. The formal Western-oriented teaching that Tchaikovsky received there set him apart from composers of the contemporary nationalist movement embodied by the Russian composers of The Five with whom his professional relationship was mixed.
Tchaikovsky's training set him on a path to reconcile what he had learned with the native musical practices to which he had been exposed from childhood. From that reconciliation, he forged a personal but unmistakably Russian style. The principles that governed melody, harmony, and other fundamentals of Russian music diverged from those that governed Western European music, which seemed to defeat the potential for using Russian music in large-scale Western composition or for forming a composite style, and it caused personal antipathies that dented Tchaikovsky's self-confidence. Russian culture exhibited a split personality, with its native and adopted elements having drifted apart increasingly since the time of Peter the Great. That resulted in uncertainty among the intelligentsia about the country's national identity, an ambiguity mirrored in Tchaikovsky's career.
Despite his many popular successes, Tchaikovsky's life was punctuated by personal crises and depression. Contributory factors included his early separation from his mother for boarding school followed by his mother's early death, the death of his close friend and colleague Nikolai Rubinstein, his failed marriage with Antonina Miliukova, and the collapse of his 13-year association with the wealthy patroness Nadezhda von Meck. Tchaikovsky's homosexuality, which he kept private,[3] has traditionally also been considered a major factor though some scholars have played down its importance.[4][5] His dedication of his Sixth symphony to his nephew Vladimir "Bob" Davydov and his feelings expressed about Davydov in letters to others, especially following Davydov's suicide,[6] have been cited as evidence for a romantic love between the two.[7][8][6] Tchaikovsky's sudden death at the age of 53 is generally ascribed to cholera, but there is an ongoing debate as to whether cholera was indeed the cause and whether the death was accidental or intentional.
While his music has remained popular among audiences, critical opinions were initially mixed. Some Russians did not feel it was sufficiently representative of native musical values and expressed suspicion that Europeans accepted the music for its Western elements. In an apparent reinforcement of the latter claim, some Europeans lauded Tchaikovsky for offering music more substantive than exoticism, and said he transcended the stereotypes of Russian classical music. Others dismissed Tchaikovsky's music as deficient because it did not stringently follow Western principles.
Tchaikovsky was born on 7 May 1840 in Votkinsk,[9] a small town in Vyatka Governorate during the Russian Empire in present-day Udmurtia near the banks of the Kama River. His father, Ilya Petrovich Tchaikovsky, served as a lieutenant colonel and engineer in the Department of Mines[10] and managed the Ironworks in Kamsko-Votkinsk. His grandfather, Pyotr Fedorovich Tchaikovsky, was born in the village of Nikolaevka, Yekaterinoslav Governorate, Russian Empire in present-day Mykolaivka, Ukraine,[11] and served first as a physician's assistant in the army and later as city governor of Glazov in Vyatka. His great-grandfather,[12][13] a Zaporozhian Cossack named Fyodor Chaika, served in the Russian military at the Battle of Poltava in 1709.[14][15]
Tchaikovsky's mother, Alexandra Andreyevna (ne d'Assier), was the second of Ilya's three wives; his first wife died several years before Pyotr's birth. She was 18 years younger than her husband and was of French and German ethnicity through her paternal side.[16] Both Ilya and Alexandra were trained in the arts, including music.[17] Of his six siblings,[n 3] Tchaikovsky was close to his sister Alexandra and twin brothers Anatoly and Modest. Alexandra's marriage to Lev Davydov[18] would produce seven children[19] and lend Tchaikovsky the only real family life he would know as an adult,[20] especially during his years of wandering.[20] One of those children, Vladimir Davydov, who went by the nickname 'Bob', would become very close to him.[21]
In 1844, the family hired Fanny Drbach, a 22-year-old French governess.[22] Four-and-a-half-year-old Tchaikovsky was initially thought too young to study alongside his older brother Nikolai and a niece of the family. His insistence convinced Drbach otherwise.[23] By the age of six, he had become fluent in French and German.[17] Tchaikovsky also became attached to the young woman; her affection for him was reportedly a counter to his mother's coldness and emotional distance from him,[24] though others assert that the mother doted on her son.[25] Drbach saved much of Tchaikovsky's work from this period, including his earliest known compositions, and became a source of several childhood anecdotes.[26]
Tchaikovsky's father's income was also growing increasingly uncertain, so both parents may have wanted Tchaikovsky to become independent as soon as possible.[29] As the minimum age for acceptance was 12 and Tchaikovsky was only 10 at the time, he was required to spend two years boarding at the Imperial School of Jurisprudence's preparatory school, 1,300 kilometres (800 mi) from his family.[30] Once those two years had passed, Tchaikovsky transferred to the Imperial School of Jurisprudence to begin a seven-year course of studies.[31]
Tchaikovsky's early separation from his mother, despite the aforementioned alleged distant relationship, caused an emotional trauma that lasted the rest of his life and was intensified by her death from cholera in 1854 when he was 14.[32][n 4] The loss of his mother also prompted Tchaikovsky to make his first serious attempt at composition, a waltz in her memory. Tchaikovsky's father, who had also contracted cholera but recovered fully, sent him back to school immediately in the hope that classwork would occupy the boy's mind.[33] Isolated, Tchaikovsky compensated with friendships with fellow students that became lifelong; these included Aleksey Apukhtin and Vladimir Gerard.[34]
Music, while not an official priority at school, also bridged the gap between Tchaikovsky and his peers. They regularly attended the opera[35] and Tchaikovsky would improvise at the school's harmonium on themes he and his friends had sung during choir practice. "We were amused," Vladimir Gerard later remembered, "but not imbued with any expectations of his future glory".[36] Tchaikovsky also continued his piano studies through Franz Becker, an instrument manufacturer who made occasional visits to the school; however, the results, according to musicologist David Brown, were "negligible".[37]
In 1855, Tchaikovsky's father funded private lessons with Rudolph Kndinger and questioned him about a musical career for his son. While impressed with the boy's talent, Kndinger said he saw nothing to suggest a future composer or performer.[38] He later admitted that his assessment was also based on his own negative experiences as a musician in Russia and his unwillingness for Tchaikovsky to be treated likewise.[39] Tchaikovsky was told to finish his course and then try for a post in the Ministry of Justice.[40]
On 10 June 1859, the 19-year-old Tchaikovsky graduated as a titular counselor, a low rung on the civil service ladder. Appointed to the Ministry of Justice, he became a junior assistant within six months and a senior assistant two months after that. He remained a senior assistant for the rest of his three-year civil service career.[41]
Meanwhile, the Russian Musical Society (RMS) was founded in 1859 by the Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna (a German-born aunt of Tsar Alexander II) and her protg, pianist and composer Anton Rubinstein. Previous tsars and the aristocracy had focused almost exclusively on importing European talent.[42] The aim of the RMS was to fulfill Alexander II's wish to foster native talent.[43] It hosted a regular season of public concerts (previously held only during the six weeks of Lent when the Imperial Theaters were closed)[44] and provided basic professional training in music.[45] In 1861, Tchaikovsky attended RMS classes in music theory taught by Nikolai Zaremba at the Mikhailovsky Palace (now the Russian Museum).[46] These classes were a precursor to the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, which opened in 1862. Tchaikovsky enrolled at the Conservatory as part of its premiere class. He studied harmony and counterpoint with Zaremba and instrumentation and composition with Rubinstein.[47] He was awarded a silver medal for his thesis, a cantata on Schiller's "Ode to Joy".[9]
The Conservatory benefited Tchaikovsky in two ways. It transformed him into a musical professional, with tools to help him thrive as a composer, and the in-depth exposure to European principles and musical forms gave him a sense that his art was not exclusively Russian or Western.[48] This mindset became important in Tchaikovsky's reconciliation of Russian and European influences in his compositional style. He believed and attempted to show that both these aspects were "intertwined and mutually dependent".[49] His efforts became both an inspiration and a starting point for other Russian composers to build their own individual styles.[50]
Rubinstein was impressed by Tchaikovsky's musical talent on the whole and cited him as "a composer of genius" in his autobiography.[51] He was less pleased with the more progressive tendencies of some of Tchaikovsky's student work.[52] Nor did he change his opinion as Tchaikovsky's reputation grew.[n 5][n 6] He and Zaremba clashed with Tchaikovsky when he submitted his First Symphony for performance by the Russian Musical Society in Saint Petersburg. Rubinstein and Zaremba refused to consider the work unless substantial changes were made. Tchaikovsky complied but they still refused to perform the symphony.[53] Tchaikovsky, distressed that he had been treated as though he were still their student, withdrew the symphony. It was given its first complete performance, minus the changes Rubinstein and Zaremba had requested, in Moscow in February 1868.[54]
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