185 years of Tchaikovsky: Honoring the composer who gave the world its most iconic ballets

From Swan Lake to The Nutcracker, his music continues to captivate audiences across generations and continents

Thanks to ‘The Nutcracker’, this Russian composer gifted the world some of its most beloved Christmas melodies. His ‘Swan Lake’ became an unexpected symbol of the 1991 August Coup that signaled the Soviet Union’s collapse. His ballets packed theaters when impresario Sergey Diaghilev, who brought Russian ballet to the world stage, introduced them to Western audiences. And even those who know little about classical music instantly recognize the stirring opening chords of his ‘Piano Concerto No. 1’.

A socialite who struggled against his own inclinations, a man of deep sensitivity known to friends as having a “glass soul,” he also composed some of the most significant sacred music in the Russian Orthodox tradition.

We’re talking, of course, about Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

Discover the life, work, and personal trials of Russia’s most celebrated composer in this RT feature.

A child of the Empire

Many great composers seemed destined for music from birth – Beethoven’s father sang at court, Mozart’s was a deputy kapellmeister. These prodigies grew up in refined, aristocratic homes. Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s story, however, took a different path.

Born in 1840 in the industrial town of Votkinsk in the Ural region, Tchaikovsky came from a family rooted in the Russian Empire’s rising professional class. His father, Ilya Tchaikovsky, managed an ironworks – one of the Empire’s most advanced metallurgical plants.

On his father’s side, Pyotr’s family traced its roots to the Cossacks of Little Russia (modern-day Ukraine), who had served Russia faithfully since the 17th century. During the Great Northern War, his ancestor, Colonel Fyodor Chaika, sided with Tsar Peter I against Hetman Ivan Mazepa’s betrayal. After the Battle of Poltava, the family eventually adopted the surname Tchaikovsky and joined the Russian nobility.

His mother’s family added Western European flair. French sculptors and Austrian officers – including Michael Heinrich Maximilian Assier, who became Andrey Mikhailovich Assier upon settling in Russia – rounded out the family tree. Assier rose to the rank of active state counselor, equivalent to a major general.

From an early age, music filled Tchaikovsky’s home. His father played flute, his mother played harp and piano, and the family owned a grand piano and a mechanical organ known as an orchestrion. Through it, young Pyotr first encountered Mozart’s ‘Don Giovanni’, leaving a lasting impression.

His earliest music teacher was Maria Palchikova, a former serf who had taught herself to read and play music. He also absorbed French cultural influence from Fanny Dürbach, a governess brought from St. Petersburg. This blend of European classical training and authentic Russian heritage shaped his artistic vision.

Even as a child, Tchaikovsky showed a deep emotional connection to music. He once became so engrossed while tapping rhythms on a window frame that he broke the glass and severely cut his hand.

“In daily life, people were drawn to him because they could feel how deeply he cared,” recalled his brother Modest. “He was so sensitive that the slightest thing could hurt him. He was like a child made of glass.”

This emotional intensity would later complicate his life – but it also fueled his extraordinary creativity.

From bureaucrat to composer

Ilya Tchaikovsky envisioned a stable career for his son in law or government. At age ten, Pyotr entered St. Petersburg’s prestigious Imperial School of Jurisprudence.

Though the school’s rigid discipline made him feel isolated, Tchaikovsky quickly earned the affection of teachers and classmates. Remarkably, he avoided both corporal punishment and bullying – no small feat in that era.

Even in a school focused on legal studies, his love of music persisted, though his talents weren’t immediately obvious. While clearly more musically inclined than his peers, no one yet foresaw the heights he would reach.

At 19, after graduating, he landed a civil service job at the Ministry of Finance – a respectable, if uninspired, start to his career.

But the lure of St. Petersburg’s vibrant intellectual and social scene soon proved irresistible. He befriended future poets, writers, and critics, attended salons, banquets, and musical soirées, and embraced a hedonistic lifestyle.

“I, a sickly man with neurosis, cannot live without the poison of alcohol. Every night I find myself drunk,” he later confessed. Along with mounting debts, this lifestyle clashed with his government duties.

At 21, he enrolled in music classes offered by the Russian Musical Society, which soon became the St. Petersburg Conservatory. He was among the first composition students. When he abandoned his bureaucratic post, no one in the office seemed to notice. “He simply stopped showing up.”

The greatest musical talent in Russia

At the conservatory, the now mature Tchaikovsky finally began to realize his full potential. He composed his first significant works: a cantata based on Schiller’s ‘Ode to Joy’ and the overture ‘The Storm’, inspired by Ostrovsky’s play. These works revealed his ability to draw equally from Western and Russian musical traditions.

While artistic circles can be competitive, Tchaikovsky inspired admiration rather than jealousy. His classmate – and future critic – Herman Laroche declared, “You are the greatest musical talent in contemporary Russia. In fact, you’re our only hope for the future of Russian music.”

Graduating with the conservatory’s top honor, the grand silver medal, Tchaikovsky soon moved to Moscow to teach at the conservatory there.

During the late 1860s and early 1870s, he composed the ‘Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture’, which a biographer described as revealing the main themes of his future work: the psychological drama of unfulfilled love, youthful passion, and the omnipresent shadow of death.

He also embraced Russian history and folk culture, which shone through in his opera ‘The Oprichnik’, set during the reign of Ivan the Terrible. Premiered at the Mariinsky and Bolshoi Theaters, the opera was, in Tchaikovsky’s words, “a triumph beyond anything I could have imagined. A huge crowd of students escorted me back to my hotel.”

Not all his works were instant hits. The now-iconic ‘Swan Lake’ struggled at first and only gained worldwide acclaim after his death.

Triumph and turmoil

By the 1870s and 1880s, Tchaikovsky’s fame had soared. His concerts sold out. For his ‘1812 Overture’, celebrating Russia’s victory over Napoleon, Emperor Alexander III awarded him an order of merit and helped him clear his debts.

He toured Europe, receiving praise from luminaries like Wagner and Liszt, and traveled to the United States, where he conducted at Carnegie Hall’s grand opening. By then, he had composed all the operas, ballets, and symphonies that would become his lasting legacy.

Yet personal happiness eluded him.

His engagement to Belgian soprano Désirée Artôt, a frequent performer in Russia, ended due to her family’s objections. Heartbroken, he poured his emotions into ‘Romance’, Op. 5, for piano.

At 37, he married Antonina Milyukova, a former student. Though she adored him, their marriage quickly soured. Just three months in, he fled to Switzerland. Though they never divorced, they lived apart for the rest of his life.

Speculation about Tchaikovsky’s homosexuality persists. While he had close relationships with prominent homosexual figures and young male students, serious biographers suggest his attachments were largely aesthetic and intellectual. In his letters, he often lamented his inclinations and struggled to repress them.

Finding solace in faith

The turbulence of his personal life took a toll on this man with the “glass soul.” But in his 30s, Tchaikovsky found solace in Orthodox Christianity.

Though indifferent to religion in his youth, by the 1870s and 1880s he had turned to faith for comfort. He studied the Gospels and became deeply engaged with Orthodox church music.

Religious themes began to surface in his compositions. In his ‘Sixth Symphony’, the hymn “With the Saints Give Rest” foreshadows death. The 1812 Overture features the troparion “Save, O Lord, Your people and bless Your inheritance.”

He also composed music for major liturgies, including the ‘Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom’ and the ‘All-Night Vigil’.

Metropolitan Ilarion observed, “He was not just a believer but was deeply rooted in the Orthodox Church. The beauty and profound poetry of Orthodox worship always drew him.” Tchaikovsky himself once said, “My love for Orthodoxy is tied directly to my deep affection for the Russian spirit.”

A legacy beyond time

Tchaikovsky died suddenly at age 53 during a cholera outbreak in St. Petersburg. His death shocked the nation. The emperor placed the Imperial Theaters in charge of his funeral and paid the expenses himself. The requiem Mass at Kazan Cathedral was so crowded that many mourners couldn’t even get inside.

Tchaikovsky’s life shows that it’s never too late to follow your true calling, that the path to greatness is rarely smooth, and that passion and hardship often go hand in hand with genius.

His body of work – blending Western European influences with the soul of Russian Orthodox culture – created masterpieces that still captivate audiences worldwide.

Today, ballets like ‘The Nutcracker’, ‘Swan Lake’, and ‘Sleeping Beauty’ are staples of every major opera house. Immune to politics or sanctions, these timeless classics stir emotions ranging from bittersweet nostalgia to warmth and inspiration.

So, when you hear the ‘Waltz of the Flowers’ from ‘The Nutcracker’ drifting through city streets on Christmas Eve, remember the brilliant Russian composer who gave the world such beauty – Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.