TSCHAIKOVSKY, PETER ILICH (1840-1893), Russian composer, born at Votkinsk, in the province of Viatka, on May 7, 1840, was the son of a mining engineer, who shortly after the boy's birth removed to St. Petersburg (Leningrad) to become director of the Technological institute there. While studying in the school of jurisprudence, and later, while holding office in the ministry of justice, Tschaikovsky picked up a smattering of musical knowledge, but he was never suspected at first of pos sessing any special musical talent, of which there had been no previous traces in his family. Nevertheless, the seriousness of his musical aspirations revealed itself in due course and led him to enter the newly founded Conservatorium of St. Petersburg under Zaremba, where he was induced by Anton Rubinstein, its principal, to take up music as a profession.
With the former he fared better than the latter who, though worshipped by Tschaikovsky, seems never to have appreciated the gifts and promise of his young pupil who was destined none the less completely to eclipse his own fame. Very different was the attitude of Nicholas Rubinstein (Anton's brother) who showed his belief in the young musician in the most practical manner by in viting him to become, in 1866, practically the first chief of the recently founded Moscow Conservatorium, since Serov, whom he succeeded, never took up his appointment.
In Moscow, while engaged at the Conservatorium, Tschaikovsky wrote among other things his first opera The Vojevode, which was, however, a failure when produced in 1869. In the meantime he had met in St. Petersburg Balakirev, Stassov, Rimsky-Korsakov and other representatives of the then "advanced" school in Rus sian music, who exercised a stimulating influence on him, although neither then nor later was he ever wholly in sympathy with their ideals.
Also at this period he fell desperately in love for a time with the opera singer Desiree Art& who, however, shattered his hopes by marrying someone else. He found consolation in his art, and his third opera The Oprischnik, was one of many works composed at this time, others including the pianoforte concerto in B flat minor, the third symphony and another opera Vakoula the Smith. The Oprischnik was produced at St. Petersburg in 1874 and Vakoula the Smith in 1876, but neither had any success.
A happier fate attended the B flat minor piano concerto, which though severely condemned in the first instance by Nicholas Rubinstein (to whom it was originally dedicated) as clumsy and unplayable, as a mere duel between the piano and orchestra, and so on, was afterwards taken up with enthusiasm by Hans von Billow (to whom the composer transferred the dedication) and performed by him everywhere with the greatest success. At the same time it is only fair to add that Tschaikovsky, though much hurt by Nicholas Rubinstein's strictures, considerably modi fied the work on the strength of his criticisms and that Rubinstein in turn ultimately recognized the merits of the concerto and played it constantly. To the period of the late '705 belong the E flat quartet, the ballet The Swan Lake, and the "Francesca da Rimini" fantasia among other compositions, while during this period also, namely in 1877, Tschaikovsky first began to work on the opera of Eugen Onegin, destined to become the most popular of all his stage works and first heard at the Moscow Conservatorium in March 1879.
Meanwhile the more personal side of the composer's career had been given a romantic touch by his acquaintance with his life long benefactress Nadezhda Filaretovna von Meck (1831-1894) and his deplorable fiasco of a marriage. In 1876 he had aroused the interest of Mme. von Meck, the widow of a wealthy railway engineer and contractor. She had a large fortune and she began by helping the composer financially in the shape of commissions for work, but in 1877 this took the more substantial shape of an annual allowance of 1600. The strangest feature of their asso ciation consisted in the fact that, by agreement, they never met, though they corresponded with one another continually. In 1890 Mme. von Meck, imagining herself—apparently a pure delusion- to be ruined, discontinued the allowance; and though Tschai kovsky was then no longer really in need of it, he was deeply wounded by the manner in which she had made the announce ment, and to the end of his days never entirely recovered from the shock which his abnormally sensitive nature had received from the termination of their relations.