AboutPeter Gregson
Tchaikovsky's early-revealed talent was fostered by piano lessons in Votkinsk and later in St. Petersburg, where his family moved in 1848. After training as a lawyer and a brief period in civil service, he resigned his position and followed his inner calling to become a composer. In 1865, he graduated from the St. Petersburg Conservatory with a silver medal. Among his most famous compositions, created in just over a quarter of a century, are the ballets Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker, the opera Eugene Onegin, the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Symphonies, the First Piano Concerto, and the Violin Concerto. All these works are characterized by a very personal mode of expression, which was neither as absolutely "German" as his Russian opponents claimed, nor as thoroughly nationalistic as he was sometimes accused of abroad. Tchaikovsky suffered greatly from the societal pressure to keep his homosexuality a secret. During his lifetime, he experienced both fame and setbacks; lasting and worldwide popularity would only come to him after his death.