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It’s one of the great tragedies of classical music. On 6 November 1893, a mere nine days after the premiere of his intense, emotional Sixth Symphony (the ‘Path\u00e9tique’), the composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky died. The official cause of death? Cholera, contracted from drinking some unboiled (and therefore unsafe) water in a neighbourhood restaurant. <\/p>
It didn’t take long, however, before the rumours began to circulate. Had Tchaikovsky drunk the water on purpose? Was he in a depressed or a suicidal state? Perhaps, some whispered, he had even been strong-armed into taking his own life as some form of punishment for his homosexuality?<\/p>
And what of that symphony? Some three weeks after its premiere, the Sixth Symphony got another performance. This time, poignantly, it was at the memorial concert for the man who had brought this beautiful, emotionally charged work into the world. Now, in the light of its composer’s death, listeners were hearing in the Path\u00e9tique \u2018a sort of swan song, a presentiment of impending death\u2019 in the words of one reviewer. <\/p>
Was the Sixth Symphony the sound of a man struggling with the hand that life has dealt him? To find the answer to this, we must delve back into Tchaikovsky’s life. <\/p>
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was perhaps Russia’s most famous composer, as well as one of the very best Romantic composers<\/strong><\/a> alongside the likes of Beethoven<\/strong><\/a>, Schubert<\/strong><\/a>, Berlioz<\/strong><\/a>, Brahms<\/strong><\/a>, Chopin<\/strong><\/a> and Verdi<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p> Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born on 7 May 1840, exactly seven years after another great Romantic composer, Johannes Brahms<\/strong><\/a>. The two famously weren’t big fans of each other’s music. That said, Brahms managed to set himself against a fair few other composers. He also strongly disagreed with Franz Liszt<\/strong><\/a>, in a dispute that become known as the War of the Romantics<\/strong><\/a>. <\/p> Tchaikovsky was born in the small Russian town of Votkinsk<\/a><\/strong>. His family had a history of distinguished military service: his father, Ilya Petrovich Tchaikovsky, had served as a lieutenant colonel and engineer in the Department of Mines. <\/p> The Russian composer’s most famous work is probably the 1812 Overture<\/a> <\/b>from 1880. This short but rousing piece is a musical evocation of Russia’s victory over Napoleon in the year 1812. Both the French national anthem (La Marseillaise<\/strong><\/a>) and the Imperial Anthem of the Russian Empire (‘God Save the Tsar’<\/strong><\/a>) are heard, but the piece memorably culminates in a majestic celebration of cannon fire.<\/p>When was Tchaikovsky born?<\/h2>
Where did Tchaikovsky grow up?<\/h2>
What was Tchaikovsky’s most famous piece?<\/h2>