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For all the ups and downs of his career thus far, at the time of the premiere of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky<\/a><\/strong>‘s Queen of Spades<\/em> the 50-year-old composer enjoyed both significant respect and no little celebrity. Championed by Tsar Alexander III, Tchaikovsky used his standing to promote Russian music<\/a><\/strong> at home and abroad, where he was increasingly in demand. <\/p> Though the perpetually hard-to-please critics were sniffy about his Fifth Symphony at its premiere in August 1888, the public largely gave it a warmer reception. Five years later, in October 1993, the enthusiastically greeted premiere of Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony<\/a><\/strong> would precede his death by just nine days.<\/p>