Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born on May 7, 1840, in Kamsko-Votkinsk, Russia. He was born into the family of a mining engineer.
Tchaikovsky wrote a piece named "The Ballet of the Swans" to entertain his sister, Alexandra's, children. Music from this piece was to later become the framework for the score of Swan Lake. This was a precursor for later work in the ballet genre. Tchaikovsky's first success was when his libretto for Cinderella was accepted by the Moscow Theaters for production. Several pieces were created for the ballet, although the full production was never completed.
He was hired in 1875 by the Moscow Theaters to create a score for the Bolshoi Ballet, based on a libretto written by Begichev, manager of the Bolshoi. The theme was meant to have a medieval flavor, about knights and princesses. Soon the score was practically complete and turned out to be a sophisticated piece of work.
Recent findings have shown that Tchaikovsky actually demanded that the whole evening should be based on his music alone. He even rewrote the music to a pas de deux that was created for ballerina, Pelagia Karpakova, written by Ludwig Minkus, and choreographed by Marius Petipa. This piece is known as Tchaikovsky's Pas de Deux and was choreographed by George Balanchine.
After the Swan Lake score was finished, he began a long-term, long-distance relationship with his patroness, Nadezhda von Meck.
Since 1886, Ivan Vsevolozhsky, was discussing with Tchaikovsky about possibly reviving his early score. These discussions led to the creation of Sleeping Beauty, then The Nutcracker.
Tchaikovsky's life was full of great mood swings. His death on November 6, 1893, was attributed to self-induced cholera after a depression caused by the unenthusiastic reception for his Symphony #6 in B (Pathetique) Op.74. With new evidence, it is now believed that his death was caused by suicide through arsenic poisoning. The suicide was supposedly ordered by his college fraternity with the threat of exposing his homosexual relationship with a member of the Imperial House.
For more info on Tchaikovsky, check out: http://www.island-of-freedom.com/TCHAIK....
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