Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky:

1
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

• the most popular of all Russian composers.

2
Early years

• He was born in Votkinsk on May 7, 1840.
  Tchaikovskys father was a Ukrainian who worked
  as a mining engineer. His mothers grandfather
  was a Frenchman who moved to Russia. Tchaikovsky
  was only five when he started taking piano
  lessons. He was soon better than his teacher.

3
Life

• He spent nine years at the School of
  Jurisprudence. When he left school, he had to get
  a job. For four years he worked as a clerk in the
  Ministry of Justice. Then the composer and
  pianist Anton Rubinstein helped him to become a
  music student at the newly opened conservatory in
  St. Petersburg.

4
Last years

• By 1885 Tchaikovsky had got tired of travelling
  around. In 1889 he finished his second ballet,
  The Sleeping Beauty, and the next year, while
  staying in Florence, he created his famous opera,
  The Queen of Spades, based on a story by Pushkin.

5
Death

• Many people think that he commited suicide by
  deliberately drinking contaminated water. He may
  have wanted to (or even been forced to) commit
  suicide in order to avoid a scandal because he
  was having a relationship with a nephew of an
  important aristocratic man. What really happened
  will always be a mystery.

6
Music

• His compositions include 11 operas, 3 ballets,
  orchestral music, chamber music and over 100
  romances. His ballets (Swan Lake, The Nutcracker
  and Sleeping Beauty) have some of the best known
  tunes in all classical music.