Composer #3 - Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky

Anybody who has a taste for musical theater or the ballet has heard of Tchaikovsky. He has written numerous popular pieces throughout his years! The Nutcracker Suite and Swan Lake are some of his most popular and well known.

So here is his backstory,

Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky was born in Russia on May 7, 1840. He is a genuinely talented young man as he never really demonstrated any indication of knowledge in music. He actually went on to study law. His mother passed of Cholera it affected him very deeply. He was tormented by his sexuality and suffered from many ailments to include depression, epilepsy, and migraine headaches. Many of his most popular works were written during these intense times of emotion.

He later came to take a musical fundamentals course and started teaching at the conservatory in Moscow. He taught here for many years and often found himself composing music around literature tales such as Dante's Divine Comedy and Romeo and Juliet.

Given his circumstances, he did marry a lady who "cunningly persued" him named Antonina; however, this marriage was a diastaster that resulted in her placement in a mental institution and his attempt to end his own life. A wealthy widow stumbled upon his music and was so moved by his pieces she paid him a yearly allowance to free him from the conservatory so he can compose more music. Under this arrangement, Tchaikovsky wrote numerous waltz numbers and a few concerto's. He died tragically from Cholera shortly after this widow broke of their friendship. She blamed herself for supporting and loving Tchaikovsky so much that when her favorite son died, she felt that she had fallen into financial ruin leading to the end of their arrangement.

Cited source:

The Gift of Music: Great Composers and Their Influence by Jane Stuart Smith and Betty Carlson