Pyotr (Peter) Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: 7 May 1840 – 6 November1893, also transliterated Piotr Ilitsch Tschaikowski, Peter Ilich Tschaikowsky, Piotr Illyich Tchaikovsky, as well as many other versions, was a Russian composer of the Romantic era. Although not a member of the group of nationalistic composers usually known in English-speaking countries as 'The Five', his music has come to be known and loved for its distinctly Russian character as well as for its rich harmonies and stirring melodies. His works, however, were much more western than those of his Russian contemporaries as he effectively used international elements in addition to national folk melodies.

Reference*

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

 

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Works by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovski

Op.1 Two Pieces, Piano; Op.2 Souvenir de Hapsal, Piano Op.3 The Voyevoda, Opera; Op.4 Valse caprice, Piano (D Major); Op.5 Romance, Piano (f Minor); Op.6 Six Songs; Op.7 Valse-scherzo, Piano (A Major) Op.8 Capriccio, Piano (G-flat Major); Op.9 Trois Morceaux, Piano; Op.10 Deux Morceaux, Piano; Op.11 String Quartet No.1 (D Major); Op.12 T he Snow Maiden, Incidental Music; Op.13 Symphony No.1 (g Minor) ("Winter Daydreams"); Op.15 Festival Overture (D Major); Op.16 Six Songs; Op.17 Symphony No.2 (c Minor) ("Little Russian"); Op.18 The Tempest, Symphonic Fantasia (f Minor); Op.19 Six Morceaux, Piano; Op.20 Swan Lake, Ballet; Op.21 Six Morceaux, composés sur un seul thème, Piano; Op.22 String Quartet No.2 (F Major); Op.23 Piano Concerto No.1 (b-flat Minor); Op.25 Six Songs; Op.26 Sérénade mélancolique, Vln, Orch. (b Minor); Op.27 Six Songs; Op.28 Six Songs; Op.29 Symphony No.3 (D Major) ("Polish"); Op.30 String Quartet No.3 (e-flat Minor); Op.31 Slavonic March, Orch. (B-flat Major); Op.32 Francesca da Rimini, Symphonic Fantasia (e Minor); Op.33 Variations on a Rococo Theme, Cello, Orch. (A Major); Op.34 Valse-scherzo, Vln, Orch. (C Major); Op.35 Violin Concerto (D Major); Op.36 Symphony No.4 (f Minor); Op.37 Piano Sonata (G Major); Op.37b Les Saisons, Piano; Op.38 Six Songs; Op.39 A lbum pour Enfants: 24 pièces faciles (à la Schumann), Piano; Op.40 Douze Morceaux (difficulté moyenne), Piano Op.41 Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, unaccompanied Chorus;Op.42 Souvenir d'un lieu cher, Vln., Piano
1. Méditation (d Minor)
2. Scherzo (c Minor)
3. Mélodie (E-flat Major)
Op.43 Suite No.1, Orch. (D Major); Op.44 Piano Concerto No.2 (G Major); Op.45 Capriccio Italien, Orch. (A Major); Op.46 Six Duets; Op.47 Seven Songs; Op.48 Serenade, Str. (C Major); Op.49 1 812, Festival Overture (E-flat Major); Op.50 Piano Trio (a Minor); Op.51 Six Morceaux, Piano; Op.52 Vesper Service, unaccompanied Chorus; Op.53 Suite No.2, Orch. (C Major); Op.54 Sixteen Childrens Songs; Op.54/5 Legend, unaccompanied Chorus (arrangement of a solo song); Op.55 Suite No.3, Orch. (G Major); Op.56 Concert Fantasia, Piano, Orch. (G Major); Op.57 Six Songs; Op.58 Manfred, Symphony (b Minor) Op.59 Dumka: Russian rustic Scene, Piano (c Minor); Op.60 Twelve Songs; Op.61 Suite No.4, Orch. (G Major) ("Mozartiana"); Op.62 Pezzo capriccioso, Cello, Orch. (b Minor); Op.63 Six Songs; Op.64 Symphony No.5 (e Minor); Op.65 Six Songs; Op.66 Sleeping Beauty, Ballet; Op.67 Hamlet, Fantasy Overture (f Minor); Op.67a Hamlet, Incidental Music; Op.68 The Queen of Spades, Opera; Op.69 Iolanta, Opera; Op.70 Souvenir de Florence, Str. Sextet (D Major); Op.71 The Nutcracker, Ballet; Op.71a The Nutcracker, Suite from the Ballet; Op.72 Dix-huit morceaux, Piano; Op.73 Six Songs; Op.74 Symphony No.6 (b minor) ("Pathétique"); Op.75 Piano Concerto No.3 (E-flat Major); Op.76 The Storm, Overture (E Major); Op.77 Fate, Symphonic Poem (c Minor); Op.78 The Voyevoda, Symphonic Ballad (a Minor); Op.79 Andante, Finale, Piano, Orch. (B-flat Major, E-flat Major), unfinished; Op.80 Piano Sonata (c-sharp Minor)

 Works without Opus Numbers

Eugene Onegin, Opera, 1877-78; Mazeppa, Opera, 1881-83; The Maid of Orleans, Opera, 1878-9, revised 1882; Romeo and Juliet, Fantasy Overture after Shakespeare (b Minor) 1869, revised 1870, 1880

 

 

 Pyotr Tchaikovsky was born on May 7, 1840 in Votkinsk, a small town in present-day Udmurtia (at the time the Vyatka Guberniya under Imperial Russia), the son of a mining engineer in the government mines and the second of his three wives, Alexandra, a Russian woman of French ancestry. He was the older brother (by some ten years) of the dramatist, librettist and translator Modest Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Musically precocious, Pyotr began piano lessons at the age of five, and in a few months was already proficient at Friedrich Kalkbrenner's composition Le Fou. In 1850, his father was appointed director of the St Petersburg Technological Institute. There, the young Tchaikovsky obtained an excellent general education at the School of Jurisprudence, and furthered his instruction on the piano with the director of the music library. Also during this time, he made the acquaintance of the Italian master Luigi Piccioli, who influenced the young man away from German music, and encouraged the love of Rossini, Bellini, and Donizetti. His father indulged Tchaikovsky's interest in music by funding studies with Rudolph Kündinger, a well-known piano teacher from Nuremberg. Under Kündinger, Tchaikovsky's aversion to German music was overcome, and a lifelong affinity with the music of Mozart was seeded. When his mother died of cholera in 1854, the 14-year-old composed a waltz in her memory.
Tchaikovsky left school in 1859 and received employment as an under-secretary in the Ministry of Justice, where he soon joined the Ministry's choral group. In 1861, he befriended a fellow civil servant who had studied with Nikolai Zaremba, who urged him to resign his position and pursue his studies further. Not ready to give up employment, Tchaikovsky agreed to begin lessons in musical theory with Zaremba. The following year, when Zaremba joined the faculty of the new St Petersburg Conservatory, Tchaikovsky followed his teacher and enrolled, but still did not give up his post at the ministry, until his father consented to support him. From 1862 to 1865, Tchaikovsky studied harmony, counterpoint and the fugue with Zaremba, and instrumentation and composition under the director and founder of the Conservatory, Anton Rubinstein, who was both impressed by and envious of Tchaikovsky's talent
Until recent years it had been generally assumed that Tchaikovsky died of cholera after drinking contaminated water. However, a controversial theory published in 1980 by Aleksandra Orlova and based only on oral history (i.e., without documentary evidence), explains Tchaikovsky's death as a suicide.

In this account, Tchaikovsky committed suicide by consuming small doses of arsenic following an attempt to blackmail him over his homosexuality. His alleged death by cholera (whose symptoms have some similarity with arsenical poisoning) is supposed to have been a cover for this suicide.