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Tchaikovsky
was the second son (of five sons and a daughter - as well as an elder half-sister)
of well-to-do parents in the 19th-century Russia familiar to readers of
Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Pushkin and Chekhov. His father was the chief mining
engineer in a remote region of the country, which accorded him and his
family the highest social rank in the community. It was expected that Tchaikovsky
would study a profession (his elder brother took mining; Pyotr was to take
the law) and become a respectable citizen. Unfortunately for him (but fortunately
for us), the young boy was practically possessed by music and, despite
some initial discouragement, grew up to play the piano exceedingly well.
The effect which music had on him can be illustrated perhaps by one anecdote:
when he was six or seven and could not get to the piano, he used to drum
with his fingers on the window panes as a means of releasing the musical
tension he felt. On one of these occasions, he drummed so hard that he
cut himself badly when the glass broke under the stress!
At the age of twelve, the family settled in St. Petersburg and he enrolled in law school. He survived the emotional trauma of the death of his mother two years later and graduated at age 19. But his heart was not in the law and soon afterwards he joined the conservatory of music.
The story of his disastrous marriage and, later, the patronage of Nadezhda von Meck are well known aspects of his unhappy middle life. But by 1891, all that was behind him and he had completed five of his six symphonies, the opera Eugene Onegin, the ballets Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty and so many of his other great compositions, that his fame had not only spread to New York, but was, according to his own observations, greater there even than in his own country. It's not surprising then that, for the inauguration of Carnegie Hall on May 5th, he was invited to conduct some of his own work. Two months earlier, he had begun work on the Nutcracker, though without much enthusiasm, it seems. The subject of the ballet which, along with the music itself, has made it probably the number one classical music attraction in the western world did not apparently make a favorable impression with him at first. The transatlantic trip (including some time in Germany and France) was originally to have taken about 10 weeks, and he was not very excited at the prospect of being away from home so long, nor of the two long Atlantic voyages which in those days took about seven days rather than the seven hours we expect today. Indeed, when he arrived in New York and was told that he was to conduct also in Philadelphia and Baltimore, he was dismayed and almost refused to agree to the extension. Nevertheless, the American tour was a great success and he realized himself that his own reputation had benefited greatly from it.
On his return, Tchaikovsky was busy working on Nutcracker as well as Yolanta, a new opera which was to share a double-bill premier with it the following year. Whether or not any influence from the United States was felt in the composition of the new ballet, I cannot say, but it is fitting that the piece is so very popular here on the East coast one hundred years later. While in Paris on his way to New York, Tchaikovsky had been much impressed by a new musical invention, the celeste. Shortly after his return, he resolved to order the new instrument for use in the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, under much secrecy lest Rimsky-Korsakov or Glazounov might "smell it out and take advantage of its unusual effects before me". As always, he had deep misgivings of his abilities and confided in his brother Modest that the new ballet was "definitely inferior to Sleeping Beauty". But, once the music was reasonably complete, Tchaikovsky took the (then) unusual step of publishing an orchestral suite of the music in advance of the full ballet. It was a very smart move and helped to establish the great popularity the piece enjoys today. In December 1892, the premier was given, to rather mixed reviews. The composer himself felt that Yolanta was the better received and complained of the usual poor treatment by the critics. Nutcracker itself was considered by many to be too long and over-sumptuous.
Sadly, and while still in his prime, Tchaikovsky succumbed, like his mother before him, to cholera the following year. We can only guess at what he might have accomplished had he lived longer, or of what his reaction might be now if he were able to return to the United States and attend one of the many packed performances of the Nutcracker enjoyed at this time of year!
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