Tchaikovsky was a Russian composer who wrote some of the most loved classical music, including the 1812 Overture and the classical ballets Romeo and Juliet, The Nutcracker and The Sleeping Beauty, lived from 1840 – 1843.
Russian censors have for many years removed any references to the composer being gay. Former Russian Culture Minister Vladamir Medinsky has insisted that the composer was heterosexual, but the composer left behind thousands of letters he wrote during his lifetime that indicate otherwise.
Tchaikovsky was born on this day in 1840 in Votkinsk, as small town near the banks of the Kama River. He learned the piano from childhood, but his first career was as a civil servant. He later gained a place in the Conservatorium of Music.
When he was 37, he married a former student Antonina Miliukova but it proved to be a short-lived union that the composer left after just two months.
He died in St Petersberg in 1893, just nine days after the premiere of his Sixth Symphony. His death was attributed to cholera, contacted through un-boiled drinking water at a restaurant, but there has also been speculation it was due to long term use of alcohol and tobacco, or that the composer may have even injected poison intentionally.
HIs music has lived on, and he remains one of the most played classical composers.
