Birth of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born on 25 April 1840 in Votkinsk. A Russian composer of the Romantic era, Tchaikovsky studied law before turning to music and teaching at the Moscow Conservatory. He combined Western techniques with Russian melodies in his symphonies, concertos and orchestral works such as the 1812 Overture, and wrote the opera Eugene Onegin. His ballets Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker remain among the most performed in the world. He had a long financial and epistolary relationship with his patron Nadezhda von Meck. He died in Saint Petersburg days after the premiere of his Sixth Symphony, and the cause of his death, usually given as cholera, has been debated.

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