THE 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL MUSICIANS OF ALL TIME

7 The 100 Most Influential Musicians of All Time 7

Earlier that year, Tchaikovsky had completed the compo-
sition of Swan Lake, which was the first in his famed trilogy
of ballets. The ballet’s premiere took place on Feb. 20,
1877, but it was not a success owing to poor staging and
choreography.
The growing popularity of Tchaikovsky’s music both
within and outside of Russia inevitably resulted in public
interest in him and his personal life. Although homosexuality
was officially illegal in Russia, the authorities tolerated it
among the upper classes. But social and familial pressures,
as well as his discomfort with the fact that his younger
brother Modest was exhibiting the same sexual tendencies,
led to Tchaikovsky’s hasty decision in the summer of 1877
to marry Antonina Milyukova, a young and naive music
student who had declared her love for him. Tchaikovsky’s
homosexuality, combined with an almost complete lack of
compatibility between the couple, resulted in matrimonial
disaster—within weeks he fled abroad, never again to live
with his wife. This experience forced Tchaikovsky to
recognize that he could not find respectability through
social conventions and that his sexual orientation could
not be changed.
The year 1876 saw the beginning of the extraordinary
relationship that developed between Tchaikovsky and
Nadezhda von Meck, the widow of a wealthy railroad
tycoon; it became an important component of their lives
for the next 14 years. A great admirer of his work, she chose
to become his patroness and eventually arranged for him
a regular monthly allowance; this enabled him in 1878
to resign from the conservatory and devote his efforts to
writing music. Thereafter he could afford to spend the
winters in Europe and return to Russia each summer.
The period after Tchaikovsky’s departure from Moscow
proved creatively very productive. Early in 1878 he finished
several of his most famous compositions—the opera