began as a cultivated amateur who showed no special musical
gifts, save a sensitive nature and a general fondness for the art.
He studied in the school of jurisprudence and won a post in the
Ministry of Justice. In 1861, however, his musical nature awak-
ing with a bound, he gave up all official work and for the sake of
art faced a life of poverty. Under the teaching of Nicholas Ru-
binstein at the Petrograd Conservatory he made such amazing
progress that in five years he himself was Professor of Harmony
at Moscow and had begun his long series of compositions—at
first operas of merely local fame. There now followed years
of great activity spent in teaching and composing—well-known
works being the first String Quartet and the Pianoforte Con-
certo in B-flat minor, first performed by von Bülow at Boston
in ’88. At this period his health completely broke down, the
immediate cause being an unhappy marriage. He finally ral-
lied but had to travel abroad for a year, and for the rest of his
life his temper, never bright, was overcast with gloom. There
now entered Tchaikowsky’s life Frau von Meck, the woman who
played the part of fairy godmother. She greatly admired his
music, was wealthy and generous and, that he might have en-
tire leisure for composition, settled upon him a liberal annuity.
Their relationship is one of the most remarkable in the annals of
art; for, fearing that the ideal would be shattered, they met but
once, quite by accident, and Tchaikowsky was “acutely embar-
rassed.” We have a lengthy and impassioned correspondence,
and Tchaikowsky’s 4th Symphony, dedicated “à mon meilleur
ami,” is the result of this friendship. In 1891, invited to New
York for the dedication of Carnegie Hall, he made his mem-
orable American tour. His success was genuine, and was the
beginning of the popularity his music has always enjoyed in this
country. For several years Tchaikowsky had been working at his
Sixth Symphony, to which he himself gave the distinctive title
“Pathetic.” This work ends with one of the saddest dirges in
all literature, although Tchaikowsky, during its composition, as
we know from his letters, had never been in a happier state of
mind or worked more passionately and freely. He himself says,
“I consider it the best, especially the most open-hearted of all
my works.” When, however, he suddenly died in 1893, there
were rumors of suicide, but it is now definitely settled that his
death was caused by cholera.[306]
[Footnote 306: The writer had this statement from the lips of
Tchaikowsky’s own brother, Modeste.]