Tchaikovsky was born at Walkinsk in 1840, the son of a Russian engineer, a superintendent of mines in the Ural district. When his father was made director of the Technological Institute of St. Petersburg, the young man entered the School of Jurisprudence, and on his graduation was appointed to a place in the Ministry of Justice. But his passion for music, which had had some desultory training, burst out with domineering activity when the St. Petersburg Conservatoire was opened in 1862 through the initiatory of Rubinstein. Russian genius, repressed in so many directions, tended to pour itself out ardently through the channel of music. Glinka, who died in 1851, at the age of fifty, in spite of something amateurish in his voluminous work, had impressed himself noticeably on the music of his nation and period in the two operas, "La Vie pour le Czar" and "Russian et Ludmilla"; and Rubinstein had begun to be widely admired as player and composer.

Tchaikovsky at once resigned his state appointment and entered the Conservatoire, where he studied harmony and counterpoint under Zaremba and composition under Anton Rubinstein. In 1865 he was awarded the prize medal for a cantata on Schiller's ode, "An die Freude," and the following year he was appointed Professor of Harmony, Composition, and Musical History at the Moscow Conservatoire, at the request of Nicholas Rubinstein. Here he remained for twelve years, since which time he devoted himself solely to composition and conducting, dividing his life between Russia, Italy, and Switzerland, with frequent visits to England, where he was honored with cordial appreciation and received the degree of Mus. Doc. in June, 1893, from the University of Cambridge. He visited the United States in 1891 and conducted several of his own symphonies in New York and other leading cities. The composer died, in the very prime of his creative powers, at St. Petersburg, November 6, 1893, from an attack of cholera.

Like most of the Slavic composers, though following all the traditions of the German school in form, Tchaikovsky shows a lack of that severity of culture and compressed force which make the works of the greater German composers matchless as masterpieces of art in instrumental composition. There is always something naive and impulsive in his most ambitious efforts, which, if it tends to diffuseness, also steeps his subjects with extraordinary poetic charm. As has been previously noted, Tchaikovsky makes lavish use of Russian folk-song and dances, and his ingenuity in transmuting these gives ample proof of his skill as a musician and his intense susceptibility to lyric as well as to symphonic effects. The richness of the melody, the fantastic outlines, bold modulations, strongly accented rhythms, and a certain gorgeousness of orchestral coloring stamp his instrumental works with genuine originality and freshness. Of his six symphonies, four have been performed in this country, two of them frequently, by the great orchestras. In addition to these he wrote many overtures and works for the piano-forte, much chamber music, and numerous songs—solo and part, as well as choral pieces. Of his ten operas, only one—"Eugeny Onegin," produced in London in 1891—seems ever to have been put on the stage out of Russia. Tchaikovsky’s death was an unmistakable loss to the music of the world, as his resources in his later compositions indicated increasing breadth and depth of artistic handling.