He was born April 25, 1840, at Votinsk, in the Government of Viatka, in the Ural district. He died November 5, 1893, at St. Petersburg.
In May, 1891, Tschaïkowsky, at the invitation of Mr. Walter Damrosch, visited America and appeared in the series of festival concerts with which Carnegie Hall was opened. The composer conducted his third suite, his first piano concerto in B flat minor, the piano part taken by Adele Aus der Ohe, and two a capella choruses. He subsequently visited other cities, and was everywhere received with enthusiasm.
Tschaïkowsky’s last notable public appearance was in the summer of 1893, when he conducted some of his own works at Oxford, and received the degree of Doctor of Music from the University.
II
In 1877 Tschaïkowsky became engaged to a lady whom he had met at the house of her relatives sixteen or seventeen years previously.
That he married her was known to few, and the musical world was surprised at the mention of a wife Antonina in the composer’s will. She received an annuity, but not a liberal one, and perhaps that is the reason she disclosed the history of the curious courtship and marriage of Peter Ilyitch Tschaïkowsky.
He was constitutionally timid, and morbid in his dislike of women; his friends advised marriage. But he was nervous and moody and in no hurry, yet when Antonina told him that she intended to study at the Conservatory he said:
“It were better that you married!”
Peter hung fire, and Antonina, who had secretly loved him for four years, finally, after much church going and prayer vigils, determined to assist her modest friend—suitor he was not. She wrote him a letter proposing marriage, which he answered, and of all their acquaintance this seems to have been the happiest time. She must have had a good literary style, for Peter praised it, and finally called on her. He spoke of his gray hairs, but never mentioned hers, although she was at least thirty-four—he was seven years her senior. She answered that merely to sit near him and hear him talk or play was all she asked. Again he hesitated and begged for a day’s grace. The next time he saw her he said he had never loved; that he was too old to love, but as she was the first woman he had ever met that had pleased him he would make a proposition. It was this: If a brotherly love and union would satisfy her ideal of mated life he would consent to a marriage. After this coy proposal the matter was debated in a perfectly calm manner, and as he left her he asked:
“Well?” She threw her arms about his neck, and he hastily fled.