The episode features hosts Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook presenting a live show at the Royal Albert Hall on May 4th with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Oliver Zeffman, focusing on the life and music of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

The show explores Tchaikovsky's life from his birth in 1840 in Russia's Ural region through his unexpected path from civil servant to composer, his complex personal life including his sexuality and brief marriage, and his rise to become Russia's most celebrated composer under Tsar Alexander III.

Musical performances throughout include excerpts from Swan Lake, the song 'None But the Lonely Heart' performed by Marta Fontenelle-Simmons, the violin concerto's third movement, selections from The Nutcracker, and the 1812 Overture, all illustrating key moments in Tchaikovsky's career and emotional life.

Tchaikovsky's Early Life and Musical Awakening

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born in 1840 in Votkinsk in Russia's Ural region, where his father Ilya managed local ironworks and the family employed servants. His mother's family were French Huguenots who had fled to Russia as refugees, and young Tchaikovsky had a French governess who described him as 'as brittle as porcelain, a child of glass.'

Tchaikovsky's love of music began when his father returned from St. Petersburg with an orchestrion, a barrel organ that mimicked an entire orchestra. The young Tchaikovsky fell in love with Mozart through this device, and Mozart became his great hero throughout his life.

At age 12, Tchaikovsky was sent to boarding school in St. Petersburg to train as a civil servant, wearing military uniform and swearing an oath to 'God, throne, and motherland.' He worked from 6 AM to 10 PM daily until age 19, when he became an administrative assistant at the Ministry of Justice.

At age 21, Tchaikovsky's father encouraged him to abandon civil service for music, telling him 'this civil servant thing, it's obviously not you.' Perfect timing arrived when St. Petersburg's first musical conservatory opened in 1862, and Tchaikovsky became one of its first students, growing his hair long and adopting more raffish clothes.

Sexuality and Relationships in Imperial Russia

Tchaikovsky's first love was likely another student at the School of Jurisprudence, Sergey Kireyev, probably an adoration from afar. His first physical relationship was with fellow student Alexei Apuktin, who became a poet, and this was the first of many relationships with men throughout his life.

While Tsar Peter the Great had decreed the death penalty for homosexuality in the army in 1706, and Nicholas I in 1832 declared civilians would be sent to Siberia, these punishments were rarely carried out. In 19th-century Russia, homosexuality was seen as a taste rather than an identity, and prosecution was unlikely for those with money and connections.

Throughout his life, only one newspaper article in 1878 hinted at scandal, muttering darkly about teachers' love affairs at the Moscow Conservatory. Despite visiting gay brothels and cruising in parks, Tchaikovsky made no secret of his affection for handsome young men.

Tchaikovsky often fell for much younger males, including 14-year-old musical prodigy Vladimir Shilovsky and 15-year-old music student Eduard Zak. After Zak took his own life, Tchaikovsky fell into deep depression, though the details remain murky due to Soviet censorship. One biographer notes 'you sense the presence of a complex and intense psychodrama that is almost entirely hidden from view.'

In 1876, Tchaikovsky fell in love with 21-year-old violinist Josef Kotek, writing to his brother Modeste (who was also gay): 'When, for hours on end, I hold his hand in my own, passion rages within me with unimaginable force. My voice shakes like that of a youth, and I speak a load of nonsense.'

The Disastrous Marriage to Antonina Milyakova

In 1868, Tchaikovsky had proposed to soprano Désirée Artôt, and she accepted, but the engagement quickly fizzled out and she married someone else. Then in 1877, he began receiving letters from Antonina Milyakova, a former music student who had developed a crush on him despite Tchaikovsky having completely forgotten her.

At their second meeting, Tchaikovsky recklessly asked Antonina to marry him. She immediately accepted, and he instantly thought 'I have made a huge mistake.' At their Moscow wedding in July 1877, when the priest said 'you may kiss the bride,' Tchaikovsky responded by bursting into tears.

On their wedding night, Tchaikovsky took a massive sedative and went straight to sleep, leaving Antonina confused. A few days later, he wrote to his brother: 'I find my wife absolutely repulsive.' He then fled to the countryside, leaving Antonina behind.

During what should have been his honeymoon, Tchaikovsky traveled to Paris, Florence, Rome, and Vienna, desperately avoiding his wife. During this period, he wrote his violin concerto, inspired by his love for violinist Josef Kotek, which received one of the worst reviews in classical music history from Viennese critic Eduard Hanslick, who said listening to it 'was like being in hell.'

Tchaikovsky and Antonina never consummated their marriage and never got back together. They separated but didn't divorce, though he provided financial help. Antonina later went mad and ended up in a lunatic asylum, a tragic outcome for someone who had simply been a superfan.

Rise to National Celebrity Under the Tsar

In the 1880s, Tchaikovsky became a massive national and international celebrity, composing symphonies, concertos, and ballets. This success coincided with Russia's culturally rich and self-confident period, despite brewing political issues that would culminate in revolution.

Tsar Alexander III, a massive reactionary, promoted the idea that Russia was distinct from Europe due to its Slavic history and identity. He valued Tchaikovsky as a distinctly Russian composer borrowing from traditional folk melodies, despite similar nationalist movements happening across Europe with composers like Sibelius and later Vaughan Williams.

In 1884, Alexander III invited Tchaikovsky to St. Petersburg to receive the Order of St. Vladimir, an extraordinary honor for a composer. The Tsar gave him a ring as a personal present and a lifetime pension, demonstrating how highly Tchaikovsky was valued.

Tchaikovsky became a star in America, conducting at Carnegie Hall in 1890. What impressed him most was the telephone in his hotel - he couldn't stop talking about it and kept ringing reception just to try it out.

Upon returning from America, Tchaikovsky composed The Nutcracker, one of his most joyous and celebrated works. The ballet, about a wooden nutcracker doll that comes to life at Christmas, was first performed in St. Petersburg in December 1892 when Tchaikovsky was 52 and at the peak of his powers.

Death by Cholera or Conspiracy in 1893

On October 10, 1893, Tchaikovsky arrived in St. Petersburg to stay with his brother Modeste during a cholera outbreak. The city, founded by Peter the Great on marshy, boggy land, was notoriously unhealthy and plagued by cholera, with restaurants ordered to boil all water.

Ten days into his stay, on October 20, Tchaikovsky went to a restaurant on Nevsky Prospect and asked for water. When told they'd run out of boiled water, he said 'I don't want to wait. I'm very thirsty. I'm sure it's fine. Just bring me a glass of unboiled water.' The next day he felt unwell but refused to call a doctor.

Three days later, doctors confirmed it was serious. At 3 AM on October 25, 1893, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky died of kidney failure at age 52. His funeral was the first commoner's funeral ever held at Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg, with 60,000 people applying for tickets.

British historian David Brown suggested Tchaikovsky took poison under pressure from old schoolmates who convened a 'court of honor,' threatening to expose his sex life unless he took 'the decent way out.' However, Dominic Sandbrook finds this unconvincing, noting Tchaikovsky was 'on Cloud 9' after finishing his sixth symphony.

The conspiracy theories likely arose because people struggled with the idea that an international celebrity could die from cholera, a disease of the urban poor. The boiled water story, bizarre as it is, is probably true, and Tchaikovsky most likely did die from cholera.

Legacy as Russia's Greatest Composer

Tchaikovsky is undoubtedly Russia's most beloved composer and arguably its greatest. While some critics dismissed him as lightweight or too audience-friendly, the comparison with Mozart is apt - nobody since Mozart could do so many different things so quickly and skillfully.

Tchaikovsky came to represent the musical idea of Russia itself. He wrote 'I have never come across anyone more in love with Mother Russia than me. I love Russian people, the Russian language, the Russian way of thinking. I love the sacred legends of the dim and distant past. I love it all.'

His 1812 Overture, commissioned in 1880 for the opening of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, captures Russian patriotism. The cathedral memorialized Russian sacrifices in defeating Napoleon's 1812 invasion, and the overture features Russian Orthodox melodies, folk tunes, the Marseillaise, bells, gunfire, and literal cannons.