Even if you aren’t a classical music fan or actively listen to Tchaikovsky’s music, you’ve absolutely heard his compositions.

They shared the same birthday —May 7 — but that was about all. Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Johannes Brahms simply understood, felt and composed music very differently, and judged each other’s work ...

Throughout his life, Tchaikovsky wrote several famous concerti, including one for the violin and three for the piano. As his career developed, he had promised to write a cello concerto. During this ...

Tchaikovsky's father was a successful mining engineer while his mother was the artistic, sensitive one, French by birth, and a good linguist. Pyotr was the second of her six children. He had a good ...

Pyotr Tchaikovsky wrote music for the soul. Yet The Nutcracker – the balletic equivalent of a Terry's Chocolate Orange – has seemingly few claims to profundity. Snowflakes and Sugar Plum Fairies are ...

Renee Montagne talks with Miles Hoffman about the history of Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker Suite. Hoffman is the violist of the American Chamber Players, and authored The NPR Classical Music Companion.

Ivan Hewett is The Telegraph’s Classical Music Critic and an author whose works include Music: Healing The Rift, a personal history of modern music. He has been involved in music as a composer, ...

Russia’s war in Ukraine has cast a deep shadow this year over the International Tchaikovsky Competition, one of the ...