Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky bust statue

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893) gave Russia its first composer of fully European stature — Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty, the 1812 Overture, six symphonies, and a body of song that still moves audiences a century and a half later. A tormented private life and a death of typhoid (or perhaps suicide) at fifty-three have only deepened the mystery of one of the most beloved composers in the canon.