Painted portrait of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1888, short white hair and a trimmed grey beard, dark buttoned jacket and white collar, against a dusk ultramarine blue ground

Portraits · Composers · II of XVII

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

1840–1893 · Composer

Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann, composed their immortal works just as a cobbler makes a pair of boots — by daily work …

Моцарт, Бетховен, Шуберт, Мендельсон, Шуман сочиняли свои бессмертные творения совершенно так, как сапожник шьёт свои сапоги, т. е. изо дня в день и по большей части по заказу.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky · letter to a grand duke, 1890
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Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky wrote this in May 1890 to Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, himself a poet, about art and craftsmanship. Ever since he began to compose, he said, he had tried to work as the great masters did: as the cobbler works at his trade.

Twelve years earlier, in May and June 1878, he wrote his Liturgy of St John Chrysostom.

Letter to Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, Frolovskoye, 18/30 May 1890. Modeste Tchaikovsky, The Life & Letters of Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky, ed. and trans. Rosa Newmarch (London: John Lane, 1906), p. 607. Russian: Tchaikovsky Research, Letter 4114 (autograph: Pushkin House, St Petersburg); first printed in M. Tchaikovsky, Zhizn' P. I. Chaikovskogo, vol. 3 (1902).

The originals

Black-and-white photograph of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1888, short white hair and a trimmed grey beard, dark jacket, looking slightly to the side
The likenessPHOTOGRAPHED BY ÉMILE REUTLINGER · 1888Our portrait is painted after it.Public domain (photograph taken in Paris in 1888, published 1904; Reutlinger died 1907). Wikimedia Commons; NYPL Digital Gallery 1158492. Cabinet-card mount, studio name and a purple stamp cropped away.
A handwritten choral score in brown ink, four voices over a piano part, with the Russian words 'Lord, have mercy' repeated under the notes
Liturgy of St John Chrysostom, 1878Written in May and June 1878 for unaccompanied choir; the lower staves are his piano part for rehearsals. The voices answer 'Lord, have mercy' again and again.Autograph score, No. 1, 1878. Russian National Museum of Music, Moscow (f. 88, No. 124). Public domain, Wikimedia Commons (from culture.ru).