Happy birthday, Pyotr Tchaikovsky - but what about your unhappy end?

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, who was born 179 years ago today (May 7), is regarded by many as the greatest ever Russian composer, and was certainly the first to make a lasting impression globally. He is revered for works such as Romeo and Juliet, the 1812 Overture, and his three ballets: The Nutcracker, Swan Lake, and The Sleeping Beauty.

While there is no doubt about his astonishing abilities - his obituary in The New York Times, reprinted in our book Maestros, Original Obituaries of 101 Great Composers, called him “the  most strikingly original and forceful composer of the day” - there remains controversy about the nature of his death in October 1893.

Tchaikovksy, then a relatively young man of 53, was at the height of his acclaim. In apparent good spirits, he dined with friends at a restaurant in St Petersburg, and requested and drank a glass of unboiled water even though the city was in the midst of a cholera epidemic. He fell ill that night, doctors diagnosed cholera, and he died five days later of kidney failure.

This version of events has since been challenged by several other theories, most of which centre around the composer’s homosexuality. Tchaikovsky had many affairs - with servants, coachmen, musicians, fellow students and even his nephew - and it was this sort of promiscuous behaviour that allegedly led to his death.    

Theory No. 1: He died of cholera, but did not contract it from unboiled water, but by kissing an infected male prostitute.

Theory No. 2: Concealed Suicide. Tchaikovsky intentionally sought to kill himself because he was tormented by unrequited love, and so drank unboiled water in the hope of catching cholera.

Theory No. 3: Forced suicide. Tchaikovsky had entered into a scandalous relationship with a young man from the highest circles of the Russian royal family, and an enraged Tsar gave him an ultimatum to face either a public trial or commit suicide. The composer chose to kill himself, using poison (probably arsenic), supplied by his doctor, that mirrored the symptoms of cholera.

Theory No. 4: Forced suicide, take two. This has it that following the Tsar’s threat of legal action, a “court of honour” was set up by Tchaikovsky’s old classmates at the School of Jurisprudence. Their verdict was that he should commit suicide rather than endure a trial that would bring shame on to the school.

Theory No. 5: He was murdered. His personal physician, acting on the orders of the Tsar, secretly poisoned him.

Although some of these intriguing theories have been written about as “fact” in some musical journals, most are based on little more than hearsay and dubious circumstantial evidence. Proponents of the suicide theory, for example, like to point to the morbid, requiem-like finale of Tchaikovsky’s last work, the Sixth Symphony, as “evidence” of a depressed mind. There’s also no proof of his having upset the Tsar. On the contrary, he enjoyed the personal patronage of Emperor Alexander II, who had granted him a generous pension for life. As for being stigmatised or tormented by his homosexuality, it is unlikely: the composer’s orientation was well known in Russian society, which at the time was relatively relaxed about such matters.

Tchaikovsky was neurotic, highly sensitive and full of phobias (he feared, for instance, that his head would fall off when he was conducting), but also seemed to have come to terms with himself. His main emotional involvement at the time, with his beloved nephew, was a source of stability and spiritual happiness. And after his short-lived attempt at a marriage had failed, he wrote to his brother in 1878: "Only now, especially after the tale of my marriage, have I finally begun to understand that there is nothing more fruitless than not wanting to be that which I am by nature."

You can read Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s original obituary, and those of another 100 great composers, by purchasing Maestros for just £12.99 in paperback here.