"Spanning the years 1861 to 1893, from two months before his twenty-first birthday to six weeks before his death in Moscow at the age of fifty-three, this collection of nearly seven hundred letters traces the life of the great Russian composer Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893), best known for Romeo and Juliet (1869), Swan Lake (1877), 1812 Overture (1880), and The Nutcracker (1892).

These letters offer unique and initimate insights into the composer's life and shed light on the social and political climate in which he lived. Tchaikovsky discusses both his own music and that of his contemporaries, as well as literature, art, and, in a long missive, his reactions to the New World. This volume offers a revelatory look at a man universally acknowledged as one of the masters of classical music."--BOOK JACKET.