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Ilya Petrovitch Tchaikovsky 1790-1880 The composer's father was a manager of ironworks in the Ural Mountains. "He was a man of unremarkable intellect. Yet, it is clear that the emotional side of [his] character and, in particular, what might frankly be called his sentimentality were developed in him to an exceptional degree"("Quest" 3). Modest, the composer's brother also wrote: "Kindness, or rather an abundance of love, was one of the main traits of his character. In youth, in maturity, and in old age he inavairiable believed in people and loved them. Neither the hard knocks of life nor bitter disappointments nor gray hair could ever quell his ability to see in every person he met an embodiment of all virtue and merit"(qtd. 3). He also had an ardent love for operas and tear would streem down his cheeks during every performance. He loved his family dearly, almost fanatically and never cease to express his emotions. His effusive sentimentality was passed down to the composer. He fell ill and passed away on the Janurary of the year 1880, before the composer could return to see him ("Quest"). return to family tree |
| Mariya Keiser ?-1831 Ilya Petrovitch's first wife. She is the mother of Zinaida, the composer's half sister. return to family tree |
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Aleksandra Andreevna d'Assier 1813-1854 Aleksandra d'Assier, the composer's mother, was Ilya Petrovitch's second wife. Modest, the composer's brother once wrote: "In contrast to her husband, Aleksandra Andreevna, in family life, seldom expressed any warm feeling and was sparing in her who of affection. She was very kind, but her kindness, in comparison with her husband's constant affability toward all the sundry was austere, and was displayed more in action than in words" (qtd. in "Quest" 5). She had a very close relationship with the composer who, in his own words said, "loved [her] with a kind of morbidly passionate love"(qtd. 16) His beloved mother died suddenly of cholera on 13 June 1854, when Tchaikovsky was only 14. Twenty-five years later, the composer wrote: "this was the first powerful grief I experienced. This death had an enormous influence on my own fate and that of my whole family. . . . Every minute of that horrible day is etched in my memory as if it were yesterday."(qtd. 17) return to family tree |
| Elizaveta Mikhailovna Lipport Ilya Petrovitch's third wife was married to him in 1865, when the composer was 25. The composer duly repected her but her presence could not replace the strange intimacy he had with his birth mother, Aleksandra. Elizaveta was not in good terms with Zinaida, Tchaikovsky's half-sister by Mariya Keiser. return to family tree |
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1998-9 by Gretchen Lamb |