Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (, Pjotr Il?i? ?ajkovskij; )Note: His names are also transliterated Piotr, Petr, or Peter; Ilitsch, Ilich, Il'ich or Illyich; and Tschaikowski, Tschaikowsky, Chajkovskij and Chaikovsky (and other versions; Russian transliteration can vary between languages) ( – ) was a Russian composer of the Romantic era. While not part of the nationalistic music group known as "The Five", Tchaikovsky wrote music which was distinctly Russian: plangent, introspective, often modal-sounding. Life Childhood and early manhood Born in Votkinsk, a small town in present-day Udmurtia (at the time the Vyatka Guberniya of Imperial Russia), Tchaikovsky was the son of a government mining engineer and the second of his three wives, Alexandra, a Russian woman of French ancestry. He was the older brother (by some ten years) of the dramatist, librettist, and translator Modest Ilyich Tchaikovs

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