Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
In 1848 the family moved to St. Petersburg. Tchaikovsky was unhappy and unsettled as he was often separated from his family who moved several times. In 1854 his mother died. He tried to comfort himself by playing music. He spent nine years at the School of Jurisprudence. When he left school, he had to get a job. For four years he worked as a clerk in the Ministry of Justice. Then the composer and pianist Anton Rubinstein helped him to become a music student at the newly opened conservatory in St. Petersburg. He learned to play the flute and the organ as well as the piano and learning all about composition. In 1866 he moved to Moscow where Nikolai Rubinstein, the brother of Anton, encouraged him to write music with a Russian character. He worked very hard, and was often exhausted, but he managed to finish his First Symphony, which was performed in 1868.