Music appreciation - Tchaikovsky part 1

I am not wholeheartedly a pro-classical person.
Some classical songs are really not interesting and put you to sleep easily.
So I'll pick some composer piece that everyone would prefer.
I'll start with Tchaikovsky.
When I still a junior in KL FeiYang, I remember one of the conductors(don't remember who was it) said this :"We must listen to Tchaikovsky songs more often because we are always exposed to his compositions"
Well, Tchaikovsky compositions did pay more attention to brass part though.Ok, correct me if I'm wrong.

Full name: Peter (Pyotr) Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Birthplace: Kamsko-Votkinsk (Vyatka province),Russia
Interesting facts: He is a gay and parents are not musicians

I'll start a pretty long essay, good to read and best to remember.

Among the best known of the works he produced during little more than a quarter of a century are the ballets Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker etc.
His compositions are constant be used in Disney cartoon series.
Walts from The Sleeping Beauty was used in Disney's Sleeping Beauty.
Sang by Aurora in forest with her animal friends:
I know you~~I've danced with you in once upon a dream~~
I know you~~....I don't know any further lyric *wink*

*interesting trivia: Most Disney princesses sing with animals except for Belle from Beauty and The Beast, she sings with kitchen utensils, clock and furnitures*

As for swan lake, it's a very famous tune.
Listen to S.H.E - Remember's chorus part.

His musical talent manifested itself early, and he took piano lessons, first in Votkinsk and then in St. Petersburg, where the family moved in 1848.
Educated for a career in the civil service, he broke away to follow an inner calling to become a composer, and graduated with a silver medal from the St. Petersburg Conservatory in 1865.

Tchaikovsky suffered greatly from the secrecy to which his homosexuality condemned him in the society of his day, and an ill-advised marriage with a woman he hardly knew ended quickly in a nervous breakdown for him and a permanent separation for both.
A close, long-term relationship with his wealthy patroness, Nadezhda von Meck, was carried out entirely by correspondence.

Despite his depressive, self-pitying nature, he was a polyglot who traveled as far afield as the United States, where he participated in the opening of Carnegie Hall in 1891.
In 1893 he conducted a triumphant performance of his Fourth Symphony at a Royal Philharmonic concert in London and received an honorary doctorate in Cambridge.
His death, in St. Petersburg on 6 November, was probably a suicide, but the story that it was provoked by a threat to reveal his liaison with a young aristocrat has not been substantiated. Professionally, Tchaikovsky experienced both fame and reproach in his lifetime, but his enduring, worldwide popularity came only posthumously.

I can't post up all of his songs one shot, so for today we'll listen to Dance of The Reeds from The Nutcracker.
(The Nutcracker consist a lot of other compositions but my Imeem gone cuckoo, I just able to upload Dance of the Reeds.
My apology, I'll post them up in part 2 perhaps.)

It's a pretty lively piece played by 2 pianist on 2 pianos.