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60 free Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky trivia quiz covers the composer of Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, the 1812 Overture and the Pathétique. The easy questions cover the nationality, the ballets, the cannon-firing overture, the patroness he never met and the mysterious death at 53. From there it moves through the life: the French governess, the piano lessons at five, the law school in Saint Petersburg, the three years at the Ministry of Justice, the first conservatory class, the professorship at 50 rubles a month, the disastrous marriage of 1877 and the thirteen-year correspondence with Nadezhda von Meck. The harder end covers the Mighty Handful, Nikolai Rubinstein's tantrum over the First Piano Concerto, the operas he burned, the Order of Saint Vladimir, the pension from the Tsar, the Carnegie Hall opening, the Cambridge doctorate, the critic who said his Violin Concerto 'stinks', the whole-tone scale, and the cemetery where he lies beside Borodin and Mussorgsky. Every answer was checked against Tchaikovsky's encyclopaedia entry before publishing and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. Our Nutcracker and classical music quizzes are the natural next stop.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which small town in the Russian Empire was Tchaikovsky born in 1840?
Votkinsk
His father managed the ironworks there as an engineer in the Department of Mines.
Q 02To which musical period does Tchaikovsky belong?
The Romantic
He was the first Russian composer whose music made a lasting impression internationally.
Q 03Tchaikovsky's great-grandfather Fyodor Chaika fought at which decisive clash of 1709?
Poltava
He was a Zaporozhian Cossack; the composer's grandfather was later city governor of Glazov.
Q 04What was the name of the French governess hired in 1844 who saved Tchaikovsky's earliest compositions?
Fanny Dürbach
By six he was fluent in French and German; her affection reportedly made up for his mother's coldness.
Q 05At what age did Tchaikovsky begin piano lessons?
Five
Within three years he read sheet music as well as his teacher, Maria Palchikova.
Q 06What orchestra-imitating barrel organ did Tchaikovsky's parents buy for the household?
An orchestrion
They encouraged his piano playing for both aesthetic and practical reasons.
Q 07For which career was Tchaikovsky educated at the Imperial School of Jurisprudence in Saint Petersburg?
Civil servant
Musical careers in Russia then ranked with peasants; there was no public music education system.
Q 08How far from his family was the ten-year-old Tchaikovsky sent to boarding school?
About 1,300 kilometres
The separation left lifelong trauma, deepened when his mother died of cholera when he was 14.
Q 09What did Tchaikovsky's mother die of in 1854, prompting his first serious composition?
Cholera
He wrote a waltz in her memory; his father caught the same disease and recovered.
Q 10In which branch of government did Tchaikovsky work for three years after graduating in 1859?
The Ministry of Justice
He rose from titular counselor to senior assistant within eight months and stayed there.
Q 11Which pianist and composer co-founded the Russian Musical Society and taught Tchaikovsky composition?
Anton Rubinstein
He called Tchaikovsky 'a composer of genius' but refused to perform his First Symphony without changes.
Q 12Tchaikovsky's conservatory thesis, which won a silver medal, was a cantata on which text?
Schiller's 'Ode to Joy'
He was in the Saint Petersburg Conservatory's very first class in 1862.
Q 13What was Tchaikovsky's monthly salary as Professor of Music Theory at the new Moscow Conservatory?
50 rubles
Nikolai Rubinstein offered the post; the money was poor but the offer boosted his morale.
Q 21Which Gogol story is the basis of Tchaikovsky's opera Vakula the Smith, which won a competition in 1874?
Christmas Eve
Rimsky-Korsakov later set the same story after Tchaikovsky's death.
Q 22Whom did Tchaikovsky marry in 1877, in a union that lasted about two and a half months?
Antonina Miliukova, a former student
He never blamed her for the failure, and the debacle may have forced him to face his sexuality.
Q 23Which Belgian soprano did Tchaikovsky consider marrying in 1868, later calling her his only love?
Désirée Artôt
Q 14Which famous conductor led the first public performance of a Tchaikovsky work, in 1865?
Johann Strauss II
It was in Pavlovsk Park; the piece later went into his opera The Voyevoda as Dances of the Hay Maidens.
Q 15How did Tchaikovsky the critic describe Wagner's Das Rheingold?
'Unlikely nonsense' with sparkling details
He praised Beethoven, thought Brahms overrated and criticised Schumann's orchestration.
Q 16What was the nationalist group of five Russian composers with whom Tchaikovsky had a mixed relationship?
The Mighty Handful
Balakirev, Cui, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Borodin; they wholeheartedly embraced his Romeo and Juliet.
Q 17On which work, his first recognised masterpiece, did Tchaikovsky collaborate with Balakirev in 1869?
The Romeo and Juliet fantasy-overture
His Second Symphony, the 'Little Russian', was also welcomed by the nationalist camp.
Q 18Which pianist premiered Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto after a Moscow colleague savaged it?
Hans von Bülow
Rubinstein later changed his mind; a 1992 critic still called the concerto 'entirely hollow'.
Q 19What did Tchaikovsky do with the manuscripts of his first two operas, The Voyevoda and Undina?
Destroyed them
He reused parts of both in later works first.
Q 20Why did Tchaikovsky end up writing the words of The Oprichnik himself?
He lost Ostrovsky's draft and was too embarrassed to ask again
He modelled his dramatic technique on Eugène Scribe; Cui savaged the result.
The relationship ended 'owing to various circumstances'.
Q 24Nadezhda von Meck, Tchaikovsky's patroness for 13 years, was the widow of a tycoon in which industry?
Railways
He called her his 'best friend', but they agreed never to meet.
Q 25What unusual condition governed Tchaikovsky's relationship with Nadezhda von Meck?
They agreed never to meet
Her support let him give up teaching and focus entirely on composition.
Q 26Which three works did Tchaikovsky complete abroad in the year after his marriage collapsed?
Eugene Onegin, the Fourth Symphony and the Violin Concerto
Von Meck's allowance let him wander Europe and rural Russia, mostly alone.
Q 27How long did Tchaikovsky take to write the 1812 Overture?
Six weeks
He told von Meck it would be 'very loud and noisy' with 'probably no artistic merits'.
Q 28For what is the 1812 Overture especially well known in performance?
The use of cannon in the score
Tchaikovsky warned conductor Nápravník it might be 'in a style unsuitable for symphony concerts'.
Q 29Tchaikovsky's Piano Trio in A minor is dedicated 'to the memory of a great artist'; who?
Nikolai Rubinstein
It became Tchaikovsky's own elegy at memorial concerts in November 1893.
Q 30Which honour did Alexander III confer on Tchaikovsky in 1884, bringing hereditary nobility?
The Order of Saint Vladimir
It was fourth class, but it was seen as a seal of official approval.