He also took some composing classes with Gabriel Lomakin. He graduated at the age of nineteen and took a job as a bureau clerk. This was the job that was supposed to be that beginning of his official career, however he was already so in love with music that he decided to totally change his course and study music instead. He then met Anton and Nikolai Rubinstein who were both composers. In 1862 Anton opened Russia's first music conservatory, under the sponsorship of the Imperial Russian Music Society. Tchaikovsky was its first composition student. .
According to the Encyclopedia of World Biography, Tchaikovsky's early works were technically sound but were not memorable and Anton made sure that Peter knew that. Anton Rubinstein was demanding and critical, often unrightfully so. Tchaikovsky graduated two years later and was still hurt by Anton's harshness. Tchaikovsky wrote an overture called The Storm and took it to Anton Rubinstein in hopes that he would be impressed with his work and Anton replied that "it was not for the development of imbeciles that he took the time to teach composition"(Lamb). In 1866, Nikolai Rubinstein invited Tchaikovsky to come live with him in Moscow. He also offered him a job as professor of composition at the Moscow Conservatory, which Nikolai had just established. Shortly after Tchaikovsky received the job at the conservatory his father began to have some financial trouble, so Tchaikovsky had to support him self on the.
Beard 3.
measly earnings from the conservatory. He composed his first symphony appropriately titled Symphony No. 1 in 1866. His first symphony is interesting because it mirrors his personal life, he was suffering from insomnia, he felt hammering in his head and he was even hallucinating and some of this can be heard in the music. He attributed all of those problems to composing at night and so he decided that he would never compose at night again.