Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory

On Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street in the center of Moscow stands the Conservatory bearing the name of P. I. Tchaikovsky — Russia’s oldest and most authoritative institution of musical education. Founded in 1866, it became the country’s second conservatory after the one in St. Petersburg and has shaped the reputation of the Russian performing and composing school for a century and a half. The building, with its Great Hall and Small Hall, has long been one of the capital’s leading concert venues.

The idea of opening a professional music school in Moscow was first voiced in 1819 by Friedrich Scholz, conductor of the Bolshoi Theatre, but it received no support. Matters moved forward in 1860, when the pianist Nikolai Rubinstein organized music classes at the Moscow branch of the Russian Musical Society. Lessons were held first in Rubinstein’s apartment, then in a rented house on Mokhovaya Street; as the number of students grew, the classes were transformed into a conservatory in 1866 — the opening took place on 1 September. Among the first teachers was Pyotr Tchaikovsky, who taught a course in elementary music theory.

The plot for the future building was acquired in 1766 by Princess Yekaterina Dashkova, later president of the Academy of Sciences; the house built for her to a design by Vasily Bazhenov later passed to Count Mikhail Vorontsov, a hero of 1812. After that year’s fire the mansion was restored, and in the 1890s it was decided to erect a new conservatory building on the site, to a design by the architect Vasily Zagorsky, who waived his fee and paid for the marble for the grand staircases out of his own pocket. The foundation was laid in 1895, the Small Hall opened in 1898, and the decoration of the Great Hall was completed by April 1901.

The Great Hall is one of the largest concert halls in the country; originally designed to seat more than two thousand listeners, it now holds about 1,700 people. It is distinguished by exceptional acoustics, achieved through a double ceiling with an air gap and a stage shell that reflects sound into the hall. In 1901 an organ by the Paris firm Cavaillé-Coll — one of the largest in the world — was installed here. The walls are decorated with portraits of composers: Glinka, Tchaikovsky, Bach, Beethoven, Wagner, and Mendelssohn, with Rimsky-Korsakov, Chopin, and Mussorgsky added in 1954.

On 7 May 1940 the Conservatory was given the name of Pyotr Tchaikovsky, and named scholarships were established for gifted composition students. In 1954 a monument to Tchaikovsky was unveiled in front of the Great Hall’s façade. On 18 March 1958 the First International Tchaikovsky Competition began here — later one of the most prestigious musical competitions in the world, which determined the institution’s international standing for decades to come.

Besides the Great and Small Halls, the complex also houses the Rachmaninoff Hall, built in 1890, the Myaskovsky Hall, and exhibition spaces. Since 2010 a large-scale restoration of the historic buildings has been underway to recreate their original appearance. The Conservatory remains one of the world’s leading music institutions, and its halls a venue for performances by the finest musicians from Russia and abroad.