I’ve came across some interesting stories about Tchaikovsky and his music, from the official website of the Berliner Philharmoniker:
What you (might) not know about Pyotr Ilych Tchaikovsky
Lino Knocke | Link: https://www.berliner-philharmoniker.de/en/stories/what-you-might-not-know-about-pyotr-ilych-tchaikovsky/
The Porcelain Child
“Even as a boy, he responded intensely to his surroundings – and especially to music. Certain harmonies moved him so deeply that he would burst into tears, or collapse sobbing onto his bed after playing the piano, overwhelmed by the physical force of the experience.”
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The Triumph and the Toll
In 1891, he traveled to the United States, where he was invited to conduct the inaugural concert of New York’s newly-opened Carnegie Hall.
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And about his relationship with ballet music
Composing against the Darkness Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Ballet
Christoph Vratz | https://www.berliner-philharmoniker.de/en/stories/pyotr-ilyich-tchaikovsky-and-ballet/
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is rightly considered the maestro of ballet music. He defended it against contemporaries who classified it as mere incidental music, and found great freedom and serenity in writing Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake and The Nutcracker. A love story.
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In March 1878, Tchaikovsky replied to an objection to the ballet genre by his former student and later friend Sergei Taneyev: “With the best will in the world I cannot understand […] why you do not like such music. Do you understand ballet music to mean any cheerful melody that has a dance rhythm?
This view is very echos one of my previous posts: On the Alleged Lightness of Swan Lake as ‘Ballet Music’.