Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s diary, 1887

I will not conceal it: all the poetry of country life and solitude has vanished. I do not know why. Nowhere do I feel so miserable as at home. If I do not work, I…

Have just read through my diary for the last two years. Good heavens! how could my imagination have been so deceived by the melancholy bareness of Maidanovo? How…

Read through Korsakov’s ‘Snow-Maiden,’ and was astonished at his mastery. I envy him and ought to be ashamed of it.

After supper I read the score of A Life for the Tsar. What a master! How did Glinka manage to do it? It is incomprehensible how such a colossal work could have been…

Played through The Power of the Evil One. An almost repulsive musical monstrosity; yet, at the same time, talent, intuition, and imagination.

I sit at home full of remorse. The cause of my remorse is this: life is passing away and draws near to its end, and yet I have not fathomed it. Rather do I drive…

How short is life! How much I have still to do, to think, and to say! We keep putting things off, and meanwhile death lurks round the corner. It is just a year…