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Pianist Valentina Lisitsa was among the first classical musicians to use an internet video service as a significant method of promoting her career. Her strategy was successful: in the 2010s decade she was signed to the major label Decca and has been a fixture in its stable of artists.

Lisitsa was born in Kiev, Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union, on March 25, 1973. She took up the piano at three and was giving concerts within a year, but for a time she hoped to become a professional chess player. Lisitsa attended the Lysenko School of Music in Kiev and then enrolled at the Kiev Conservatory, studying with Ludmilla Tsvierko. There she met pianist Alexei Kuznetsoff, and the pair began performing as duo pianists. They won the Murray Dranoff Two Piano Competition in Miami in 1991 and moved to the U.S., settling in North Carolina. The pair married in 1992. They had some success in the U.S., appearing at the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York in 1995 and making recordings, both as a duo and by Lisitsa as a soloist, on the Audiofon label in the late 1990s. However, Lisitsa's career stalled, and she became interested in the possibilities of new media for promoting classical music. She posted a video on the internet in 2007 and found immediate success in that medium, topping charts in early metrics. Lisitsa hoped that internet stardom would propel her to success in conventional channels of touring and major-label recordings. Her videos did both: in the late 2000s decade she toured the U.S. and Europe as an accompanist to violinist Hilary Hahn. She issued a solo recital of works by Beethoven, Schumann, Liszt, and Sigismond Thalberg on Naxos in 2010, and accompanied Hahn on an Ives sonata recording for Deutsche Grammophon the following year.

In 2010, Lisitsa and Kuznetsoff executed the next step in their plan. They self-financed a recording of the four Rachmaninov piano concertos with the London Symphony Orchestra. This required the investment of their entire life savings, but it paid off. By 2012, with Lisitsa's online views mounting toward the 50 million mark, she was booked at London's Royal Albert Hall and signed to the Decca label. Decca issued her Rachmaninov recordings singly, and she has continued to record for Decca at least yearly. Most of her recordings have focused on Romantic and Russian repertory, but she also issued a recital of music by Philip Glass in 2015. Lisitsa has appeared at top venues including Carnegie Hall and the Royal Albert Hall, but she faced controversy in 2015 as her appearance with the Toronto Symphony was cancelled due to provocative tweets supporting the Russian-backed insurgency in Ukraine (Lisitsa herself is of Russian and Polish ethnic background). In 2019, Lisitsa recorded the complete piano music of Tchaikovsky for Decca.

In mid-2019, a video of her performance of the finale of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 14 in C sharp minor, Op. 27, No. 2, amassed more than 40 million views. ~ James Manheim

Internationally known for his romantic music and his melodic gifts, Peter Tchaikovsky is sometimes regarded as the greatest Russian composer. His most noted works include Nutcracker Suite, Swan Lake and Symphony No. 4. Most of his compositions center around opera and theater.

Peter Tchaikovsky was born at Votkinsk to an inspector of mines and a half-French mother. As a child, Tchaikovsky was regarded as sensitive and as having morbid tendencies. (His morbid behavior only augmented after his mother died in 1854.) In 1852, he entered the School of Jurisprudence and became a clerk in the Ministry of Justice.

His musical career began at the age of 14 when he wrote his first composition. About 10 years later, Tchaikovsky studied harmony with Nikolay Zaremba, and in 1862, he entered the St. Petersburg Conservatory and dedicated all his time to music. During his enrollment at the Conservatory, he studied orchestration with Anton Rubinstein and composed several overtures including one for the popular Alexander Ostrovsky's Storm. After studying at the Conservatory for four years, Tchaikovsky left to become a professor of harmony at a Conservatory in Moscow.

At the Moscow Conservatory, Tchaikovsky produced his first symphony, Winter Daydreams, and his first opera, The Voyevoda. Romeo and Juliet, one of Peter Tchaikovsky's most popular operas was at first a failure and did not achieve success until after several revisions were made in 1870 and 1880. During the 1870s Peter Tchaikovsky's musical genius began to shine. He produced his Second and Third Symphony, three string quartets, the Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat Minor, the Rococo Variations for Cello and Orchestra and two more operas, The Oprichnik and Vakula the Smith.

In 1877, Tchaikovsky befriended a wealthy widow who adored his music and supported him financially, but never wanted to meet him. With her financial support (which ceased in 1890), he quit his job at the Conservatory and devoted all his time to his compositions. Also in 1877, however, his personal life took a dramatic turn. His homosexuality causing him feelings of guilt, he decided to marry a 28-year-old former student of the Conservatory just to quiet rumors. While married Tchaikovsky attempted suicide, and the marriage ended when Tchaikovsky fled to St. Petersburg. (His wife died in 1917, after spending more than 20 years in an insane asylum.)

Between 1877 and 1890, Tchaikovsky devoted his time to composing all varieties of music including concertos, symphonies and operas. He produced three operas, The Maid of Orleans, Mazeppa and The Sorceress, as well as the Violin Concerto in D Major, the Piano Concerto No. 2 in G Major and the Piano Trio in memory of Nicholas Rubenstein. Besides composing and adding to his many compositions, Tchaikovsky began touring as a conductor in 1888, with tours to Leipzig, Hamburg, Berlin, Prague, Paris and London. He orchestrated one of his most popular ballets, Sleeping Beauty, in 1889 and The Queen of Spades in 1890.

In 1891 Tchaikovsky made his first and last trip to the United States, performing in New York, Baltimore and Philadelphia. Realizing that he was more famous in Russia, he returned there to work on the ballad Voyevoda, the opera Iolanta and the famous ballet Nutcracker. He began composing his Sixth Symphony in B minor in early 1893. After a brief interruption to accept an honorary doctorate from the University of Cambridge, Tchaikovsky finished the Sixth Symphony in August and debuted in mid-October. After moderate success, he thought of renaming the symphony 'Pathetique.' Coincidentally, five days after the performance he became ill with cholera and died on November sixth in St. Petersburg.

Prime examples of wonderful and enlightening compositions, Peter Tchaikovsky's work became internationally famous because of its style and genius. He will always be regarded as one of the great composers. ~ Kim Summers