Tchaikovsky composed songs throughout his entire career. The diversity of the genres and themes that he explored in musical form in them can be viewed as a lyrical diary mirroring his life as a composer. In the Russian language his songs are referred to as "Romances". From a stylistic point of view, they are similar to the so-called urban romances, which were very much in fashion at the time. Tchaikovsky's aim in his Romances was to express emotions directly and simply and to make them accessible to all listeners. He allowed his own very personal feelings to provide the backdrop to his songs, by concentrating on one dominating psychological motif in the lyric template, which provided him with the suitable musical intonation. German soprano Julia Sukmanova initially studied piano and composition. Later she studied singing, first as a private pupil with the Russian dramatic tenor Donat. She has been decisively influenced by teachers and singers like Montserrat Caballé, Brigitte Fassbaender and Margreet Honig and has attended the master classes of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Pianist Elena Sukmanova lives in Hamburg. She trained as concert pianist with Prof. Leonid Sintsev at the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory in St Petersburg.