His Violin Concerto (below) is a favorite in concert halls all over the world today, but upon its 1881 premiere in Vienna, it was lambasted by critics, including one who called it "odorously Russian." During his lifetime, he was thought of as "too Russian" by foreign critics and "too cosmopolitan" by his countrymen, yet his music endures to this day. Who is this composer?

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Explanation:

Peter Tchaikovsky was perhaps one of the most criticised composers in Western Music. His Violin Concerto was considered by some to be one of his finest performances but it was met by very harsh review by critics.

Peter was an emigrant who arrived Geneva with his team and immediately began to compose. He was a bisexual, with a failed 4 month marriage to his former student and facing bouts of depression and mental breakdowns, he was suicidal and eventually flown back to Russia.

Peter was always a sensitive person and could not handle criticism, since his childhood. When he returned to Geneva, he met another bisexual man and fell in love, he composed a song for him, he was scared to dedicate it to him because he wasn't sure of the reception by the public so he dedicated it to the world famous violinist Leopold Auer who deemed the song unplayable.

Peter Tchaikovsky kept revising the solo parts of the song until after two and a half years, he met Adolf Brodsky who approved the concert premiere on December 4th, 1881. The concert went well but was heavily criticised by Eduard Hanslick in a very brutal review in Vienna's "New Free Press"