Tchaikovsky started work on the piece in September 1890, but did not finish it until close to the premiere over a year later.
He was very dissatisfied with the work; even before the first performance he had decided it was mediocre at best and threatened to destroy the score.
Not for anything in the world do I want to go on dirtying paper like Anton Grigorievich [Rubinstein] when everything has long since packed up".
He is most famous for using this instrument in the ballet The Nutcracker (particularly, but not exclusively, in "The Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy"), which was written after the ballad.
Excerpts from the score were used in the 2005 ballet Anna Karenina, choreographed by Boris Eifman.