Tchaikovsky
www.tchaikovsky-research.net
String Quartet
(Струнный квартет)
B♭ major (1865).
| Catalogue References | TH 110 ; ČW 89 |
|---|---|
| Date | August–October 1865 (one movement only) |
| Key | B♭ major |
| Tempo/Section Listing | Adagio misterioso—Allegro con moto (B♭ major, 403 bars) |
| Instrumentation | 2 Violins, Viola, Cello |
| First Performance | Saint Petersburg, 30 October/11 November 1865 |
| Autograph Location | Klin (Russia): Tchaikovsky House-Museum Archive (a1, No. 121) |
| First Publication | Moscow: Muzgiz, 1940 |
| Average Duration | 12 minutes |
| External Links |
IMSLP/Petrucci Music Library
(downloadable score) |
History
A student work. Composed and scored between 15/27 August and 30 October/11 November 1865. The quartet was written on the theme of a Ukrainian song heard by Tchaikovsky from garden workers at Kamenka during the summer of that year. Only one movement survives — an Allegro, with an introduction and coda.
Modest Tchaikovsky believed that other movements may once have existed, but were presumably destroyed by the author. The quartet was performed for the first time on 30 October/11 November 1865, at the sixteenth musical evening for students at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory [1]. The performers were: Konstantin Pushilov, Dmitry Panov, Vasily Bessel and Aleksandr Kuznetsov.
In 1867 the main theme of the quartet was used by Tchaikovsky in the piano piece Scherzo á la russe.
Published for the first time in 1940 by Muzgiz.
From:
Музыкальное наследие Чайковского (1958), p. 367
English text copyright © 2006 Brett Langston
Notes:
- Modest Tchaikovsky, Жизнь Петра Ильича Чайковского, том 1 (1900), p. 197, 201, 273 [back]