Tchaikovsky
www.tchaikovsky-research.net
String Quartet No. 2
(Струнный квартет № 2)
Op. 22 (1873–74).
| Catalogue References | TH 112 ; ČW 91 (as "Quartet No. 2") |
|---|---|
| Date | December 1873–January 1874 |
| Key | F major |
| Tempo/Section Listing |
|
| Instrumentation | 2 Violins, Viola, Cello |
| First Performance | Moscow, 10/22 March 1874. |
| Autograph Location | Moscow (Russia): Glinka National Museum Consortium of Musical Culture (ф. 88, No. 103) |
| First Publication | Moscow: P. Jurgenson, 1875 |
| Average Duration | 36 minutes |
| Dedication | Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich of Russia (1827–1892) |
| External Links |
IMSLP/Petrucci Music Library
(downloadable score) |
History
Composed and scored in late December 1873 to January 1874 in Moscow.
"Recalling the Christmases we used to spend in Moscow", wrote Modest Tchaikovsky, "I remember hearing him come up with the first theme of the first Allegro" [1].
Work on the quartet went easily and quickly, as Tchaikovsky later remembered [2]. The sequence in which the movements were composed can be determined from the rough draft of the score: the first movement (without the introduction), the fourth movement, the third movement (first version), the second movement, followed by the introduction to the first movement, and a second version of the third movement.
According to the date on the manuscript, the rough draft was finished on 18/30 January 1874.
On 24 January/5 February, Tchaikovsky wrote to his brother Anatoly: "Now I’ve written a new quartet, and will hear it in a few days at a soirée at Rubinstein's" [3].
According to Nikolay Kashkin's memoirs, this "domestic" performance took place "in N. G. Rubinstein’s apartment... Besides the performers, who were F. G. Laub, J. Hřímalý and W. Fitzenhagen (I do not remember who played the viola, probably J. Gerber), I think that only K. K. Albrecht, N. A. Hubert, myself and A. G. Rubinstein were present" [4].
The first public performance took place on 10/22 March 1874 in Moscow, at the second quartet concert of the Russian Musical Society.
Tchaikovsky liked this work very much, and in a letter to Modest Tchaikovsky of 29 October/10 November 1874 he responded to a report on the successful first performance of the quartet in Saint Petersburg: "I consider it one of my best compositions; none has flowed out of me so easily and simply. I wrote it almost in one sitting and I was very surprised that the public did not take to it, for I find that compositions written so spontaneously normally find favour" [5]. Later he told Anatoly Tchaikovsky: "If I’ve written anything in my life that flowed spontaneously from the very depths of my soul, then it was the first movement of this quartet" [6].
In a letter of 7/19 March 1875, Tchaikovsky asked the cellist Aleksandr Kuznetsov to make some changes [7]:
In the Andante (3rd movement) in the A-major episode where all four parts play against one another, instead of triplets I should like the cello to play two off-beat crochets, like so:
An arrangement of the quartet for piano duet was made by Anna Avramova. Tchaikovsky wrote favourably of this arrangement in a letter to Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov [8]. It appeared in print in September 1875 (by the publisher Pyotr Jurgenson), and in October the same year the individual parts of the quartet were published. The full score of the Second Quartet was issued in March 1876.
From:
Музыкальное наследие Чайковского (1958), pp. 370–372
English text copyright © 2006 Brett Langston
Notes:
- Modest Tchaikovsky, Жизнь Петра Ильича Чайковского, том 1 (1900), p. 423 [back]
- See letter 368 to Modest Tchaikovsky, 29 October/10 November 1874 [back]
- Letter 336 to Anatoly Tchaikovsky, 24 January/5 February 1874 [back]
- Nikolay Kashkin, Воспоминания о П. И. Чайковском (1896), pp. 97–98 [back]
- Letter 368 to Modest Tchaikovsky, 29 October/10 November 1874 [back]
- Letter 483 to Anatoly Tchaikovsky, 6/18 July 1876 [back]
- Letter 393 to Aleksandr Kuznetsov, 7/19 March 1875 [back]
- Letter 417 to Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, 12/24 November 1875 [back]