Letter 2013
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Russian text (original)
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English translation
Copyright © 2010 by Luis Sundkvist
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| Каменка,
4 мая 1882 |
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Kamenka,
4 May 1882 |
| Дорогой друг Адольф
Давидович! |
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Dear friend, Adol'f
Davidovich! |
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Весьма и весьма обрадовало меня
письмо Ваше, полученное сегодня.
Радуюсь несказанно Вашему и моему
успеху и разразился бы опять в
благодарностях, если б Вы в предыдущем
письме Вашем не просили меня от них
воздерживаться. Потрудитесь,
пожалуйста, передать от меня мою
благодарность Рихтеру за двукратное и
столь успешное дирижирование
концертом. Как мне нравится, что Вы в
Лондоне завоевали себе достойное
Вашего таланта положение. Желательно,
чтобы успехи Ваши шли всё crescendo, и
чтобы когда-нибудь Вы возвратились в
Россию с громким авторитетным именем
и украсили бы им и собою нашу бедную и
всё-таки милую Московскую
консерваторию. Быть может, и я когда-нибудь,
утомлённый кочевой жизнью, возвращусь
на старое пепелище и вместе с Вами
будем работать для поддержки дела,
основанного Ник[олаем] Григ[орьевичем].
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Your letter, which I received today, has made me very, very happy
[1]. I am ineffably glad at
your success, and mine, and I would again burst into expressions of
gratitude, had you not asked me in your preceding letter to refrain
from them
[2].
Please be so kind as to convey my gratitude to Richter for his
reiterated and so successful conducting of the concerto. How I am
pleased that you have earned yourself a status in London
which is commensurate with your talent. I wish that your successes
keep rising in crescendo, and that some day you return to
Russia with an acclaimed and authoritative reputation, with which, as
well as with yourself, you can adorn our poor and yet dear Moscow
Conservatory. Perhaps I too, worn out by my nomadic life, will some
day return to my old home, and you and I can then work together to
support the cause launched by Nikolai
Grigor'evich.
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| Про себя скажу Вам, что не
могу достаточно выразить Вам всё
удовольствие, испытываемое мною
здесь, в деревне, после месяца,
проведённого в Москве, где я испытал
много ненавистной для меня суеты и
много мучительно-тоскливых чувств,
причиняемых сознанием
невозвратности прошлого. Вы гораздо
моложе меня и ещё, вероятно, мало
знакомы с этим болезненным чувством.
Чем старше становишься, тем живее,
сильнее и чаще врывается оно в жизнь
и отравляет её. Здесь, да ещё в моём
римском уединении, моё нравственное
благосостояние сильнее, чем где-либо.
Собираюсь писать оперу; надеюсь, что
дело пойдёт хорошо; по крайней мере,
расположение к писанию есть и, если
ничто не помешает, должно быть,
хорошо буду работать. |
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About myself I must say that I cannot describe to
you sufficiently all the pleasure I am experiencing here in the
countryside, after a month spent in Moscow,
where I went through a great deal of bustle, so loathsome to me, and
also had many agonizing and melancholy feelings which were caused by
my realizing the irrevocability of the past. You are much younger
than I am and you are probably not very familiar yet with that
painful feeling. The older one becomes, the more keenly, intensely,
and frequently this feeling irrupts into one's life and poisons it.
Here, and also in my seclusion in Rome,
my moral well-being is sturdier than anywhere else. I am intending
to write an opera [Mazepa].
I hope that this project will go well—at any rate, I am in a mood
for writing, and provided nothing intervenes I should be able to work well. |
| До свидания, голубчик!
Дай Вам Бог всякого рода удачи в
делах Ваших. Как решён вопрос о Вашей
поездке в Москву летом? Будете ли Вы
там играть? |
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Good-bye, dear fellow! May God grant you
every possible success in your work. What has been decided regarding
your trip to Moscow this
summer? Will you be playing there?[3] |
| Искренно Вас любящий
и уважающий, |
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With sincere love and respect, |
| П. Чайковский |
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P. Tchaikovsky |
Notes:
- In his letter to Tchaikovsky from London
on 28 April/10 May 1882 Adolph
Brodsky reported on his performance of the Violin
Concerto at a concert in the St. James's Hall conducted by Hans
Richter two days earlier, on 26 April/8 May 1882. (This was only the
second time that the concerto was performed in public after its world
premiere in Vienna on 22
November/8 December 1881). "The day before yesterday," Brodsky
wrote, "I had a huge success at the Richter concerts.
Applause broke out already at the first tutti. After the first
movement the audience applauded a very long time. At the very end I
was called out twice. He who is familiar with the London
public will understand that two curtain calls in London
are equivalent to five calls in Moscow.
The English don't give more than two curtain calls even to their
darlings: [Joseph] Joachim and Clara Schumann. In Richter's opinion,
and as it seemed to me too, I played better on this occasion than in Vienna.
Everyone whom I have spoken to about your concerto liked it very much.
The audience listened with the keenest attention. The original motifs
of the final movement were evidently to people's liking. [...] As soon
as the reviews appear, I shall forward them to you—I hope they will
be better than the Viennese ones". Brodsky's
letter has been published in: Elena Biteriakova and Marina Stroganova
(eds), Анна Бродская (Скадовская).
Воспоминания о русском доме. Адольф
Бродский, Петр Чайковский, Эдвард Григ
в мемуарах, дневниках, письмах (Feodosia
/ Moscow, 2006), p. 113–114 [back]
- In an earlier letter from London on 24 April/6
May 1882 Brodsky had written: "I feel terribly embarrassed by
your thanking me so much [in letter 2008]. I do not deserve this in
the least. Rather than you thanking me, I should thank God for
allowing me to understand and love your music. As far as your concerto
is concerned, it is a case of a service in return for a service. For
if I am making it popular, it too is making me popular in turn, and
here, in London, I have simply had a lot of luck thanks to this
concerto. Your name is very well-known here thanks to the Piano
Concerto [No. 1] and songs which have been performed here by
Bülow and [the baritone George] Henschel, and the new Violin
Concerto has proved to be a tasty morsel for the local directors
(concert entrepreneurs), who are constantly seeking to treat their
audiences to something new. [...] Besides, your concerto gives me the
opportunity to demonstrate in the best possible light the 'maximum' of
my technical expertise, and apart from a host of musical merits, there
is also precisely the fact that it seems far more difficult than it is
in reality—that is, it is very rewarding and effective. Therefore,
dear Petr Il'ich, I hope that your ['thank you'] 'again', 'again', and
'again' in your last letters have exhausted the stock of expressions
of gratitude, and that you will not thank me again" This letter
of Brodsky's has also been published in: Elena Biteriakova and Marina Stroganova
(eds), Анна Бродская (Скадовская).
Воспоминания о русском доме. Адольф
Бродский, Петр Чайковский, Эдвард Григ
в мемуарах, дневниках, письмах (Feodosia
/ Moscow, 2006), p. 112–113 [back]
- Brodsky
had received an invitation from the Musical Committee of the All-Russian Arts
and Industrial Exhibition in Moscow
to
perform at one of the concerts which were to be held under its auspices that summer.
He accepted the invitation, and on 8/20 August 1882, as part of the Exhibition's sixth
concert conducted by Ippolit
Al'tani, he would give the first performance in Russia of the Violin
Concerto. Tchaikovsky was present, and after the performance of
his concerto he was called out onto the podium several times
[back]
This page was last updated on 09 February 2011 |