Letter 2854
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French text (original)
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English translation
Copyright ©
2011 by Luis Sundkvist
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Kline,
Maïdanowo
14/26 Janvier 1886 |
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Klin, Maydanovo
14/26 January 1886
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| Cher ami ! |
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Dear friend! |
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Je viens de recevoir Votre bonne lettre et tout ce qu'elle contenait. Merci, grand merci pour tout ce que V[ou]s faites pour moi. Votre énergie, Votre activité sont vraiment prodigieuses et je me félicite tous les jours en pensant que j'ai en V[ou]s un propagateur aussi habile et zèlé [= zélé]. Je ne saurai vraiment assez V[ou]s assurer de ma vive et profonde reconnaissance.
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I have just received your kind letter and everything that was enclosed in it. Many, many thanks for everything that you are doing for me. Your energy and activeness are truly prodigious, and I congratulate myself every day when I think of how in you I have such a competent and zealous propagandist. I truly could not express to you sufficiently my keen and profound
gratitude
[1].
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| V[ou]s me demandez comment – il faut m'envoyer les journaux ou [= où] l'on parle de ma musique. Je V[ou]s dirai franchement que je ne tiens pas extraordinairement à ce que V[ou]s me les fassiez parvenir, chaque fois qu'on joue quelquechose de moi, – à moins que ce ne soit ecrit [= écrit] par un homme de beaucoup d'autorité comme par exemple
Saint-Saëns, Joncière etc. Le fait est que je voudrais qu'on parlât de moi, – mais que je n'attache pas beaucoup d'importance aux louanges comme aux ereintements [= éreintements] des journaux. Ce que je désire, s'est [= c'est] qu'on me JOUE et si V[ou]s m'envoyez les programmes c'est tout ce que je désire. Du reste, cher ami, faites comme V[ou]s voudrez : les journaux ou les articles découpés arriveront dans tous les cas à leur adresse. |
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You asked me how I would like you to send me the
newspapers in which my music is discussed. I shall tell you frankly that I am not that particularly anxious for you to arrange for me to receive them each time that something by me is played—unless it is a review written by someone with great authority, such as, for instance,
Saint-Saëns, Joncières[2] etc. The fact is that I would like people to talk about me, but I do not attach a great deal of importance to both the praises and strictures of the press. What I desire is for people to PLAY me, and if you can send me the programmes, that is all I ask for. Anyway, dear friend, you may do as you like: your publications or cuttings from them will in any case always reach their destination. |
| Je serai extrêmement content si Lamoureux joue ma
3-me
Suite. Quant à Colonne, permettez moi de ne pas lui ecrire [= écrire]. Jamais de la vie, dans aucun cas je ne me suis adressé à qui que ce soit dans le bût de me faire jouer. Je suis toujours prêt et content d'ecrire [= d'écrire] une lettre de remerciement et si
Colonne joue quelquechose de moi je lui ecrirai [= écrirai] avec le plus grand plaisir, – mais le prier, – non je ne le pourrai jamais.
Colonne etait [= était] mieux disposé pour moi il y a de cela quelques années : il a joué deux fois ma
4me simphonie, il a joué ma
Tempête ; je suis bien peiné à l'idée qu'il est devenu froid à l'egard [= l'égard] de ma musique, mais je n'y puis rien, et je V[ou]s prie, cher ami, de ne pas trop m'en vouloir de ce que je ne puis me faire violence et, me conformant à Votre désir, ecrire [= écrire] à
Colonne avant qu'il n'ait joué ne fut-ce que quelque bagatelle de moi. |
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I would be extremely happy if Lamoureux were to play my
3rd
Suite [3]. As for Colonne, permit me not to write to him [4]. Never in my life, under no circumstances have I ever written to anyone in order to get myself played. I am always willing and happy to write a letter of thanks, and if
Colonne does play something by me, I shall write to him with the greatest pleasure, but as for asking him—no, that is something I could never
do [5].
Colonne was more favourably disposed towards me a few years ago: he played my
4th Symphony twice, he played my
Tempest
[6]. I am much aggrieved by the thought that he has grown cool towards my music, but there is nothing I can do about it, and I ask you, dear friend, not to be too angry with me because I am unable to go against my own nature and, in accordance with your wish, to write to
Colonne before he has actually played something—be it just a bagatelle—by me. |
| Veuillez transmettre mes compliments les plus chaleureux à
Mlle Marie Tayau. Maintenant je vais V[ou]s détailler les données de ma biographie, puisque V[ou]s le voulez absolument. Je V[ou]s préviens qu'il faut que quelqu'un maniant le français mieux que moi rédige la notice biographique – je ne Vous donnerez que les
faits et les dates. |
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Would you please convey my most ardent compliments to
Mlle Marie Tayau [7]. Now I shall give you an outline of my biography, since you so insist on
it
[8]. I must warn you that my biographical notice will have to be revised by someone who has a better command of French than I do—I shall just give you
the facts and dates. |
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| Né le 25 Avril/7 Mai 1840 à Votkinsk, province de Vyatka. Mon père etait [= était] Ingénieur des mines. Par ma mère je suis un peu français, car le nom de son père était
André d'Assier et c'etait [= c'était] un descendant d'une famille émigrée à l'epoque [= l'époque] de la revocation de l'edit [= l'édit] de Nante. Mes dispositions pour la musique se révélèrent à l'age de 4 ans. Ma mère ayant remarqué que j'eprouvais [= j'éprouvais] les plus vives jouissances en entendant de la musique fit venir une maitresse [= maîtresse] de piano
Marie Markowna qui m'enseigna les premiers éléments de la musique. A l'age de 10 ans on me conduisit à
St Petersbourg et l'on me plaça à
l'Ecole Impériale des droits ; ou je restai pendant 9 ans, sans m'occuper sérieusement de musique, quoique vers la fin de cette periode [= période] mon père me fit prendre des leçons d'un excellent pianiste résidant à
Petersbourg,
M. Rodolphe Kündinger. C'est à cet artiste éminent que je dois l'obligation d'avoir compris que ma véritable vocation etait [= était] la musique ; c'est lui qui me familiarisa avec les classiques et m'ouvrit de nouveaux horizons de mon art. Après avoir terminé mes études de
Droit je devins employé au Ministère de la Justice et pendant 3 ans encore, je negligeai [= négligeai] forcément la musique. Un théoricien de grand mérite,
M. Zaremba ayant ouvert des cours de théorie et
composition, j'entrai en 1861 dans ces cours et mes progrès furent tels que quand l'année suivante
Antoine Rubinstein fonda le Conservatoire Impérial de
Musique, je renonçai complètement au service et me vouai décidément à mon art. Mon excellent père en fût bien attristé, – mais il fallut qu'il renonçat à son rève [= rêve] de me voir faire carrière au service, quand il comprit que ma vocation etait [= était] sérieuse. En 1865 je terminai mes etudes [= études] sous la direction de
Mr Zaremba et
A. Rubinstein (ce dernier m'enseigna l'instrumentation) et ma première composition fût une
cantate sur une poésie de Schiller « La joie » que l'on exécuta au palais de
feue la Grande Duchesse Hélène, protectrice du Conservatoire. Immédiatement après je fus engagé par
Nicolas Rubinstein en qualité de professeur de composition au Conservatoire de
Moscou. Pendant 11 ans j'y remplis ces fonctions tant bien que mal ; plutôt
mal car j'avais en horreur mes classes qui me prenaient tout mon temps et compromettaient ma santé. J'ecrivais [= J'écrivais] cependant beaucoup. Ma
première simphonie fut joué à
Moscou en 1867 [= 1868] ; mon premier opera [= opéra] qui n'eût [= n'eut] aucun succès,
« Le Voyévode » fut joué en 1869. On refusa mon deuxième opera [= opéra]
« L'Ondine ». Je ne me décourageai pas et en ecrivis [= écrivis] bientôt un 3-ème
« L'Opritschnik » qui fût donné non sans succès à
Petersbourg en 1874. En 1877 ma santé gravement compromise me forçat de quitter le
Conservatoire et de passer un an en Italie ; je revins au
Conservatoire en 1878 mais fus encore une fois obligé de m'éloigner en Italie et depuis lors je ne repris plus de service. Pendant plusieurs anné[e]s je vécus dans la retraite en Italie, revenant tous les ans pour l'été en Russie, ou [= où] je passais quelque[s] mois à la campagne chez ma sœur <Kamenka,
gouvt de Herson>. Depuis un an je suis etabli [= établi] dans une maison de campagne <Majdanovo, près de
Klin> où, à l'abris de toute espèce de tracas je travaille et compte travailler autant que mes forces me le permettront. Parmi mes opéras c'est
« Eugène Onéguine » qui eut le plus de succès. C'est grâce à l'attention gracieuse de S. M. L'Empereur qu'on la représente à
Petersbourg ; pendant 7 ans on croyait que, vu le peu d'intérêt dramatique, cet opera [= opéra] ne pouvait pas être monté sur une grande scène. |
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Born on 25 April/7 May 1840 in Votkinsk, Vyatka province. My father
[Ilya Tchaikovsky]
was a mining engineer. Through my mother [Aleksandra]
I have some French roots, because the name of her father was André d'Assier and he was a descendant of a family which emigrated at the time of the revocation of the Edict of
Nantes [9]. My inclination for music manifested itself when I was 4 years old. My mother noticed that I experienced the most vivid pleasure when listening to music, and so she engaged a piano teacher,
Mariya Markovna [Pal'chikova], who taught me the rudiments of
music
[10]. At the age of 10 I was taken to
Saint Petersburg and enrolled in the
Imperial School of Jurisprudence, where I would stay for 9 years during which I did not occupy myself with music seriously, although towards the end of that period my father did arrange for me to have lessons with an excellent pianist who was resident in
Petersburg,
Mr Rudolf Kündinger. It is to this eminent artist that I am indebted for realizing that my true vocation was music; it was he who acquainted me with the classics and opened up new musical horizons for
me [11]. After completing my
Law studies I became an official at the Ministry of Justice, and during 3 more years I perforce had to neglect music. In 1861, when
Mr Zaremba, a theorist of great merit, set up some classes in
music theory and composition, I enrolled in these classes, and my progress was such that when
Anton Rubinstein founded the Imperial Conservatory of Music the following year, I abandoned the state service altogether and resolutely devoted myself to my art. My splendid father was greatly saddened by this, but he had to give up his dream of seeing me advance in the state service when he understood that my vocation was serious. In 1865, I completed my studies under the supervision of
Mr Zaremba and
A. Rubinstein (the latter taught me instrumentation), and my first composition was a
cantata based on a poem by Schiller, [Ode to] Joy, which was performed at the palace of the
late Grand Duchess Yelena, the patroness of the Conservatory. Immediately after that I was taken on by
Nikolay Rubinstein as a professor of composition[12] at the
Moscow Conservatory. During 11 years I
somehow or other managed to fulfil my duties there—though probably
quite badly, because I was horrified by my classes, which took up all my time and undermined my health. Nevertheless I wrote a lot. My
First Symphony was played in
Moscow in 1867 [= 1868]. My first opera,
The Voyevoda, which had no success whatsoever, was performed in 1869. My second opera,
Undina, was rejected. I did not let myself be disheartened and soon wrote a third one,
The Oprichnik, which was staged in
Petersburg in 1874, not without success. In 1877, my gravely undermined health forced me to leave the
Conservatory and to spend a year in Italy. I returned to the
Conservatory in 1878, but was once again forced to leave for Italy, and since then I have not taken up any official employment again. During several years I lived in seclusion in
Italy [13], returning every summer to Russia where I would spend several months in the country at
the house of my sister [Aleksandra
Davydova] <in Kamenka, Kherson province>. For a year now I have been resident in a country-house <in
Maydanovo, near Klin> where, sheltered from all kinds of disturbance, I work and intend to work for as long as my
creative powers allow me to. Among my operas, it is
Yevgeny Onegin which has had the most success. It is thanks to the gracious attention of His Majesty the Emperor
[Alexander III] that it is being performed in
Petersburg. For during the previous 7 years it was felt that, in view of its little dramatic interest, this opera could never be shown on a big stage. |
| Voila [= Voilà], mon bien cher ami, tout ce que j'ai cru devoir V[ou]s communiquer sur ma vie artistique. Il vient de paraître dans une grande
Revue mensuelle un grand article sur moi. Je ne l'ai pas encore lu. Peut-être le ferai-je traduire et V[ou]s enverrai la traduction. |
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So there, my very dear friend, is everything that I felt I ought to tell you about my artistic
life
[14]. A long article about me has just appeared in a big
monthly journal [15]. I haven't read it yet. Perhaps I shall have it translated and will send you the translation. |
| A revoir, cher ami. A Vous de tout cœur. |
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Good-bye, dear friend. My most hearty greetings to you. |
| P. Tschaïkovsky |
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P. Tchaikovsky |
C'est au mois d'Avril ou de Mai que je viendrai à
Paris.
Voyez l'Appendice |
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I shall be coming to Paris in April or
May [16].
Look at the Appendix |
| Appendice |
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Appendix |
| Liste de mes grandes composition[s] et l'epoque [= l'époque] de leur premiere [= première] exécution |
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List of my major compositions and the year of their first performance |
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| Symphonies: |
| 1st | 1867
[= 1868] |
| 2nd | 1872
[= 1873] |
| 3rd | 1875 |
| 4th | 1878 |
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Notes:
- Together with his letter to Tchaikovsky from
Paris on 8/20 January 1886, Mackar had enclosed several programmes of
recent concerts and recitals at which works by Tchaikovsky had been
performed. Mackar also described how he had organized
a concert at the Salle Érard whose programme was drawn exclusively from Tchaikovsky's works:
it took place on 2/14 January 1886 and featured the
pianist René Chansarel, who played eight of the composer's piano pieces;
the violinist Marie Tayau, who played the Valse-scherzo and Souvenir
d'un lieu cher; and the singer Mme Montaigu-Montibert, who performed Why?
and None But the Lonely Heart, Nos. 5 and 6 of the Six
Romances,
Op. 6. "The auditorium was full, there were some 700 people," Mackar
reported. "I was told that there were lots of Russians in the
audience. I sent invitations to the secretaries of the embassy and the
Russian church. On the whole the impression was favourable. People come
to my shop every day to buy your compositions". Mackar's
letter has been published (in Russian translation only) in
Чайковский и зарубежные музыканты (1970),
p. 151–152 [back]
- Victorin de Joncières (real name: Félix-Ludger
Rossignol; 1839–1903), French composer and music critic [back]
- In his letter of 8/20 January 1886 Mackar
wrote that the conductor Charles
Lamoureux (1834–1899) had recently asked him for a copy of the full
score of the Suite No. 3. On 17/29 November 1885 Lamoureux had conducted
his orchestra at the Éden-Théâtre in a performance of Tchaikovsky's Piano
Concerto No. 1, with the Polish-born pianiste Cécile Silberberg (b. 1858)
as the soloist. Tchaikovsky had sent Lamoureux his photograph (via Mackar)
as a token of his gratitude, which then led to an exchange of letters
between the two men. However, only Lamoureux's letters to Tchaikovsky
have come to light so far [back]
- Mackar
was hoping that Édouard
Colonne would soon programme one of Tchaikovsky's major orchestral
works at the Théâtre du Châtelet, but as he noted in his letter to
the composer on 8/20 January 1886: "Colonne
is taking an endless amount of time; I am trying to put pressure on him,
I write to him every week, but nothing [of yours] is appearing on the
playbills. They [Colonne
and his orchestra] have just looked through the Andante from your
Quartet [No. 1] Op.
11. Why don't you write to him yourself?" [back]
- Tchaikovsky seems to have forgotten about the
very first letter which he wrote to Colonne
almost ten years earlier. For in this letter, dated 25 December 1876/6
January 1877, he had informed Colonne
that he wished to organize a concert of his works in Paris
and asked the conductor if he would be willing to offer the services of
his orchestra for this purpose (see letter
528a). Colonne had
agreed, but the planned concert did not go ahead because Tchaikovsky was
unable to raise the necessary sum to hire a suitable venue
[back]
- At a Châtelet concert on 25 February/9 March
1879 Colonne had
conducted the symphonic fantasia The
Tempest. Tchaikovsky attended the concert incognito, but he was
disappointed by the reception of his work. "Although the
performance was good, it didn't have any success," he wrote to Jurgenson
that same day (letter 1123). He had
nevertheless shown his gratitude to the conductor and his orchestra by
sending an open letter to Colonne
in his capacity as editor of La gazette musicale (see letter
1122). The following year, at the initiative of Nadezhda
von Meck, Tchaikovsky's Symphony
No. 4 was given its first performance in Paris
at a Châtelet concert conducted by Colonne
on 13/25 January 1880. Tchaikovsky could not attend the concert since he
was in Rome (nor, incidentally,
could Mrs. von Meck, who,
despite financing the concert, was in Russia at the time), but Colonne
sent Tchaikovsky a letter congratulating him warmly on the success of
his symphony. See
Чайковский и зарубежные музыканты (1970),
p. 215. The reviews, however, were quite hostile. See the extracts
cited by Vladimir Fédorov in Revue de musicologie, tome 64 (1968), no. 1, p.
25, n. 2 [back]
- In his letter of 8/20 January 1886, Mackar
had observed how "I found Marie
Tayau tremendously keen to perform your music, and this is something
to which I must draw your attention in particular. Wherever she
performs, she will always consider it her duty to play
Tchaikovsky". The violinist had been one of the musicians who took
part in the recital of Tchaikovsky's works organized by Mackar
at the Salle Érard on 2/14 January 1886 (see note
1 above) [back]
- In an earlier letter Mackar
had asked Tchaikovsky to provide a biographical notice about himself
that he could pass on to the Parisian critics and indeed to anyone in
the French capital who could help to propagate Tchaikovsky's music [back]
- Tchaikovsky's statement about his ancestors here
contains some inaccuracies (partly also depending on how it is read).
His maternal grandfather, Andrey
Mikhaylovich Assier (1778–1835), was born in Meissen, Saxony, to a
French father (Michel
Victor Acier) and a German (or Austrian) mother (Maria Christina
Eleonora, née Wittig). The Christian name of Andrey
Mikhaylovich Assier at birth, however, was not André, as one might
have expected (and as Tchaikovsky wrote above), but Heinrich (his full
name at birth being Michael Heinrich Maximilian Acier). Heinrich
Acier left Saxony in 1795 to take up a post as a teacher of German
and French at the Saint
Petersburg Military School. Five years later, in July 1800, shortly
after marrying Yekaterina Popova (the composer's maternal grandmother) he
officially became a Russian citizen, adopting the name Andrey
Mikhaylovich Assier. No member of the Assier (or Acier) family had
settled in Russia previously, let alone during the time of the
revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV in 1685, which forced
some 200,000 French Protestants (Huguenots) to leave France. Even if
"emigrated" in Tchaikovsky's statement is not taken to mean
"emigrated to Russia", but read simply as "emigrated from
France", it is still problematic because: (i) his maternal
great-grandfather, Michel
Victor Acier, was born in France, specifically at Versailles in
1736, and he did not leave the country until 1764, when he moved to
Saxony to work as a modelleur at the famous Meissen porcelain factory;
(y) Michel Victor Acier
was not a Huguenot, but a Catholic (as was his future wife), and so his
emigration from France had nothing to do with religious persecution, but
rather with his search for better employment opportunities.
Tchaikovsky's first biographer, his brother Modest,
would add to the confusion by writing that their maternal
great-grandfather (that is, Michel
Victor Acier) had emigrated to Prussia from France in the wake of
the 1789 Revolution (see Modest
Tchaikovsky, Жизнь
Петра Чайковского,
том 1 (1997), p. 9). The archival research of Lucinde Braun in
Germany, and Tamara Skvirskaya and Valery Sokolov in Russia in recent
years has clarified the genealogy of Tchaikovsky's family on his
mother's side. See Lucinde Braun's interesting article for this website
on Michel Victor Acier
and his career as a sculptor; T. Z. Skvirskaya, 'Материалы
к родословной Чайковского по
материнской линии' (2003), p. 224–235; and V. S.
Sokolov, 'Петербургские
«тайны» в родословной и биографии
Чайковского' (2003), p. 236–245 [back]
- Mariya Markovna Loginova (née Pal'chikova; d.
1888) was a former serf who was engaged as a piano teacher for young
Pyotr in Votkinsk by his parents around 1845. By 1848, as Modest
informs us in his biography of the composer, the eight-year-old Pyotr
could already play the piano as well as she could. In 1884, Tchaikovsky
unexpectedly received a letter from her asking for financial assistance.
He granted her a pension and also corresponded regularly with her during
the last three years of her life (none of these letters, however, has
come to light). See Modest
Tchaikovsky, Жизнь
Петра Чайковского,
том 1 (1997), p. 41 [back]
- Rudolf Kündinger (1832–1913) was born in Nuremberg,
but in 1850 settled in Russia where he worked as a piano teacher. He
gave Tchaikovsky piano lessons every Sunday from 1855 to 1858 (except
during the summer months). Kündinger would go on to be appointed a
professor of piano at the Saint
Petersburg Conservatory in 1879. For Modest's
biography he wrote some reminiscences about his former student, in which
he confessed that, despite the young man's outstanding abilities, he
would never have imagined that he would go on to become a famous
composer, and indeed at the time he had replied in the negative to Ilya
Tchaikovsky's question as to whether his son should pursue a musical
career—partly because he had not then seen any genius in him, and
partly because of the difficulty of making a living as a musician in
Russia. See Modest
Tchaikovsky, Жизнь
Петра Чайковского,
том 1 (1997), p. 112; also cited in David Brown, Tchaikovsky
Remembered (1993), p. 13. In his more detailed Autobiography
(1889) Tchaikovsky would also pay tribute to Kündinger, noting how his
teacher had been the first to take him to concerts of German classical
music [back]
- Strictly speaking, of music theory [back]
- Tchaikovsky here glosses over the circumstances
and aftermath of his ill-fated marriage to Antonina
Milyukova in July 1877, which led to his flight from Russia in
September and also (thanks to the financial support of Nadezhda
von Meck) his resignation from the Moscow
Conservatory. During these years of self-imposed exile abroad, however,
he spent long periods not just in Italy, but also in Switzerland and
France [back]
- It is worth comparing this biographical notice
for Mackar with the more
detailed Autobiography
which Tchaikovsky would write for a German journal in 1889—a
fascinating document which for over a century was thought lost until it
was rediscovered by Alexander Poznansky and published in a complete
English translation for the first time in: Alexander Poznansky
and Brett Langston,
The Tchaikovsky Handbook (2002), vol. 1, pp. 523–528 [back]
- As pointed out by Vladimir Fédorov in Revue de musicologie, tome 64 (1968), no. 1, p.
54, n. 9, the article in question is: V. S. Baskin, 'П.
И. Чайковский. Очерк музыкальной
деятельности' (P. I. Tchaikovsky. An outline of his
musical career), which appeared in the February 1886 issue of the
journal Russian Thought (Русская мысль) [back]
- After staying with his brother Anatoly
in Tiflis Tchaikovsky would
arrive in Paris in mid/late May
1886 [back]
- Tchaikovsky did not count the first complete
staging of Yevgeny
Onegin with a student cast at the Moscow
Maly Theatre on 17/29 March 1879 as the opera's official première, but
rather its first 'professional' performance at the Moscow
Bolshoi Theatre on 11/23 January 1881 [back]
This page was last updated on
16 February 2013 |