Letter 3688
|
Russian text (original)
|
|
English translation
Copyright © 2010 by Luis Sundkvist
|
|
|
|
Моск[овская] губ[ерния]
Клин, с.
Фроловское, 8 октября 1888 |
|
Moscow province
Klin,
village of Frolovskoe, 8
October 1888 |
| Многоуважаемая, дорогая
Анна
Львовна! |
|
Much-esteemed, dear Anna
L'vovna! |
|
Знаете ли, что я страшно начинаю
тяготиться тем, что вот уже более
восьми месяцев мы сделались чужды
друг другу. Я писал Адольфу из
Парижа,
из Вены, из Тифлис, ин ни на одно из
этих писем не было ни строчки ответа. Я
забыл номер Вашего дома, и все эти три
письма были адресованы в
консерваторию. Решительно не понимаю,
почему они в своё время до него не
дошли. А между тем, вследствие этого
порвалось общение между нами. Мне это
очень досадно, ибо Адольфа я всегда
очень любил, а Вас и Ольгу Львовну
полюбил девять месяцев тому назад и
изменять Вам решительно не намерен,
как бы Вы ни старались. Конечно, я ни
одной минуты не подозреваю, что Ваш
муж серьёзно за что-нибудь на меня
сердится, и заранее предвижу, что всё
это окажется недоразумением. Как бы то
ни было, но мне очень захотелось
узнать, что вы все поделываете, где и
как провели лето, здоровы ли Вы, с Вами
ли Ольга Львовна, похудел или
потолстел Адольф, — ну, словом, разные
про вас подробности. Про себя же скажу
Вам следующее. Весну провёл на Кавказе,
а всё лето почти безвыездно сидел в
деревне и работал. Плодами этих работ
вышли симфония и симфоническая поэма.
Теперь то и другое кончено, и скоро уж
придётся покинуть своё деревенское
уединение. 5-го ноября будет в
Петербурге мой концерт, а вслед за тем
я еду в Прагу на постановку моего
«Евгения
Онегина». Засим есть разные
предположения, но, во всяком случае, я
клянусь, что побываю в Лейпциге, ибо он
более или менее всегда по дороге, а уж
мне больно хочется видеть Вас. Знаете
ли, что мне необычайно отрадно
вспоминать все мои посещения Вас! Вы
мне оказали громадную нравственную
поддержку в такую минуту, когда я мог
не снести охватившей меня бешеной
тоски и постыдно удрать домой.
А ведь это было бы очень нехорошо во
всех отношениях.
|
|
You know, I am beginning to feel awfully depressed by the fact that it
is now over eight months that we have become like strangers to one
another. I wrote to Adol'f
from Paris, Vienna,
and Tiflis, but I didn't
receive a single line in reply to any of these letters
[1]. I simply cannot
understand why they didn't reach him in due course. Meanwhile, as a
result of this, all communication between us has been broken off. This
is very vexing for me, because I have always loved Adol'f
very much, and I came to love you and Ol'ga L'vovna[2]
nine months ago, and I have no intention whatsoever of becoming
unfaithful to you all, no matter how much you may try [3].
Of course, I do not for one instant suppose that your husband could be
seriously angry with me for some reason, and I can already foresee
that all this will turn out to be a misunderstanding. Be that as may
be, still I would very much like to find out what you are all getting
up to, where and how you spent the summer, whether you are in good
health, whether Ol'ga L'vovna is still with you, whether Adol'f
has put on or lost weight—well, in short, I just want to know
various details about you. As for myself, I shall tell you the
following. I spent the spring in the Caucasus, and during the summer I
stayed at home in the country almost all the time and worked. The
fruits of these labours are a symphony [No.
5] and a symphonic poem [the overture-fantasia Hamlet].
Now both the one and the other are complete, and I shall quite soon
have to give up my rural seclusion. On 5 November I have a concert in Petersburg,
and after that I'm going to Prague
for a production of my Evgenii
Onegin
[4].
Thereafter I have various plans, but I swear that I shall visit Leipzig
in any case, because it is always more or less on my intended route,
and I really do want to see you very much. You know, it is uncommonly
gratifying for me to recall all my visits to your house! You gave me
huge moral support at a time when I might well not have been able to bear the frenetic anguish
I'd been seized by and might well have run off shamefully and gone home. And
that would have been very bad in all possible
respects.
|
| Я нашёл случайно ваш точный
прошлогодный адрес и адресую по нём.
Авось дойдёт? Ради Бога, ответик!
Целую Ваши ручки. |
|
I happen to have found your exact address from last
year, and that's where I am addressing this letter. Will it reach
you? For God's sake, do give me a reply![5]
I kiss your hands. |
| П. Чайковский |
|
P. Tchaikovsky |
Notes:
- Of these three letters to Adolph
Brodsky (the first two written during Tchaikovsky's concert tour
of Western Europe, and the third shortly after his return to Russia),
only the one sent from Vienna
has survived: it is dated 15/27 March 1888 (letter
3526). After receiving the above letter Anna
Brodsky replied to the composer (see note 5 below), and her
husband also wrote to Tchaikovsky apologizing for not having answered
his previous letters: "My laziness with regard to writing is to
blame for everything. Moreover, the fact that you were then constantly
on the move and I wasn't sure whether you would receive my letter
greatly contributed to my laziness. I decided that I would write to
you in Moscow once you had got
back there, and, as usual, I kept meaning to write all this time but
never got round to doing so". Brodsky's
letter (undated, but evidently written in late October/early November
1888) 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. 125–126 [back]
- Ol'ga L'vovna Skadovskaia (married name:
Picard; c. 1856–1940), younger sister of Adolph
Brodsky's wife Anna.
After completing her secondary education at a gymnasium in Kherson,
she helped her sister Anna to teach peasant children at the
school founded by the latter on their family's estate at Belozerka. She
subsequently went with Anna to
Paris, where they both enrolled at the
Sorbonne, attended scientific lectures and worked at various
laboratories. It was during the two sisters' stay in the French
capital (1872–74) that Ol'ga
married her teacher, the chemist Gabriel Picard. They had a son who
was christened Léon in honour of Ol'ga's father, but in 1888
they divorced. Over the following years Ol'ga was actively involved in
revolutionary propaganda in Kherson province and often had to go into
hiding. The tsarist secret police arrested her on several occasions
and she was banished from her native district. Her brother Georgii
L'vovich Skadovskii (1847–1919) managed to bail her out a number of
times and get her released from prison. After the October Revolution
in 1917 she lived in Odessa for
a while, but in 1924 the Soviet authorities allowed her to emigrate to
England so that she could join her sister Anna.
She lived at the Brodskys' house in Bowdon, Cheshire, near Manchester
(where her brother-in-law was principal of the Royal College of
Music), until her death in 1940. Note based on information provided in
Marina Stroganova's essay on the Skadovskii family 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. 200–210
(207)
[back]
- Tchaikovsky was very grateful for the warmth
and hospitality which he had been shown by the Brodskys at their house
in Leipzig when he arrived at
the city on 19/31 December 1887 to open his first concert tour of
Western Europe, and he spoke of Brodsky,
his wife Anna, and her
sister Ol'ga in glowing terms in several of his letters and diary
entries from that period, and also in the Autobiographical
Account of a Tour Abroad (1888)
[back]
- On 5/17 November 1888 Tchaikovsky conducted a
concert of his own works under the auspices of the Saint
Petersburg Philharmonic Society. It featured the premiere of the Symphony
No. 5, as well as the Piano
Concerto No. 2 (soloist Vasilii
Sapel'nikov), Joan's aria from The
Maid of Orleans (sung by Mariia Kamenskaia), and the premiere
of Herman Laroche's Overture-Fantasia
orchestrated by Tchaikovsky. Ten days later, the composer was in Prague,
where, on 24 November/6 November 1888, he conducted the first
performance of Evgenii
Onegin outside Russia [back]
- Anna
complied with this request very soon and wrote to the composer:
"Your letter has given us a lot of warmth, dear Petr Il'ich,
thank you. I shall treasure this letter all my life. Ever since your
departure [from Leipzig on 30
January/11 February 1888] we have not ceased to think of those hours
which we spent with you, and we keep looking fondly at your portrait
which adorns Adol'f's
writing-desk. [...] I hope that nothing will prevent you from keeping
your promise to come and visit us in Leipzig:
we will be awfully glad to see you". Anna's
letter (undated, but evidently written in late October/early November
1888) 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. 124–125.
Tchaikovsky kept his promise and visited the Brodskys on 18 February/2
March 1889, during his short stop-over in Leipzig
on the way to Geneva, where he
was due to conduct a concert of his own works seven days later [back]
This page was last updated on 10 February 2011 |