Date	5/17 February 1889
Addressed to	Jules Massenet
Where written	Dresden
Language	French
Autograph Location	Paris (France): Musée des lettres et manuscrits   Auctioned by Artcurial , Paris, 14 December 2010
Publication	Lettres autographes et correspondances diverses adressées principalement au maître et à Mme Massenet. Vente Henri Baudoin, Paris, hôtel Drouot, 8 décembre 1938 (item no. 22; extracts only) [1]
Notes	For a detailed commentary on this letter, see "Klin, near Moscow, was the home of one of the busiest of men …" (Tchaikovsky Research Bulletin No.1)

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Click on the thumbnails above to enlarge
Reproduced by kind permission of the Artcurial auction-house, Paris

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French text (original)		English translation Copyright © 2011 by Luis Sundkvist
Dresde 17 Fevrier [= Février]  1889		Dresden 17 February 1889
Cher maitre [= maître] !		Dear maestro!
Votre bonne lettre m'a ratrappé [= rattrapé] à Dresde et je m'empresse de Vous dire que j'ai été on ne peut plus content et heureux de ce que Vous ayez accepté notre invitation. Vous ne sauriez croire combien on s'en réjouira à Moscou, où j'ai deja [= déjà] annoncé par télègraphe [= télègraphe] la bonne nouvelle.		Your kind letter caught up with me in Dresden, and I hasten to tell you that I was tremendously pleased and happy at your acceptance of our invitation [2]. You cannot imagine how much joy this will cause in Moscow, where I have already broken the good news by means of a telegram.
Je serai à Paris dans le courant du mois de Mars et tâcherai de Vous voir ne fût-ce [= fut-ce] que pour un moment pour Vous remercier de vive voix et aussi pour obtenir des renseignements plus ou moins prècis quant à la dâte [= date] de Votre concert moscovite.		I shall be in Paris in the course of March, and shall attempt to see you, if only for a moment, so as to thank you in person and also to obtain some more or less accurate information regarding the date of your Moscow concert.
Donc au re[v]oir! Recevez l'expression de ma vive admiration et de ma grande reconnaissance!		And so till we meet! Receive this assurance of my keen admiration and of my great gratitude!
P. Tchaïkovsky		P. Tchaikovsky

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Notes:

1. A scan of the relevant page in this auction catalogue was kindly provided by Jean-Christophe Branger of the Université Jean Monnet in Saint-Etienne, who also mentions this letter in the introduction to his book Manon de Jules Massenet, ou, Le crépuscule de l'opéra-comique (Metz, 1999), p. 10, n. 8 [back]
2. During his second conducting tour of Western Europe Tchaikovsky sought to help the Moscow branch of the Russian Musical Society (which had recently lost its principal conductor, Max Erdmannsdörfer) by inviting, in the name of the society, several prominent European musicians and composers to conduct concerts there during the 1889–90 season. Thus, in a letter to Petr Jurgenson the same day he wrote: "As far as Klindworth and Dvořák are concerned, I shall find out very soon. I've received a letter from Massenet. He enthusiastically accepts our offer, but requests that the decision about the exact dates be postponed, since this depends on the fate of his new opera [Esclarmonde] [...] I am now trying to invite Brahms" (see letter 3787). According to the editors of the Soviet collected edition of Tchaikovsky's correspondence (1959–1981), the location of Massenet's letter to Tchaikovsky is unknown. Several weeks later, on 21 March/2 April 1889, Tchaikovsky would report to Jurgenson again from Paris: "I have met up with Massenet several times; he is very flattered and glad to come to Russia. He still can't give an exact date, but would prefer to come in the spring [of 1890]" (see letter 3826). In the end, though, Massenet did not conduct any concerts in Russia, nor did he ever visit the country [back]

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This page was last updated on 04 February 2011