Letter 4810

Tchaikovsky Research
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Date 24 November/6 December 1892
Addressed to Paul Collin
Where written Saint Petersburg
Language French
Autograph Location Paris (France): Private collection
Publication Советская музыка (1960), No. 5, p. 74 (Russian translation)
П. И. Чайковский. Полное собрание сочинений, том XVI-Б (1979), p. 197

Text and Translation

French text
(original)
English translation
By Brett Langston
24 Nov[embre]/6 Déc[embre] St. Petersbourg

Cher et très respecté poète!

Veuillez de grâce m'excuser de ce que j'ai tant tardé à Vous répondre. J'ai en ce moment un nouvel opéra et un nouveau ballet à monter au Théâtre Impérial et c'est à peine si une ou deux fois par semaine je trouve le temps de remplir mes devoirs épistolaires. C'est avec le plus vif plaisir que je remplis Votre désir et soyez persuadé, cher poète, que je suis tout fier de figurer dans Votre album parmi tant de maîtres illustres!

Recevez l'assurance de mes meilleurs sentiments pour mon cher poète français dont j'espère encore avoir l'honneur et le plaisir d'illustrer musicalement quelques belles pièces.

Bien à Vous
P. Tchaikovsky

24 November/6 December St. Petersburg

Dear and most respected poet!

Please be so kind as to forgive me for having been so late in replying to you [1]. At present I have a new opera and a new ballet being staged at the Imperial Theatre [2], and it is scarcely once or twice a week that I can find the time to fulfil my epistolary duties. It is with the greatest of pleasure that I carry out your wish and be assured, dear poet, that I am proud to be added to your album along with so many illustrious masters! [3]

Please accept my best regards, my dear French poet, and I hope once again to have the honour and the pleasure of depicting some of your lovely pieces in music.

Yours sincerely
P. Tchaikovsky

Notes and References

<references> [1] [2] [3]

  1. 1.0 1.1 |Paul Collin's letter to Tchaikovsky has not survived.
  2. 2.0 2.1 The opera Iolanta and the ballet The Nutcracker.
  3. 3.0 3.1 Tchaikovsky enclosed an autograph extract from the romance Rondel, No. 6 of the Six French Songs, Op. 65 (1888), which was one of four from the collection he had set to Paul Collin's words.