Letter 3028

Nikolay Kashkin (1837-1920)

Russian musician, teacher, music critic, and friend and colleague of Tchaikovsky (b. 27 November/9 December 1839 in Voronezh; d. 15 March 1920 in Kazan), born Nikolay Dmitriyevich Kashkin (Николай Дмитриевич Кашкин).

Tchaikovsky and Kashkin

Nikolay Kashkin did not come from a musical family (he was the son of a bookseller), but he taught himself music, and by the age of thirteen he was giving piano lessons. In 1860 he studied piano under Aleksandr Dubuque, and in 1863 he became a tutor in the musical classes arranged by the Russian Musical Society. In 1865 he married Yelizaveta Kulneva.

When the Moscow Conservatory opened in 1866, he worked alongside Tchaikovsky as professor of piano and of music theory and history, serving from 1866 to 1896 and from 1905 to 1908.

He was a prolific music critic, contributing primarily to the Russian Register (Русские ведомости) and the Moscow Register (Московские ведомости), sometimes under the pseudonym "Nikolay Dmitriyev" (Николай Дмитриев). He also produced a number of books on Russian music, as well as some of the earliest reminiscences about Tchaikovsky.

Nikolay Kashkin was a close friend of Tchaikovsky, and did much to promote his music.

Dedications

In 1869, Tchaikovsky dedicated Not a Word, O My Friend — No. 2 of the Six Romances, Op. 6 — to Nikolay Kashkin.

Correspondence with Tchaikovsky

6 letters from Tchaikovsky to Nikolay Kashkin have survived, dating from 1877 to 1891, of which those highlighted in bold have been translated into English on this website:

• Letter 660 – 26 November/8 December 1877, from Vienna
• Letter 1568 – 21 August/2 September 1880, from Kamenka
• Letter 1868 – 12/24 October 1881, from Kamenka
• Letter 3456 – 1/13 January–9/21 January 1888, from Lübeck and Hamburg
• Letter 3466 – 10/22 January 1888, from Hamburg
• Letter 4286 – 5/17 January 1891, from Moscow

9 letters from Kashkin to the composer, dating from 1879 to 1890, are preserved in the Klin House-Museum Archive.

Bibliography

For Kashkin's writings about Tchaikovsky's music, see also Bibliography Index (K)

• Пётр Ильич Чайковский (1893)
• Воспоминания о П. И. Чайковском (1894)
• На память о П. И. Чайковском (1894)
• Воспоминания о П. И. Чайковском (1896)
• Kashkine's recollections of Tschaikowsky (1897)
• Я. П. Полонский и П. И. Чайковский, как авторы одного общего произведения (1898)
• П. И. Чайковский и его жизнеописание (1902)
• Женитьба П. И. Чайковского (1902)
• Чайковский и Н. Ф. вон Мекк (1903)
• [Letters from Tchaikovsky to Nikolay Kashkin] (1908)
• Из воспоминаний о П. И. Чайковском (1918)
• Воспоминания о П. И. Чайковском (1954)
• Из воспоминаний о П. И. Чайковском (1962)
• Пётр Ильич Чайковский (1962)
• Пётр Ильич Чайковский (1979)
• Пётр Ильич Чайковский (1980)
• П. И. Чайковский и его жизнеописание (1983)
• Pyotr (Ilyich) Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) (1985)
• Meine Erinnerungen an Peter Tschaikowski (1992)
• Von Meine Erinnerungen an Peter Tschaikowski (1992)
• Nikolay Kashkin (1993)
• Nikolay Kashkin (1993)
• Nikolay Kashkin (1993)
• В минуту жизни трудную. Из воспоминаний о Петре Ильиче Чайковском (1997)
• Nikolay Kashkin (1999)
• П. И. Чайковский. Дневники (2000)

External Links

• Wikipedia