Anna Maslova
Sister of Tchaikovsky's schoolfriend Fyodor Maslov (b. 1844; d. after 1925), born Anna Ivanovna Maslova (Анна Ивановна Маслова).
Anna was the liveliest member of the Maslov family. She loved Nature passionately and was a keen gardener, especially on the family estate at Selishche, in Oryol province, where the composer Sergey Taneyev was often a guest in the summer months and highly appreciated the raspberries and apples grown by her. She never married, but for her godson Pyotr, the son of Taneyev's elder brother Vladimir, she created a valuable herbarium which has survived to this day. In later years she became interested in photography and took many pictures of her family and their numerous guests, which included Lev Tolstoy's wife, the countess Sofya Andreyevna, and the painter Vladimir Makovsky, who painted some of his best paintings while at Selishche. Anna had some knowledge of medicine and she was always willing to attend to sick peasants in the villages surrounding their family estate.
Tchaikovsky's Works Dedicated to Anna Maslova
- Un poco di Schumann — No. 9 of the Eighteen Pieces, Op. 72 (1893)
Correspondence with Tchaikovsky
3 letters from Tchaikovsky to Anna Maslova have survived, dating from 1880 to 1891, of which those highlighted in bold have been translated into English on this website:
- Letter 1645 – 13/25 December 1880, from Moscow
- Letter 2074 – 10/22 August 1882, from Moscow (addressed jointly to to Anna, Fyodor Maslov, Sofya Maslova and Varvara Maslova)
- Letter 4560 – 19 November/1 December 1891, from Maydanovo (addressed jointly to Anna and her sister Sofya Maslova)
2 letters from Anna Maslova to Tchaikovsky, dating from 1879 and 1883, are preserved in the Klin House-Museum Archive.
Bibliography
- Tamara Slutskaya, "«Очень хочется в Селище...» (Танеев и семья Масловых)" in E. V. Fetisova (ed.), Новое о Танееве (Moscow, 2007), p. 57–69
