Francesco Berger
English pianist and composer of Italian parentage (b. 10 June 1834 [N.S.] in London; d. 26 April 1933 in London), also known as Francis Berger.
After studying piano and composition in London, in 1848 Berger travelled to his father's home city of Trieste, where he had his first opera performed while aged only seventeen. After his return from continental Europe in 1855, Berger returned to England as a pianist and music professor. He befriended Charles Dickens, and in 1864 married the contralto Annie Lascelles (1840–1907).
Berger became of a member of the London Philharmonic Society in 1871, and was its honorary secretary from 1884 until 1911. It was in this capacity that he corresponded with Tchaikovsky, and greeted the composer on his visits to London in 1888, 1889 and 1893.
Correspondence with Tchaikovsky
16 letters from Tchaikovsky to Francesco Berger have survived, dating from 1888 to 1893, all of which have been translated into English on this website:
- Letter 3485 – 25 January/6 February 1888, from Berlin
- Letter 3493 – 8/20 February 1888, from Prague
- Letter 3498a – 16/28 February 1888, from Paris
- Letter 3506 – 24 February/7 March 1888, from Paris
- Letter 3684a – 1/13 October 1888, from Frolovskoye
- Letter 3799a – 17 February/1 March 1889, from Leipzig
- Letter 3808a – 25 February/9 March 1889, from Geneva
- Letter 3812a – 1/13 March 1889, from Hamburg
- Letter 3812b – 1/13 March 1889, from Hamburg
- Letter 4362b – 31 March/12 April 1891, from Rouen
- Letter 4389a – 2/14 June 1891, from Maydanovo
- Letter 4496a – 5/17 October 1891, from Maydanovo
- Letter 4642a – 13/25 March 1892, from Maydanovo
- Letter 4812c – 4/16 December 1892, from Saint Petersburg
- Letter 4844a – 4/16 January 1893, from Paris
- Letter 4971 – 19/31 July 1893, from Klin
18 letters from Francesco Berger to the composer, dating from 1888 to 1893, are preserved in the Tchaikovsky State Memorial Musical Museum-Reserve at Klin (a4, Nos. 227–244) [1].
Bibliography
- Some musical celebrities I have known. Tschaikowsky (1913)
- Facsimile letters of musicians (part 5) (1925)
- [Letter from Tchaikovsky to Francesco Berger] (1927)
- Berger, F. 97 (London, 1931)
- Visiting Cards of Celebrities (1971)
- Stanford, the Cambridge Jubilee, and Tchaikovsky (1980)
- Ehrlich, C. First Philharmonic: A History of the Royal Philharmonic Society (Oxford, 1995)
- По страницам международных конференций научной музыкальной библиотеки им. С. И. Танеева Русские музыкальные архивы за рубежом. Новые материалы (2004)
- Bisher unbekannte deutschsprachige Textautographe Čajkovskijs (2007)
- A previously unnoticed letter of 4/16 January 1893 from Tchaikovsky to Francesco Berger in London (2012)
- Čajkovskijs Londoner Sinfonien. Der Briefwechsel des Komponisten mit Francesco Berger (2013)
External Links
Notes and References
- ↑ Six of these letters were published in Russian translation only in Чайковский и зарубежные музыканты (1970), p. 20–22. All of Berger's letters to Tchaikovsky were published in the original German in Čajkovskijs Londoner Sinfonien. Der Briefwechsel des Komponisten mit Francesco Berger (2013).
