Clarens

Tchaikovsky Research


Clarens is a small village in the municipality of Montreux, in the canton of Vaud, in Switzerland.


Tchaikovsky in Clarens

Tchaikovsky stayed at Clarens on three occasions:

From Until Notes
10/22 October 1877 1/13 November 1877 Immediately after the end of his marriage to Antonina Milyukova, he stayed with his brother Anatoly at the Villa Richelieu, and within a week of arriving his state of health had improved sufficiently to allow him to complete the orchestration and piano arrangement of Act I of Yevgeny Onegin.
25 February/9 March 1878 5/17 April 1878 Accompanied by his brother Modest, Nikolay Konradi, and Aleksey Sofronov; after initially working on his Twelve Pieces, Op. 40 and the Grand Sonata, the arrival of his violinist friend Iosif Kotek inspired him to begin a Violin Concerto on 5/17 March, and he worked so rapidly that by 30 March/11 April the whole concerto was complete and fully orchestrated.
30 December 1878/11 January 1879 4/16 February 1879 This time his stay at the Villa Richelieu was spent almost exclusively working on the opera The Maid of Orleans (except for a day trip to Geneva on 17/29 January).

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