Letter 192

Tchaikovsky Research
Date 15/27 May 1870
Addressed to Mily Balakirev
Where written Moscow
Language Russian
Autograph Location Saint Petersburg (Russia): National Library of Russia (ф. 834, ед. хр. 24)
Publication Переписка М. А. Балакирева и П. И. Чайковского (1868-1891) [1912], p. 58
П. И. Чайковский. Полное собрание сочинений, том V (1959), p. 217
Милий Алексеевич Балакирев. Воспоминания и письма (1962), p. 153
Notes Telegram

Text and Translation

Russian text
(original)
English translation
By Luis Sundkvist
Выезжаю воскресенье. Привезу всё что требуете и палочку Берлиоза.
П. Чайковский

Am leaving Sunday. Will bring everything you ask for including Berlioz's baton [1].
P. Tchaikovsky

Notes and References

  1. Tchaikovsky seems to have sent this telegram in response to a letter from Balakirev which has not survived. In a letter to Tchaikovsky written the previous year, on 31 March/12 April 1869, Balakirev had said that he was going to send Nikolay Rubinstein the baton which Berlioz had given him as a present in February 1868 at the end of his second visit to Russia. Balakirev wanted Rubinstein to use this baton when conducting Berlioz's Requiem at a special concert in Moscow in memory of the recently deceased French master. See this earlier letter of Balakirev's in Милий Алексеевич Балакирев. Воспоминания и письма (1962), p. 131–132. During his short stay in Saint Petersburg from 18/30 May to 21 May/2 June 1870 before departing abroad, Tchaikovsky returned Berlioz's baton to Balakirev.