Letter 444

Tchaikovsky Research
Date 10/22 February 1876
Addressed to Anton Door
Where written Moscow
Language French
Autograph Location unknown
Publication Московские ведомости (28 March 1901) (Russian translation, abridged)
Neue freie Presse (30 March 1901) (German translation)
П. И. Чайковский. Полное собрание сочинений, том VI (1961), p. 23 (Russian translation; abridged)
Festschrift Otto Erich Deutsch zum 80. Geburtstag am 5. September 1963 (1963), p. 280–290
П. И. Чайковский. Полное собрание сочинений, том XVII (1981), p. 220–221 ("No. 444a")
Notes Original incorrectly dated "1875"

Text and Translation

French text
(original)
English translation
By Luis Sundkvist
Moscou
le 10/22 Fevrier 1875

Cher ami!

Depuis bien longtemps je me propose de V[ou]s écrire pour V[ous] remercier de l'amitié que V[ou]s n'avez jamais cessé de me témoigner et de l'attention dont V[ous] honorez mes compositions. Si j'ai tant tardé à remplir cette dette de reconnaissance, c'est que V[ou]s ne pouvez pas V[ou]s imaginer combien je suis devenu paresseux pour tout ce qui n'entre pas dans le cercle de mes occupations quotidiennes. Mais, après une conversation que j'ai eu ce matin avec Jurgenson, qui m'appris que V[ou]s avez eu encore une fois l'extrême bonté de mettre dans votre programme des morceaux à moi, je n'ai pu y tenir et je m'empresse maintenant de V[ou]s annoncer que je ne suis pas un ingrat et que je suis on ne peut plus touché des marques de votre amitié qui m'est d'autant plus chère, que j'ai toujours professé pour V[ou]s une grande et sincère simpathie. J'apprecie à la juste valeur le service énorme que V[ou]s rendez à ma carrière de compositeur, en jouant mes morceaux et en me faisant connaître à Vienne. Merci, merci et mille fois merci, cher et bon ami!

Maintenant, laissez moi V[ou]s adresser une prière. Jurgenson me dit que d'après Votre lettre, il ne serait pas impossible qu'on jouât à Vienne une de mes compositions simphoniques. Si jamais ce bonheur pourrait arriver, je voudrais qu'on commence par une de mes pièces qui puisse donner au public de Vienne une aussi bonne idée que possible. Si jamais il'y aura sérieusement question de jouer quelque chose de moi, je suis sûr que c'est à V[ou]s que l'on s'adressera pour le choix de la pièce. Je V[ou]s supplie, cher Door, de recommander à ceux de qui cela depend les compositions suivantes:

1) "Roméo et Juliette", ouverture,
2) "La Tempète", fantaisie sur le drame de Schakespeare,
3) Troisième simphonie, composée récemment et jouée à Moscou et à Petersbourg avec succès.

La premiere de ces oeuvres est imprimée (partition et parties separées) chez Bote et Bock ou bien Bessel de Petersbourg. Quant au deux autres il faudra V[ou]s adresser à moi ou à Jurgenson pour la partition et les parties. "La Tempète" est imprimée en arrangement de piano à quatre mains. Quant au[x] quatuors on pourrait commencer par le premier, car, quoique inferieur au[x] deux autres, il contient un andante qui a eu beaucoup de succès en Russie et qui généralement a le don de plaire au public

Enfin je V[ou]s dis tout cela seulement parce que je crois que grâce à Votre protection il ne serait pas impossible qu'on voulut jouer quelque chose de moi. Je V[ou]s avoue que ce serait le plus beau jour de ma vie. Mais je n'ai nullement la prétention de croire que cela doit arriver. Je sais très bien qu'en fait de compositeurs comme moi, il y en a plusieurs dizaines et même centaines en Allemagne. Dans touts les cas, si jamais cela arrive, c'est à V[ou]s que je le devrai, cher ami, et soyez certain que j'apprecie dans toute son étendue le service que Votre amitié m'aura rendue

Si je ne me trompe, Jurgenson m'a dit, que Votre lettre me transmet une salutation de la part de Hans Richter. Dites-lui que cela me touche extrèmement et que j'en suis énormement flatté,

Adieu, cher ami.

P. Tschaïkovsky

Moscow
10/22 February 1875 [1]

Dear friend!

For quite a long time I have been intending to write to you in order to thank you for the friendship which you have never ceased to manifest towards me and for the attention with which you honour my compositions. If I have taken so long to fulfil this debt of gratitude, it is because you have no idea of how lazy I have become with regard to everything that does not fall within the circle of my daily occupations. But after a conversation I had this morning with Jurgenson, who informed me that you have once again been so extremely kind as to include some of my pieces in your programme, I could not leave it at that and am now hurrying to let you know that I am not an ungrateful person, and that I am most touched by the tokens of your friendship, which is all the dearer to me, since I have always felt a great and sincere sympathy for you. I can fully appreciate the huge service which you are rendering to my career as a composer by playing my pieces and making me known in Vienna. A thousand thanks to you, dear and good friend!

Now let me address a request to you. Jurgenson tells me that, judging from your letter, it is not impossible that one of my symphonic compositions might be played in Vienna. If this good fortune were ever to happen, I should wish them to begin with a work of mine which is capable of giving the Viennese public as good an impression as possible. If the question is ever seriously raised of performing something by me, I am sure that it is to you they will turn to ask about the work to be chosen. I implore you, dear Door, to recommend to those on whom all this depends the following compositions:

1) "Romeo and Juliet", overture;
2) "The Tempest", fantasy on Shakespeare's play;
3) Third Symphony, composed recently and performed successfully in Moscow and Petersburg.

The first of these works is available in print (score and separate parts) from Bote and Bock or from Bessel in Petersburg. As for the other two, you would have to write to me or to Jurgenson for the score and the parts. "The Tempest" has been published as a 4-handed piano arrangement. As for my string quartets, it might be best to start with the first, since, though it is inferior to the other two, it contains an andante which has had a lot of success in Russia and which generally has the gift of pleasing audiences [2].

Anyway, I say all this to you solely because I think that, thanks to your patronage, it is not entirely impossible that someone may want to perform one of my [orchestral] works. I confess to you that this would be the finest day of my life. But I am by no means as arrogant as to suppose that this must happen. I know very well that in the matter of composers like me there are several dozens and even hundreds in Germany. In any case, if this ever comes to be, it is to you that I shall be obliged, dear friend, and rest assured that I can appreciate in its full scope the service which your friendship will then have rendered me.

If I am not mistaken, Jurgenson told me that your letter conveys a greeting for me from Hans Richter [3]. Tell him that I am very touched by this, and that I feel tremendously flattered.

Farewell, dear friend.

P. Tchaikovsky

Notes and References

  1. Tchaikovsky mistakenly wrote the year as "1875".
  2. The famous Andante cantabile from String Quartet No. 1, which would move Lev Tolstoy to tears when he heard it during a private performance organized for him by Tchaikovsky at the Moscow Conservatory in December that year.
  3. The Austrian conductor Hans Richter (1843–1916) was, alongside Hans von Bülow and Anton Door, another early champion of Tchaikovsky's music in the German-speaking lands. Later that year, on 12 December 1876 [N.S.], Richter would conduct the first performance in Vienna of the overture-fantasia Romeo and Juliet, and five years later he would conduct Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto, with Adolph Brodsky as the soloist.