Letter 4720

Tchaikovsky Research
Date 1/13 July 1892
Addressed to Pyotr Jurgenson
Where written Vichy
Language Russian
Autograph Location Klin (Russia): Tchaikovsky State Memorial Musical Museum-Reserve (a3, No. 2811)
Publication Жизнь Петра Ильича Чайковского, том 3 (1902), p. 546–547 (abridged)
П. И. Чайковский. Переписка с П. И. Юргенсоном, том 2 (1952), p. 247–248
П. И. Чайковский. Полное собрание сочинений, том XVI-Б (1979), p. 125–126

Text and Translation

Russian text
(original)
English translation
By Brett Langston
1-го июля [18]92

Послезавтра, милый друг, уезжаю почти прямо в Клин через Петербург. По получении сего пошли тотчас все корректуры и все, что меня может коснуться, в Клин, ибо в Москву я приеду не сразу, а отдохнувши немножко в Клину. Господи, как Виши мне надоел!!!

Я от Листа имел всего одно маленькое письмецо, столь незначащее, — что посылать его La Mar'е не стоит. Лист был добряк и охотно отвечал на все ухаживания, — но так как ни к нему и ни к какой знаменитости я никогда не приставал с своими делишками, — то поэтому в сношениях с ним и не состоял. Впрочем он, кажется, искренно предпочитал мне гг. Кюи и других, ездивших к нему на поклон в Веймар, но вместе с тем и симпатичных ему по их музыке. Никакого особенного сочувствия к моим произведениям Лист, сколько мне известно, не имел.

До свиданья! Будь здоров.

Твой, П. Чайковский

1st July 1892

The day after tomorrow, dear friend, I'm leaving almost directly for Klin via Petersburg. All the proofs were sent at the same time as this, and everything that might be connected to me to Klin, because I won't be going to Moscow immediately, but resting a little at Klin. Lord, how Vichy has worn me out!!!

I had only one short letter from Liszt: so insignificant that it's not worth sending to La Mara [1]. Liszt was good-natured and readily replied to all solicitations — but since I've never pestered him or any other celebrity with my attentions, I didn't have any dealings directly with him. But he seems to have genuinely preferred me to Messrs Cui and others who paid their respects to him in Weimar, even though he was kind to them and their music. So far as I know Liszt had no particular sympathy for my works.

Until we meet! Keep well.

Yours, P. Tchaikovsky

Text and Translation

  1. Tchaikovsky was replying to Pyotr Jurgenson's letter of 26 June/8 July 1892, in which the latter passed on a request from the German writer and music historian Ida Marie Lipsius (1837-1927), who wrote under the pseudonym "La Mara", for any letters that Tchaikovsky may have received from Franz Liszt, to be included in a forthcoming collection of Liszt's correspondence — Franz Liszt's Briefe in 8 volumes (Leipzig, 1893–1905). Not long before his death in 1886 Liszt also sent Tchaikovsky a signed photograph with the "little letter" to which Tchaikovsky referred, which is now preserved in the Klin House-Museum archive.