Mikhail Lermontov
Tchaikovsky Research
Russian writer, poet and painter (b. 3/15 October 1814 in Moscow; d. 15/27 July 1841 at Pyatigorsk), born Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov (Михаил Юрьевич Лермонтов).
Tchaikovsky's Settings of Works by Lermontov
- Tchaikovsky's song The Love of a Dead Man (Любовь мертвеца), No. 5 of the Six Romances, Op. 38 (1878), is based on Lermontov's poem of the same name published in 1841.
- Tchaikovsky's chorus The Golden Cloud Did Sleep (Ночевала тучка золотая) was written in 1887 to words from Lermontov's poem The Rock (Утес), published in 1841. Some years previously, in 1874, Tchaikovsky had made an orchestral arrangement of Aleksandr Dargomyzhsky's vocal trio The Golden Cloud Did Sleep, which was set to the same words.
On at least two occasions between October 1889 and March 1893, Tchaikovsky also considered writing an opera Béla (Бэла), after the first part of Lermontov's 1839 novel A Hero of Our Time (Герой нашего времени), with either Anton Chekhov or Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko as possible librettists. However, neither of these projects came to fruition.