Nikolay Lents

Tchaikovsky Research

Russian lawyer and composer (b. 1858; d. 1914), born Nikolay Konstantinovich Lents (Николай Константинович Ленц).

Tchaikovsky and Lents

Lents was introduced to Tchaikovsky by his teacher Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov in 1880, and later went on to become the organizer of a music circle in Tver which zealously rehearsed and performed Tchaikovsky's works.

Alina Bryullova recalled in her memoirs how, during a train journey, Lents once intervened to save Tchaikovsky from the questions about music and his works with which an unwitting fellow-passenger was plying the composer. She also noted how:

This very Lents, together with my second husband [Vladimir Bryullov], made a piano arrangement for 8 hands of Manfred — a work which we were all terribly enthusiastic about, but which is very difficult to play in the 4-hand transcription. Lents and his wife, and my husband and I rehearsed this arrangement and played it to Tchaikovsky. He was so pleased with it that he did not make a single correction and gave it to Jurgenson to be published. Lents worshipped Pyotr Ilyich to such an extent that on the day which had been appointed for playing through the arrangement, even though his wife felt very ill, he told her categorically that she had to come with him, since Pyotr Ilyich would be expecting them. So she went with her husband, played her part very well, and the next day it turned out that she had measles [1].

Dedications

In 1893, Tchaikovsky dedicated his piano piece Valse à cinq temps — No. 16 of the Eighteen Pieces, Op. 72 — "à Mr. Nicolas Lenz".

Correspondence with Tchaikovsky

3 letters from Tchaikovsky to Nikolay Lents have survived, dating from 1880 to 1893, all of which have been translated into English on this website:

2 letters from Lents to the composer are preserved in the Tchaikovsky State Memorial Musical Museum-Reserve at Klin (a4, Nos. 2121–2122).

Bibliography

External Links

Notes and References

  1. Alina Bryullova's reminiscences of Tchaikovsky are included in Воспоминания о П. И. Чайковском (1980), p. 108–109. The arrangement of the Manfred symphony for 2 pianos, 8 hands, by Nikolay Lents and Vladimir Bryullov was published by Jurgenson in 1895.