The Golden Cloud Did Sleep (Dargomyzhsky)
The Golden Cloud Did Sleep (Ночевала тучка золотая) is a trio for voices with piano by Aleksandr Dargomyzhsky, which Tchaikovsky arranged for orchestra (TH 189 ; ČW 418) [1], probably in 1876.
It should not be confused with Tchaikovsky's own choral setting of the same poem, The Golden Cloud Did Sleep, which dates from 1887.
Instrumentation
Arranged for solo soprano, tenor and baritone voices, with an orchestra consisting of 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets (in B-flat), 2 bassoons + 2 horns (in F) + violins I, violins II, violas, cellos, and double basses.
Movements and Duration
There is one movement: Adagio (G minor, 69 bars), lasting around 4 minutes in performance.
Text
The Russian words are by Mikhail Lermontov (1814–1841), from his poem The Rock (Утес) (1841).
History
On the manuscript of his orchestration, Tchaikovsky wrote: "Trio. Music by Dargomyzhsky. Orchestrated by P. Tchaikovsky". No other information has survived concerning the origins of this work.
Performances
The first performance took place in Saint Petersburg at an afternoon concert of the Russian Musical Society on 26 December 1876/7 January 1877, conducted by Eduard Nápravník. The performers were Ye. V. Klebek, Fyodor Komissarzhevsky and Fyodor Stravinsky.
Publication
Tchaikovsky's arrangement was published for the first time in 1970 in volume 59 of Tchaikovsky's Complete Collected Works, edited by Irina Iordan.
Autographs
Tchaikovsky's manuscript arrangement is now preserved in the Klin House-Museum Archive (a1, No. 142).
Related Works
The trio The Golden Cloud Did Sleep was written by Aleksandr Dargomyzhsky (1813–1869) in the mid 1850s, for soprano, tenor, baritone and piano accompaniment, and was first published in 1856 in Saint Petersburg.
