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Text replacement - "in any event" to "in any case"

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{{letterhead
|Date=12/24 September 1889
|To=[[Jules Massenet]]
|Place=[[Moscow]]
|Language=French
|Autograph={{locunknown}} <ref name="note4"/>
|Publication={{bib|2011/13|Tchaikovsky Research Bulletin No. 1}} (February 2011), p. 46 (incomplete; with English translation)<br/>{{bibx|2013/36|Чайковский. Новые материалы к творческой биографии}} (2013), p. 399 (incomplete; with Russian translation, p. 400)
|Notes=
}}

==Text and Translation==
This incomplete text is based on the extracts published in Sotheby's 2017 auction catalogue <ref name="note5"/> and Baudoin's 1938 sale catalogue <ref name="note1"/>, which may contain differences in formatting and content from Tchaikovsky's original letter.

{{Lettertext
|Language=French
|Translator=Luis Sundkvist
|Original text={{...}} À notre dernière entrevue, je vous avais prié de fixer définitivement la date du concert que vous conduirez, selon votre promesse, à la Société Impériale Musicale Russe de Moscou. Préoccupé par les répétitions d'"''Esclarmonde''", incertain, comme vous me le disiez, sur le sort que l'avenir réservait à cet opera, vous aviez voulu remettre à plus tard une réponse décisive à mes sollicitations {{...}} Nous désirons pour plusieurs raisons que vous acceptiez ce jour-là {{...}} et depuis longtemps la direction a réservé ce jour-là pour vous {{...}} Je vous prie seulement de ne pas retirer votre promesse et de venue dans tous les cas. Vous m'avez donné l'autorisation d'annoncer votre arrivée à Moscou au public ; ''on vous attend avec impatience'' et notre position vis-à-vis du public muscovite serait bien fausse si son attente ne se réalisait pas. De grâce, venez, cher maître! Je vous assure que cela n'est pas aussi fatiguant ni aussi difficile que l'on se l'imagine. Sur ce je Vous serre bien cordialement la main et Vous prie de croire à ma haute estime et ma fidele de votre,
{{right|P. Tchaïkovsky}}

|Translated text=
{{...}} At our last meeting I asked you to give a definitive date for the concert which, as you promised, you will conduct at the Imperial Russian Musical Society of [[Moscow]] <ref name="note2"/>. Since you were then preoccupied with the rehearsals for "''Esclarmonde''", and, as you told me, also uncertain as to the fate which the future held in store for this opera, you expressed the wish to postpone a final response to my requests until sometime later <ref name="note3"/> {{...}} For several reasons we would like you to accept that date [4 April 1890] {{...}} and the board of directors has long since booked that date for you {{...}} I beg you only not to go back on your promise and to come in any case. You authorized me to announce to the public that you would be coming to [[Moscow]]; ''you are expected there impatiently'', and our situation with regard to the Muscovite public would be quite awkward if its expectations were to fail to come true. Please do come, dear maestro! I assure you that all this is neither as exhausting nor as difficult as you may imagine. With this I shake you warmly by the hand and beg you to believe in my high esteem and faithfulness to you,
{{right|P. Tchaikovsky}}
}}

==Notes and References==
<references>
<ref name="note1">See ''Lettres autographes et correspondances diverses adressées principalement au maître et à M[ada]me Massenet. Vente Henri Baudoin, Paris, hôtel Drouot, 8 décembre 1938'' (item no. 23; incomplete)/ A scan of the relevant page in this catalogue was kindly provided by Jean-Christophe Branger of the Université Jean Monnet in Saint-Etienne, who also mentions this letter in the introduction to his book ''Manon de Jules Massenet, ou, Le crépuscule de l'opéra-comique'' (Metz, 1999), p. 10, note 8.</ref>
<ref name="note2">Earlier that year, during his second conducting tour of Western Europe, Tchaikovsky had sought to help the [[Moscow]] branch of the Russian Musical Society (which had recently lost its principal conductor, [[Max Erdmannsdörfer]]) by inviting, in the name of the society, several prominent European musicians and composers to conduct concerts there during the 1889–90 season. One of these composers was [[Massenet]], who had written to Tchaikovsky to accept this invitation (in a letter that has not come down to us), and to whom Tchaikovsky had in turn replied from [[Dresden]] on 5/17 February 1889 (see [[Letter 3787a]]). A few weeks later, when his concert tour took him to [[Paris]], Tchaikovsky had met his French colleague for the first time, and on 21 March/2 April he had reported the following to his publisher[[Jurgenson]]: "I have seen ''[[Massenet]]'' several times; he is very flattered and glad to come to Russia. He still can't give an exact date, but would prefer to come in the spring [of 1890]" (see [[Letter 3826]]). In the end, though, despite Tchaikovsky's entreaties in the above letter, [[Massenet]] did not keep his promise to come to Russia and conduct a concert there.</ref>
<ref name="note3">The sentences that follow are paraphrased in the auction catalogue containing extracts of this letter: ''Esclarmonde'' had turned out to be a great success [[Massenet]]'s opera was premiered at the Opéra-Comique in [[Paris]] on 14 May 1889 {{NS}}; it was now essential to know when [[Massenet]] would be coming to Russia; would 4 April 1890 be a convenient date for him?</ref>
<ref name="note4">Auctioned on 26 October 2017 by Sotheby's, [[London]], and previously on 8 December 1938 by Baudoin, [[Paris]].</ref>
<ref name="note5">See https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2017/music-manuscripts-private-collection-l17413/lot.135.html</ref>
</references>

Letter 3933a - Revision history

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Brett: Text replacement - "in any event" to "in any case"