He is Going

Tchaikovsky Research
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He is Going (Он идёт) was a humorous song supposedly written by Tchaikovsky to words by Aleksey Apukhtin during the first half of the 1860s (ČW 434) [1].

According to Fyodor Malinin's memoirs, one day Tchaikovsky and Aleksey Apukhtin were walking along the Nevsky Prospekt in Saint Petersburg when a tall and stately guardsman outstripped them. Then and there Apukhtin fashioned a short poem He is Going and Tchaikovsky set it to music [2].

There is no other evidence to corroborate this account, and neither the score nor the poem has been traced.

Notes and References

  1. Not included in TH. In other sources the title is wrongly given as Who is Going (Кто идёт).
  2. Fyodor Malinin, 'Apukhtin and Tchaikovsky' — manuscript in Klin House-Museum Archive. Quoted in Музыкальное наследие Чайковского. Из историй его произведений (1958), p. 429, and ČW, p. 765.