Letter 511

Tchaikovsky Research
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Date between 2/14 and 10/22 November 1876
Addressed to Vasily Bessel
Where written Moscow
Language Russian
Autograph Location Moscow (Russia): Russian National Museum of Music (ф. 42, No. 256)
Publication П. И. Чайковский. Полное собрание сочинений, том VI (1961), p. 84

Text and Translation

Russian text
(original)
English translation
By Brett Langston
Любезный друг!

Потрудись уплатить подателю сего письма 1 р[убль], а прилагаемое письмо и рукопись отправить тотчас же к Комиссаржевскому.

Твой, П. Чайковский

Gracious friend!

Kindly pay 1 ruble to the bearer of this letter [1], and dispatch the enclosed letter and the manuscript at once to Komissarzhevsky [2].

Yours, P. Tchaikovsky

Notes and References

  1. See Letter 512 to Pyotr Jurgenson of the same date.
  2. The tenor Fyodor Komissarzhevsky was performing the title role in Tchaikovsky's opera Vakula the Smith, whose premiere would take place at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg on 24 November/6 December 1876. The letter and manuscript referred to have not survived, but they may have contained changes to the role of Vakula that were requested by the performer when he met the composer in late October/early November 1876. It is also possible that this manuscript contained the song Tell Me, What in the Shade of the Branches?, which would later be published as No. 1 of the Six Romances, Op. 57 (1884), and which Tchaikovsky indicated had been written for Komissarzhevsky some considerable time before the rest of Op. 57.