Letter 3355

Tchaikovsky Research
Date 18/30 September 1887
Addressed to Pyotr Jurgenson
Where written Maydanovo
Language Russian
Autograph Location Klin (Russia): Tchaikovsky State Memorial Musical Museum-Reserve (a3, No. 2577)
Publication П. И. Чайковский. Полное собрание сочинений, том XIV (1974), p. 218

Text and Translation

Russian text
(original)
English translation
By Brett Langston
18 сент[ября] [18]87
Майдан[ово]

Действуй, пожалуйста, совершенно по произволу. Подчинюсь всякому твоему решению, ибо в последние дни я рассудил, что в самом деле нельзя ребячиться и давать больше, чем следует. А всё-таки смертельно хочется купить!!!

30 р[ублей] нужно послать Марье Марковне Логиновой. Спасибо за хлопоты!

Очень, очень благодарен.

Твой, П. Чайковский

18 September 1887
Maydanovo

Please act entirely as you see fit [1]. I'll defer to your every decision, because in the last few days I've concluded that I really can't be childish and give more than I ought to. All the same I'm dying to buy it!!!

30 silver rubles need to be sent to Mariya Markovna Loginova [2]. Thank you for your trouble!

I'm very, very grateful.

Yours, P. Tchaikovsky

Notes and References

  1. ↑ Jurgenson had been negotiating on Tchaikovsky's behalf to purchase land from Nadezhda Vasilyevna Novikova, who was the owner of the Maydanovo estate where Tchaikovsky was renting a house.
  2. ↑ Mariya Markovna Loginova (née Palchikova; 1823-1888), daughter of the composer Mark Palchikov, who was engaged as a piano teacher for young Pyotr in Votkinsk by his parents around 1845. By 1848, as Modest informs us in his biography of the composer, the eight-year-old Pyotr could already play the piano as well as she could. In 1883, Tchaikovsky unexpectedly received a letter from her asking for financial assistance. He granted her a pension and also corresponded regularly with her during the last three years of her life (none of these letters, however, has come to light) — see Жизнь Петра Ильича Чайковского, том 1 (1997), p. 41. Modest's assertion that Mariya was a former serf has recently been disproven — see http://expositions.nlr.ru/eng/ex_manus/Chaikovsky/teacher_music.php .