



Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images available at The Internet Archive)




  Every attempt has been made to replicate the original as printed. No
  attempt has been made to correct or normalize the spelling of
  non-English words. Some typographical errors have been corrected; a list
  follows the text. The Illustrations have been moved from mid-paragraph
  for ease of reading. (etext transcriber's note)









             THE LIFE & LETTERS OF PETER ILICH TCHAIKOVSKY




                         THE LIFE & LETTERS OF

                              PETER ILICH
                              TCHAIKOVSKY

                        BY MODESTE TCHAIKOVSKY
                        EDITED FROM THE RUSSIAN
                        WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
                      ROSA NEWMARCH: ILLUSTRATED

                  LONDON : JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD
                 NEW YORK : JOHN LANE COMPANY : MCMVI

         WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LIMITED, PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH

                                  TO

                       SERGEÏ IVANOVICH TANEIEV

                              AND TO ALL
                    WHO STILL CHERISH THE MEMORY OF

                        PETER ILICH TCHAIKOVSKY

                         I DEDICATE THIS WORK




INTRODUCTION


In offering to English and American readers this abridged edition of
_The Life and Letters of Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky_, my introduction must
of necessity take the form of some justification of my curtailments and
excisions.

The motives which led to this undertaking, and the reasons for my mode
of procedure, may be stated in a few words.

In 1900 I published a volume dealing with Tchaikovsky,[1] which was, I
believe, the first attempt to embody in book form all the
literature--scattered through the byways of Russian
journalism--concerning the composer of the Pathetic Symphony.

In the course of a year or two--the book having sold out in England and
America--a proposal was made to me to prepare a new edition. Meanwhile,
however, the authorised _Life and Letters_, compiled and edited by the
composer’s brother, Modeste Ilich Tchaikovsky, was being issued in
twenty-five parts by P. I. Jurgenson, of Moscow.[2] This original
Russian edition was followed almost immediately by a German translation,
published in Leipzig by the same firm.[3]

In November, 1901, the late P. I. Jurgenson approached me on the subject
of a translation, but his negotiations with an American firm eventually
fell through. He then requested me to find, if possible, an English
publisher willing to take up the book. Both in England and America the
public interest in Tchaikovsky seemed to be steadily increasing.
Frequent calls for copies of my small book--by this time out of
print--testified that this was actually the case.

An alternative course now lay before me: to revise my own book, with the
help of the material furnished by the authorised _Life and Letters_, or
to take in hand an English translation of the latter. The first would
have been the less arduous and exacting task; on the other hand, there
was no doubt in my mind as to the greater value and importance of
Modeste Tchaikovsky’s work.

The simplest--and in many ways most satisfactory--course seemed at first
to be the translation of the Russian edition in its entirety. Closer
examination, however, revealed the fact that out of the 3,000 letters
included in this book a large proportion were addressed to persons quite
unknown to the English and American publics; while at the same time it
contained a mass of minute and almost _local_ particulars which could
have very little significance for readers unversed in every detail of
Russian musical life.

Another practical question confronted me. What publisher would venture
upon launching this biographical three-decker, with its freight of 3,000
letters, amounting to nearly 2,000 pages of closely printed matter? Such
colossal biographies, however valuable as sources of information to the
specialist, are quite beyond all possibility of purchase or perusal by
the general public. That the author himself realised this, seems evident
from the fact that the German edition was lightened of about a third of
the original contents.

Following the lines of these authorised abridgments, while using my own
judgment as to the retention of some portions of the Russian text
omitted in the German edition, I have condensed the work still further.

It may be true, as Carlyle has said, that mankind takes “an unspeakable
delight in biography”; but it is equally certain that these “headlong
days” which have witnessed the extinction of the three-volume novel are
absolutely unfavourable to the success of the three-volume biography.

While admiring the patient and pious industry which has raised so
colossal a monument to Tchaikovsky’s memory, I cannot but feel that it
would be unreasonable to expect of any nation but his own a hero-worship
so devout that it could assimilate a _Tchaikovskiad_ of such prodigious
dimensions.

The present volume is the result of a careful selection of material. The
leading idea which I have kept in view throughout the fulfilment of my
task has been to preserve as far as possible the _autobiographical_
character of the book. Wherever feasible, I have preferred to let
Tchaikovsky himself tell the story of his life. For this reason the
proportion of letters to the additional biographical matter is even
greater in my version than in the German edition. When two or three
letters of only moderate interest have followed in immediate succession,
I have frequently condensed their contents into a single paragraph,
keeping as closely as possible to the phraseology of the composer
himself.

In one respect the present edition shows a clear improvement upon the
German. In the latter the dates have been given throughout in the Old
Style, thereby frequently causing confusion in the minds of Western
readers. In the English version--with a few unimportant exceptions--the
dates are given according to both calendars.

The most romantic episode of Tchaikovsky’s life--his friendship
extending over thirteen years with a woman to whom he never addressed a
direct personal greeting--is told in a series of intimate letters. In
these I have spared all but the most necessary abridgements.

The account of his tour in America, which takes the form of a diary kept
for the benefit of his near relatives, cannot fail to amuse and interest
all those who remember the favourable impression created by his
appearance at the inauguration of the Carnegie Hall, New York, in May,
1891.

The illustrations are the same as those published in the Russian and
German publications, with two notable additions: the photograph of
Tchaikovsky and Siloti, and the fine portrait by Kouznietsov.

My thanks are due to Mr. Grant Richards for permission to republish the
facsimile from the score of the Overture “_1812_”; also to Mr. W. W.
Manning and Mr. Adolf Brodsky for the kind loan of autographs.

In conclusion, let me say that in planning and carrying out this work it
is not so much the needs of the specialist I have kept most constantly
in view, as those of that large section of the musical public whose
interest in Tchaikovsky has been awakened by the sincerely emotional and
human elements of his music.

     ROSA NEWMARCH




CONTENTS


                                         PAGE
PART I. CHAPTERS I.-V. 1840-1861            1

PART II. CHAPTERS I.-VII. 1861-1866        30

PART III. CHAPTERS I.-XIII. 1866-1877      64

PART IV. CHAPTERS I.-VIII. 1877-1878      204

PART V. CHAPTERS I.-XX. 1878-1885         318

PART VI. CHAPTERS I.-XIII. 1885-1888      468

PART VII. CHAPTERS I.-XIX. 1888-1893      539

APPENDICES--A, B, C                       726

ALPHABETICAL INDEX OF NAMES               773

ALPHABETICAL INDEX OF MUSICAL WORKS       779




ILLUSTRATIONS

1. TCHAIKOVSKY IN 1893, FROM A PORTRAIT BY KOUZNIETSOV     _Frontispiece_

                                                                 TO FACE
                                                                    PAGE
2. ILIA PETROVICH TCHAIKOVSKY, THE COMPOSER’S FATHER, IN 1860          4

3. THE HOUSE IN WHICH TCHAIKOVSKY WAS BORN, AT VOTINSK                 8

4. THE TCHAIKOVSKY FAMILY IN 1848, FROM A DAGUERROTYPE                14

5. ALEXANDRA ANDREIEVNA TCHAIKOVSKY, THE COMPOSER’S MOTHER, IN 1848   20

6. TCHAIKOVSKY IN 1859 (VIGNETTE)                                     26

7. THE COMPOSER’S FATHER, WITH HIS TWIN SONS MODESTE AND ANATOL       34

8. TCHAIKOVSKY IN 1859 (CARTE DE VISITE)                              42

9. TCHAIKOVSKY IN 1863                                                56

10. TCHAIKOVSKY IN 1867, IN WINTER DRESS                              78

11. TCHAIKOVSKY IN 1868                                              102

12. TCHAIKOVSKY IN 1873                                              132

13. TCHAIKOVSKY IN 1874                                              150

14. TCHAIKOVSKY IN 1877                                              214

15. FRAGMENT FROM A LETTER, WITH SKETCH FOR A THEME
    FOR “THE ENCHANTRESS”                                            482

16. TCHAIKOVSKY IN 1888                                              540

17. TCHAIKOVSKY AND SILOTI                                           550

18. TCHAIKOVSKY’S HOUSE AT FROLOVSKOE                                560

19. THE HOUSE IN WHICH TCHAIKOVSKY LIVED AT KLIN                     680

20. TCHAIKOVSKY’S BEDROOM AT KLIN                                    694

21. SITTING-ROOM AT KLIN                                             700

22. TCHAIKOVSKY IN 1893 (TAKEN IN LONDON)                            708


     “To regret the past, to hope in the future, and never to be
     satisfied with the present--this is my life.”--P. TCHAIKOVSKY
     (_Extract from a letter_)




THE LIFE & LETTERS OF PETER ILICH TCHAIKOVSKY




                                   PART I




I


One of the most characteristic traits of Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky was his
ironical attitude towards his family’s traditions of noble descent. He
never lost an opportunity of making fun of their armorial bearings,
which he regarded as “imaginary,” and clung obstinately to the plebeian
origin of the Tchaikovskys. This was not merely the outcome of his
democratic convictions, but had its origin, partly in the pride which
lay at the very root of his nature, and partly in his excessive
conscientiousness. He would not consider himself a scion of the
aristocracy, because his nearest ancestors could not boast of one
_boyar_, nor one owner of patrimonial estates. His father was the sole
serf-owner in the family, and _he_ possessed a cook with a numerous
progeny--ten souls in all.

But if he was unconcerned as to family descent, he was far from
indifferent as to nationality. The aristocratic pretensions of his
relatives aroused his mockery, but the mere suggestion of their Polish
origin stirred him to instant wrath. Love of Russia and all things
Russian was so deeply rooted in him that, while he cared nothing for
questions of pedigree, he rejoiced to discover among his earliest
ancestors on his father’s side one orthodox Russian from the district of
Kremenschug.

Tracing back Tchaikovsky’s pedigree, we do not find a single name
connected with music. There is not one instance of a professional
musician, and only three can be considered amateurs--his mother’s