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THE INVISIBLE MUSE: TCHAIKOVSKY AND MRS. VON MECK
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As a result, this long friendship, despite each of their numerous personal shortcomings (also reflected in their letters), despite the neurasthenia common to them both (and which they both called "misanthropy"), even despite their eventual -- and mystifying -- estrangement, represents perhaps the most attractive chapter in Tchaikovsky's biography. By her generous financial support, Nadezhda von Meck provided the composer with more than 13 years of comfortable existence (he was able to resign from his professorship at the Moscow Conservatory, hitherto the main source of his income) and made possible his full immersion in creative work. In turn, Tchaikovsky bestowed on her not only his Fourth Symphony, dedicating it to his "best friend," and his confidence, replete with tenderness and gratitude, which filled her with much consolation and pleasure ("a fate against which I am powerless"), but also a sort of immortality: no study or re-creation of his life leaves her unappreciated.
The earliest reference to the Fourth Symphony occurs in a letter to Nadezhda von Meck written on May 1, 18771, in which the composer states that he was "immersed in a symphony," which he had begun to write "as far back as the winter." On May 3, he reported that the first three movements were fully sketched and that he had begun work on the finale. This movement was completed in rough by the end of May. In the summer of the same year, Tchaikovsky also started working on his opera "Eugene Onegin," but his creative élan was interrupted by events immediately following his marriage: the composer and his wife proved incompatible in all respects, and their relationship was never consummated. After only 20 days of cohabitation, he left her, and for the next month and a half stayed with his sister at her estate in Kamenka, Ukraine. His return to Moscow in September was followed by a final break with his wife; in a most desolate mood, the composer fled abruptly to St. Petersburg and then abroad, never to see her again.
It was in Switzerland, where he settled for a while to recover, that Tchaikovsky resumed scoring the music for his opera's first act while continuing to work on the Fourth Symphony. The latter was completed and orchestrated during November and December and sent to Russia.
Mrs. von Meck herself attended the work's premiere on February 10, 1878 in Moscow under Nikolay Rubinstein's direction. "The audience received it very well, in particular the Scherzo," she wrote to the composer two days later. "There was much applause and at the end the audience was calling for you, and Rubinstein must have had to come out." (She having left the concert before Rubinstein's appearance.)
1 All dates in this essay are based on the Julian calendar, which remained in effect in Russia until 1918 and in the 19th century lagged 12 days behind the western Gregorian calendar.
Top banner photos: Concertmaster Alexander Barantschik; conductor Michael Tilson Thomas; composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. |
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The San Francisco Symphony was established in 1911 and gave its first concert in December of that year. |
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TCHAIKOVSKY NO. 4 IN PERFORMANCE marks the orchestra's second appearance on the series under the baton of Michael Tilson Thomas. |
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The DVD, which contains both programs, is available at Shop Thirteen. |
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