14
The Russian Refugee: Violin Concerto
The debacle of Tchaikovsky’s marriage had created a deluge of rumours in Moscow, and an urgent damage limitation exercise was mounted by his family and friends. A tale was put about that the couple were to be reunited in Berlin, and this required Antonina’s immediate removal from Moscow. Accordingly she was given money by Rubinstein and Anatoly, then packed off to Odessa, where she seems to have disappeared. Realizing what mischief she could create on the loose, Sasha had instantly headed thither, run Antonina to earth, then borne her off to Kamenka where she could be supervised. Since it was recognized that Tchaikovsky’s absence was going to be prolonged, some explanation was needed. The Paris International Exhibition of 1878 provided the answer. A Russian musical delegate would be required, and Tchaikovsky’s ‘honeymoon’ could be extended until it was time to take up this responsibility. Accordingly the appointment was sought and made. This posting would also provide subsistence. Meanwhile Rubinstein had arranged for the Conservatoire to continue paying a proportion of their absent professor’s salary. At this moment of crisis, Tchaikovsky had very good reason for gratitude not only to his family, but to his friends.
Yet the most significant intervention at this time came from an outside quarter. Tchaikovsky had finally to tell Nadezhda von Meck of the collapse of his marriage. Her private joy might easily be guessed; Tchaikovsky was now emotionally dependent on her more than ever, and to bind him yet more tightly, she sent him one thousand francs to clear his debts, promising a future monthly allowance of fifteen hundred francs. Her offer was very tactfully put: ‘Perhaps I am not a person who is intimate with you,’ she wrote:
but you know how I love you, how I wish you the best in everything. You know how many happy moments you afford me, how deeply grateful I am to you for them, how necessary you are to me, and how for me you must be exactly that which you were created to be. Consequently I am not doing anything for you, but everything for myself. And if I were to need something from you, you would do it for me, wouldn’t you? So this means we are quits – and so do not prevent me from giving my attention to your housekeeping, Pyotr Ilich!
Tchaikovsky’s gratitude can readily be imagined, and her allowance, continued over the next twelve years, would give him financial security, free him from his Conservatoire chores, and enable him to channel all his energies into composing.
So far the day-to-day thread in Tchaikovsky’s biography has been notable for its very lack of anything notable. Schoolboy, civil servant, Conservatoire student, Conservatoire teacher – each stage has followed naturally and smoothly. For a while, all that is now to change, and biographical detail will proliferate, sometimes recording a frenzy of activity precipitated by his overwrought condition, the legacy of his marital disaster. On leaving St Petersburg, Anatoly took his distraught brother first to Berlin, then Geneva, finally settling for the next three weeks for the quiet of a pleasant lakeside pension in Clarens, a tiny town on the north bank of Lake Geneva. Yet even here there was one factor that soon became oppressive. ‘Mountains are very fine,’ Tchaikovsky wrote to his old colleague, Albrecht, ‘but it’s very difficult for a Russian to stand their overwhelming grandeur for long. I’m dying for a plain, for a boundless, distant prospect, for an expanse of open country, and for wide horizons’ – in other words, something like the Russia he knew. Having received news of his patroness’s generosity, he could move on, and it was to Paris that he and Anatoly directed themselves. Now he could also afford to summon his valet, Alexey, from Russia.
This was the good news: the bad concerned Antonina. She was still at Kamenka and Tchaikovsky feared that she might be poisoning his family’s view of him. She wrote him wild letters, sometimes accusing him, at others cajoling him; worst of all, he was in terror that she might reveal publicly his sexual orientation. Modest and Sasha were now hoping for a reconciliation, but Tchaikovsky was adamant that this could never be. ‘Even if you are right that she is good-hearted,’ he wrote:
even if I am guilty all round because I have not known how to appreciate her, even if it’s true she loves me – yet live with her I cannot, cannot, cannot . Demand of me any satisfaction you will for her: when I return to Russia I’ll give her two-thirds of my earnings, I’ll hide myself in any backwater you like, I’m prepared to become a beggar – but, for God’s sake, never hint to me that I should return to Antonina Ivanovna. In a word, in the fullest sense of the expression, I do not love her!
From Paris the brothers moved on to Italy. Two days in Florence – and then it was Rome. If Tchaikovsky had seemed to be on the road to recovery while in Switzerland, there had now been a relapse. ‘I literally cannot bear any noise. Both yesterday in Florence and here today, every sound tears at my nerves. The mass of people moving through the narrow streets begins to irritate me so much that each stranger who comes towards me appears to be a rabid foe.’ He had asked for the Fourth Symphony material to be forwarded to him in Rome, but apparently it had not arrived, and he would have to wait. Moreover, in a fortnight Anatoly had to return to Russia. To fill the time he visited the Vatican, St Peter’s and the Colosseum, mainly to please Anatoly. Tchaikovsky was never particularly drawn to the visual arts, but one statue did hold his attention; that of the dying gladiator in the Capitol – much finer, he felt significantly, than the statue of Venus.
After three days the Fourth Symphony package was found (it had been mis-shelved), and they could leave Rome for Venice. Here his mood improved. Venice was a quiet, traffic-free city, and he loved the very narrow streets, especially in the evenings when the shops were lit by their gas lamps. He would remain nine days, scoring a little more of Onegin . He planned to part from Anatoly in Vienna, where he would also meet Alexey, and then he might return to Venice with his servant. In Vienna he had the delight of Kotek’s company, too. However, the return to Venice was not the pleasure he had anticipated. His mood had changed, and he drank heavily to drown his sorrows. Yet the most disturbing evidence of his condition was found in his personal library after his death. It was a copy of three tragedies by Euripides, translated into Latin, in a very rare edition that had been published in Antwerp in 1581. Inside, in Tchaikovsky’s own hand, was written: ‘Stolen from the library of the Palace of the Doges in Venice on 15 December 1877 by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, court counsellor, and professor at the Conservatoire’.
Now at last, however, his depression truly began to lift. Alexey’s cheerful personality helped, and finding he could resume productive work on the Fourth Symphony led to the establishment of a daily routine: rise at eight, drink tea, work till eleven, eat, walk with Alexey until one or one thirty, work till five, dinner, a walk by himself till eight, then tea. His voracious appetite for late-night reading had returned (among his current books was Thackeray’s Pendennis ). The news from Kamenka was cheering, too. By now his family had had their fill of Antonina, and she had been conducted back to Moscow, this reassurance being buttressed by letters from both Sasha and Lev making it clear he was redeemed in their eyes. Then Albrecht reported that Tchaikovsky’s Conservatoire colleagues were enchanted by the first act of Onegin . Best of all, Modest informed him that he and Kolya would leave Russia on 1 January for San Remo on the Mediterranean coast, where Tchaikovsky could join them. Their accommodation being not yet fixed, Tchaikovsky hastened to San Remo to seek lodgings, and then use the time before their arrival to complete the symphony.
Instantly there came the official notice of his appointment as a delegate to the Paris Exhibition. Now having Nadezhda von Meck’s generous allowance, Tchaikovsky wished to be rid of this commitment, especially when he learned all that would be required of him, which included residence in Paris. Forthwith he withdrew his acceptance, pleading that he was in no condition to take up the appointment. Rubinstein, who had arranged it for him, was understandably furious, and both Kashkin and Albrecht added their voices to his. The storm clouds raised by the affair took a long time to disperse.
The five and a half weeks spent in San Remo proved of great therapeutic benefit to Tchaikovsky. He had reservations about San Remo itself, and especially its olive-covered hillsides. But there were walks or donkey rides into the hills and along the beach, there was an opera house, and Kolya’s speech was improving. If the lad came to talk and ask questions when he was working on the symphony’s score, Tchaikovsky was always happy to suspend work. At San Remo he also completed Onegin . Though always, it seems, short of money (and Nadezhda von Meck came to his rescue several times during this period), his own generosity was well in evidence. Back in Moscow he had committed himself to helping a young violin student, Alexander Litvinov, through his studies, and he insisted on pursuing this to the end – just one of many such financial interventions he would make for impecunious students. As for his marriage, he insisted that the responsibility for this having taken place was his alone, that Antonina was blameless, and he proposed reflecting this in his alimony settlement – as long as she would leave him and his relatives alone. But when Jurgenson, who was handling the matter, commented on Tchaikovsky’s generosity, the latter’s reply uncovered a less charitable motive: ‘Only with money can I buy myself the right to despise her as much as I hate her!’
On 19 February Tchaikovsky and his companions left San Remo. Looking back over the previous seven months, he found he could detach himself from what was now past. As he wrote to Anatoly:
Only now, when I am completely recovered, have I learned to relate objectively to everything that I did during my brief insanity. That man who in May took it into his head to marry Antonina Ivanovna, who during June wrote a whole opera as though nothing had happened, who in July married, who in September fled his wife, who in November railed at Rome, and so on – that man wasn’t I, but another Pyotr Ilich.
Florence was their ultimate destination but passing through Pisa they paused to see the sights and climb the leaning tower for its spectacular view. On his previous visit to Florence Tchaikovsky had found the city hateful, and he interpreted his very different reaction this time as confirmation of his recovery. Even more cheering was to discover that his creative gift was reviving, for on the second day he composed a completely new song, a grim, powerful setting of a poem by Mikhail Lermontov, Pushkin’s great contemporary (like Pushkin, also dying young in a duel). ‘The love of a dead man’ ** was not only a totally new composition: its quality was first rate.
A second song resulted from a small incident that gives us graphic insight into Tchaikovsky’s inner sexual world. On his recent visit to Florence with Anatoly, Tchaikovsky had heard Vittorio, a boy of about eleven who sang to his own guitar accompaniment. ‘His voice was marvellously rich, with a finish and warmth that one rarely encounters in professional artists,’ he had written to Nadezhda von Meck. Now, with the help of a local inhabitant, a meeting with the boy singer was arranged. ‘The man was there, and a group of other men were also awaiting me with curiosity,’ he wrote to Anatoly:
In the centre of this was our boy. The first thing I noticed was that he had grown a little and that he was beautiful , whereas before he had seemed to us to be plain. Because the throng was still growing and it was a crowded spot, I set off a little in the direction of the Cascino. On the way I expressed doubt as to whether it was truly he. ‘When I sing you’ll know it’s me. The last time you gave me a silver half-franc piece.’ All this was spoken in a wonderful voice, and penetrated to the depths of my soul. But what became of me when he sang? It’s impossible to describe. I do not believe that you get greater pleasure when you are listening to the singing of Panayeva [a singer for whom Anatoly currently had an unrequited passion]. I wept, I broke down, languished with delight. Besides the song which you know, he sang two new ones, of which one, ‘Pimpinella’, is delightful.
Two days later he saw the boy again. ‘He appeared at midday in cos tume ,’ Tchaikovsky continued:
Only then did I examine him. He is positively beautiful, with an inexpressibly sympathetic look and smile. He is better when heard in the street than in a room; there he is cramped, and doesn’t fully open up his voice. I wrote down all his songs. Then I took him off to be photographed.
Tchaikovsky had arranged to meet Vittorio again in two days for more songs, but the latter did not appear, pleading a sore throat. Presumably to consolidate for himself a memory of this encounter, Tchaikovsky made an arrangement of one of Vittorio’s songs, ‘Pimpinella’, not hesitating to improve the tune a little, add a third verse of his own, and give it a piano accompaniment.
By early March, their finances being virtually exhausted, Tchaikovsky and his companions bade farewell to Florence and settled into the pension at Clarens. It now had an added attraction for him – that it was reasonably accessible from Berlin, where Kotek was studying with the great violinist, Joseph Joachim. Within days of arriving Tchaikovsky had begun a major piece, his one and only mature Piano Sonata **(*). There are divergent views about the quality of this work, and my personal opinion is that it is, of all Tchaikovsky’s large-scale compositions, perhaps the dullest. Tchaikovsky himself admitted that it was not the product of inspiration so much as of fabrication, and I find it mostly stodgy and lifeless, for all its grandiloquence. But some take a different view, so readers who investigate it and decide I have got it wrong can know they have supporters among other professionals. However, on the day after Tchaikovsky had begun the sonata, Kotek had arrived from Berlin with a pile of recent publications which he and Tchaikovsky instantly set about investigating. Among these was Édouard Lalo’s Symphonie espagnole , in effect a five-movement violin concerto, its music deliberately impregnated with musical echoes and manners from Spain. Tchaikovsky was instantly captivated by it; as he wrote to his patroness, ‘In the same way as Delibes and Bizet, Lalo does not strive after profundity, but he carefully avoids routine, seeks out new forms, and thinks more about musical beauty than about observing established traditions, as do the Germans.’ He laboured one more day on the sonata, but admitted that inspiration did not come. Thus the urge to direct his creative energies into composing a piece to match Lalo’s proved irresistible, and in Kotek he had to hand the ideal consultant on the solo violin part. Instantly abandoning the sonata, Tchaikovsky set about his own violin concerto.
Setting the Violin Concerto alongside its exact contemporary, the Piano Sonata, prompts a question: how could two symphonic works, so intertwined, be so different in quality, the sonata so stodgy and dull, the concerto so fresh and fertile. The speed with which the latter was written was prodigious. The first movement took a mere five days, the finale only three. And when Modest reinforced Tchaikovsky’s own reservations about the original slow movement, within twenty-four hours its replacement had been composed. There can be little doubt that Kotek provided the spur to Tchaikovsky’s inspiration in this concerto. A year earlier the twenty-two-year-old had been a student in Tchaikovsky’s class at the Conservatoire, and Poznansky’s assertion that, though himself heterosexual, Kotek was also, as least briefly, Tchaikovsky’s lover is plausible. Certainly Tchaikovsky was unusually devoted to the young man. But it was an uneasy relationship. Kotek’s attitudes and behaviour could be sources of annoyance to Tchaikovsky, most recently his over-willingness to continue living at his father’s expense. Yet the acrimonious moments this precipitated could make even sweeter those phases when they were in harmonious accord. Just such a phase was surely this interlude in Clarens, releasing briefly those creative forces which had brought into being the Fourth Symphony and Eugene Onegin ahead of his marriage.
Tchaikovsky had at first intended to dedicate the Violin Concerto to Leopold Auer, one of the most eminent violinists of his time. But Auer had procrastinated in performing it, and it was first heard in Vienna in December 1881, with Adolf Brodsky as soloist. It produced one of the most notorious verdicts in the history of music journalism when Eduard Hanslick, one of the most famed and influential critics of his time, declared that the concerto was made up of music in which you ‘hear how it stinks’. But under the continuing advocacy of Brodsky, to whom it was finally dedicated, the concerto rapidly acquired great success. Auer later excused his delay by claiming that he had wished to make revisions to the solo part, but had been unable to find time. In fact, when Auer finally paid attention to the concerto, he went much further, excising whole chunks of the first movement, and it was in this degraded form that for many years the concerto was played. It is important to note this here, since some early recordings may still be current that use Auer’s emasculated edition. Nowadays few violinists would dream of using (or daring to use) it.
Violin Concerto in D *****
[The Violin Concerto is one of Tchaikovsky’s most engaging works, yet do not underestimate it (as I confess I once did). No work of Tchaikovsky relies as heavily as this concerto on his melodic gift, and it never fails him. This is one of the great violin concertos.]
On the face of it, the Violin Concerto is one of the least sophisticated of Tchaikovsky’s symphonic pieces, and it certainly contains none of the novel structural adventures of, say, the First Piano Concerto. But why should it? Certainly a piano offers the composer far wider possibilities than a violin, for it can present harmony as well as melody, enabling him to make it a more equal and flexible partner to the orchestra. But where a violin scores is in its far greater melodic potential. Like a singer, it delivers melody that is unbroken sound, allowing for all sorts of inflections within a melodic line (and even within a single note) in a way that the piano cannot match, and by skilful use of the bow a violinist can completely alter the tone colour of a melody. It is melodic potential that is one of the great strengths of Tchaikovsky’s concerto. Its first movement’s application of sonata form (as applied in a concerto movement) is straightforward. First a fairly brisk introduction, which hints at the first subject to come; then the violin introduces itself, and leads us into the exposition, where the instrument is not only very rarely silent, but is almost always centre stage, eloquently delivering the melodies Tchaikovsky has composed for it, or dazzling with virtuosic figuration. As in so many of Tchaikovsky’s expositions there are three tunes, the first an invention of great charm, the second more sprightly and leading on to a brief burst of fireworks as a foil to the third (con molto espressivo ), a tender invention that spreads itself vastly, never faltering, and building to an expansive climax to round off the exposition. It is difficult to over-praise the achievement of this great melodic expanse (if you happen to know Tchaikovsky’s inspiration, the Symphonie espagnol , compare Tchaikovsky’s exposition with the parallel stretch of Lalo’s first movement, and I think the former’s greater melodic richness will become even more apparent).
As expected, an orchestral tutti marks the entry into the development. This is the first time since the concerto’s very opening that the orchestra has been allowed centre stage, and it is a substantial passage. The soloist goes on to offer a variation on the first subject, which is then extended – after which the orchestra returns, rather surprisingly perhaps, with a second ritornello. But the reason soon emerges: Tchaikovsky is going to follow the precedent of another of the most famous violin concertos, that of Mendelssohn, and insert his cadenza not near the movement’s end, but before the recapitulation. Thus this ritornello has been a punctuation mark as well as a grand build-up to that passage in which the soloist can be in the spotlight unchallenged. As in the Mendelssohn concerto, the cadenza leads straight into the recapitulation, which follows the same course as the exposition (though there are variations of detail along the way), and passes into a substantial and brilliant coda. If, after hearing the concerto’s first two or three minutes, we anticipated that because it sounded less grand this first movement would be shorter than that of the First Piano Concerto, we would be wrong; its performance time (and that of the whole concerto) matches that of the earlier concerto – yet it can sustain our interest just as much.
In the remaining two movements Tchaikovsky’s Russian voice is suddenly in evidence. He labelled the slow movement Canzonetta (literally ‘a little song’) and it was the most consistently melodic movement he had composed since the Andante cantabile of his First String Quartet. But this time all the melody is Tchaikovsky’s own. A wind introduction sets the tone, and the hauntingly Russian flavour of the violin melody that follows is very marked; it has a gentle melancholy about it which is perfectly complemented by the more impassioned tone of its companion to follow. No movement could be more unfussy or speak more directly to the listener. Now the introduction slips in on the strings beneath the soloist (this is so furtively done that it is easy to miss it), who returns us to the first theme, after which the woodwind introduction both closes the movement and provides the first part of a transition to the finale. It seems extraordinary that all this was composed in a single day.
There is no break between the Canzonetta and the finale, and this reinforces the extreme contrast in mood between the two movements. The finale, as Russian as the second movement, though now possessed of tremendous vitality, is surely some rural folk scene, the soloist now a folk fiddler (though prodigiously talented!), first tuning his instrument, testing it, then launching into his first item. While this one has enormous energy, his second is earthily robust, its sturdy double pedal (the two-pitch ‘drone’ that persists beneath) suggestive, perhaps, of peasant bagpipes. Tchaikovsky dwells on this theme, decorating it with different backgrounds, then suddenly slowing it to suggest, perhaps, a more tender, feminine persuasiveness. I cannot guess what (if anything) may be represented by the courteous dialogue between oboe, clarinet and bassoon, but do we need to decode this when the music itself, just as music, is so infectious that we succumb to it anyway? This movement is its own advocate, among Tchaikovsky’s own compositions the closest in spirit to that magnificent finale of his Second (Little Russian ) Symphony.
That said, perhaps we have a clue to the deeper motivation of these last two so contrasted, yet so Russian movements.
By now Tchaikovsky had been in voluntary exile from Russia for some six months, and his letters home had been increasingly filled with expressions of longing for his native land. Only six days after completing his Violin Concerto, he was on his way home. But he returned to Russia a very anxious man, and his initial encounter with the frontier staff did nothing to raise his spirits. First there was a drunken gendarme, then a custom’s official who charged him extortionate duty for a dress he had bought for Sasha, and finally another gendarme who seemed suspicious of him and delayed letting him through. Then there was the train journey: dirty railway carriages – ‘Yids with that poisonous atmosphere which accompanies them everywhere’ (despite his admiration for the Rubinstein brothers, Tchaikovsky had a streak of anti-Semitism in him) – a train full of typhoid victims, another with young recruits off to fight in the current Russo-Turkish war: all this depressed him. And how would he be received at Kamenka? In the event, his family’s greetings could not have been warmer or more reassuring. Sasha had tactfully prepared a peasant cottage for him some way from the main house where he could be alone if he wished. ‘My cottage is arranged very conveniently and comfortably,’ he reported to his patroness. ‘They have even got me a piano, and put it in the little room alongside my bedroom. Working will be good for me.’ He set himself to complete the Piano Sonata, and then produced a clutch of piano pieces, though none of them is of real significance – at least, as far as the larger ones are concerned. But another set, the humblest that Tchaikovsky ever composed, does still have some very real interest for us today.
As his relationships with his nephews and nieces had long shown, Tchaikovsky had a natural ability to get on with children: think only of that little ballet he had created for them seven years earlier, and which would be the seed of Swan Lake . Now some of Sasha’s children were well of an age to be playing the piano, and it was no doubt this that decided Uncle Pyotr to compose his Album for Children : 24 Easy Pieces (à la Schumann) **(*), completing them all within four days. His model was not Schumann’s well-known Scenes from Child hood (Kinderszenen ), which was a highly sophisticated presentation of experiences and incidents of childhood viewed from an adult perspective, but that same composer’s Album for Young People . Yet whereas Schumann here had presented a course of forty-three pieces of increasing difficulty composed for his growing family, Tchaikovsky’s Album for Children was simply a collection of charming morsels for young (and not so young) pianists at an early stage, and for those among my readership who are simply listeners, this set will be of little interest. However, for those who are also pianists, even though they would confess their skills to be limited, this set could be a real gift. What marks off Tchaikovsky’s pieces from so much of the elementary piano fodder of our time are those special touches which may initially be something of a challenge: patches of striking harmony that present some reading (and sometimes fingering) problems, and unexpected phrase structures that present problems of timing. But all such things, though they may demand a bit of extra patience before they are absolutely right, will have their reward. 1 Many of the pieces have titles that are imaginative pointers to how they should be played. A number are arrangements of existing tunes, some Russian, but others from both France and Italy (including one from the repertoire of Vittorio, the Florentine street singer). Others are dances. But some of the best music (and, admittedly, some of the trickiest) is to be found in the character or descriptive pieces: for instance, in the sprightly galloping of the little horseman (no. 4) and the brisk marching of the wooden soldiers (no. 5), in the sad portrait of the sick doll (no. 7), and in its solemn funeral (no. 8). At the other extreme is the peasant trying out his accordion (no. 13), which seems finally to get stuck on two chords, and the portrait of the grotesque witch, Baba Yaga (no. 20). Elsewhere there are some pretty twitterings from a lark (no. 22). The set had opened with a morning prayer, and it is in church that it closes (at least it did in the original published edition: no. 24).
Now that Tchaikovsky’s marriage had disintegrated, Nadezhda von Meck made a further offer to him which would bind him yet closer to her: she invited him to stay on her extensive estate at Brailov in the Ukraine at a time when she would be away. Thus he would come to enjoy – and share – a very real part of her world. To ensure everything would be to his liking she gave instructions to her staff that the guest was to have absolute freedom, be obeyed in everything and be left undisturbed: Alexey would be the intermediary between them and his master. The staff were told nothing of the guest’s identity, and they would finally conclude that he must be the fiancé of one of her daughters. Tchaikovsky took up residence at the end of May, and though he enthused unconditionally to his patroness about Brailov, he was more reserved to Modest. The house was splendidly furnished and comfortable, and there were some excellent musical instruments, but he found the estate itself less attractive. Nevertheless, walking in the surrounding countryside was a great pleasure, and he discovered a nunnery with a good, musically literate choir where he was able to attend services. He also developed a passion for collecting mushrooms. Best of all, perhaps, Brailov provided a relaxing environment in which he could work. As a gift for his absent hostess he composed two pieces, Scherzo and Mélodie , for violin and piano, which, together with a violin–piano transcription of the rejected slow movement of the Violin Concerto (now labelled Méditation ), he left behind him as a token of thanks. The collective title he gave the three pieces must have added to her pleasure: Souvenir d’un lieu cher (‘Memento of a beloved place’). In addition, he composed a set of six songs, op. 38, including two of his finest examples, ‘Don Juan’s serenade’, *** a splendidly rumbustious summons to the Don’s Nisetta to appear on her balcony, and, in total contrast, a haunting waltz song, ‘Amid the din of the ball’, *** in which the singer remembers the happy voice, but sad eyes, of a beautiful woman glimpsed across a crowded ballroom.
However, Brailov also saw the birth of a set of pieces quite unlike anything Tchaikovsky had yet composed, and which would have a profound consequence for the future of Russian church music. The initiative had come from Tchaikovsky himself back in February, when he had enquired of Jurgenson whether he would be interested in publishing some small pieces of church music or, preferably, a setting of part of the liturgy of the Russian Orthodox Church. Evidently the matter was discussed further, for by the time of his Brailov visit, Tchaikovsky could outline to Nadezhda von Meck the present situation. He conceded that some of the current composers of Orthodox church music were worthy artisans, ‘but,’ he added:
how little is their music in harmony with the Byzantine style of our architecture and icons, and with the whole structure of the Orthodox service. Did you know that the composition of music for the church is a monopoly of the Imperial Chapel’s musical establishment, which jealously guards this monopoly, and flatly refuses to allow new attempts to set sacred texts? My publisher, Jurgenson, has found a means of getting round this strange law, and if I write something for the church, he will then publish it abroad.
Having at Brailov sketched an unaccompanied choral setting of the Liturgy of St John Chrysostom (the main service of the Russian Orthodox Church), and completed it in August, Tchaikovsky now found Jurgenson in a more confrontational mood: he would challenge the Imperial Chapel’s monopoly head on, and issue Tchaikovsky’s Liturgy in Russia. As expected, on publication all copies were seized by the Director of the Imperial Chapel and a legal battle was joined. The case lasted over two years until, in 1881, judgement was given in favour of Jurgenson. From now on, the composition and publication of church music in Russia was open to all, and Tchaikovsky’s Liturgy of St John Chrysostom could find a rightful place in church services.
Music for the Russian Orthodox Church
[To Western ears at least, Russian Orthodox church music has an eso teric character, and is likely to be of interest to only a minority of my readers. Nevertheless, some consideration should be given to it, though I shall be breaking the chronological sequence by taking account here of all three of Tchaikovsky’s contributions to Russian church music.]
The Liturgy of St John Chrysostom *** is the form of Mass most widely used in Eastern Orthodox Churches, and a substantial proportion of it is devoted to dialogue between the officiating clergy and the choir. A body of traditional chants had evolved for this, and Tchaikovsky used these chants scrupulously, furnishing them with the simplest of homophonic (that is, chordal) accompaniments. The result was an enormous amount of functional music; our main interest, however, lies in the half-dozen texts for which he composed free settings. These include the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and Cherubim’s Song , the last the most substantial of all. In fact, though Tchaikovsky was free here to do as he liked, he gave the first two of these and a fourth piece, Praise ye the Lord , simple chordal accompaniments, but in Thee we hymn and Meet it is indeed , he allowed himself more freedom, in the latter using gentle imitation and, in the former, antiphonal rejoinders (that is, one vocal line briefly dialogues with another). On the page all this may appear to be music that will have little more impact than a traditional hymn sung in one of our churches, but in practice the effect can be very different. It is music that often demands a far more measured style of performance than we would accord a hymn tune, and at that slower speed its very simplicity informs it with a magisterial dignity, especially if a performance covers a very wide dynamic range (as one of my students observed after participating in a performance of Thee we hymn : ‘The earth moved!’). But the most elaborate piece is Cherubim’s Song , with its independent, hushed, awesomely slow opening that is the most powerful of foils for the blaze of antiphonal sound that follows. The first section returns as before; there is an Amen, and then a complete change of manner incorporating a fugalstyle passage so redolent of baroque music that, as used here, it is almost uncomfortable (or so, I confess, it is to me). But wait until you have heard it for yourself, for there are now some very good performances by Russian choirs available on CD.
Tchaikovsky would make two more sorties into the world of Orthodox church music. In 1881 he would turn his attention to another Service, the All-Night Vigil, ** in which he tried more deliberately to escape the ‘excessive Europeanism’ that had been audible in some of his settings in the Liturgy. In the All-Night Vigil he was far less a composer than an arranger, for now he was faced with a huge body of traditional chants, and he saw his role to be mostly that of providing these chant melodies with simple note-against-note harmonizations. Only rarely did he allow his added alto, tenor and bass parts some real independence so as to produce something that sounds like real composition. However, while the All-Night Vigil may be of interest only to those who are particularly drawn to the inner world of Russian Orthodox church music, the Nine Sacred Pieces **** for unaccompanied chorus, which Tchaikovsky composed in 1884–85, are free compositions with a wider appeal, and contain some very fine music. The three Cherubim’s Songs are very impressive, and especially the third, where the normal treble, alto, tenor and bass lines are all divided into two, thus producing an eight-part texture which can have a particular weight and sonority. This splendid piece achieved considerable popularity in Russia, and this gave it some seminal importance in the evolution of later Orthodox church music. An equally impressive piece is another eight-voice composition, Bliss I chose (to give it a rather awkward English title), a more freely composed piece which reinforces even more one’s regret that Tchaikovsky did not venture into this type of composition more often. Some of this music possesses a mystic aura and a special kind of grandeur quite different to anything I have met in our Western tradition – but seek out recorded performances by native Russian choirs; I have tried conducting English choral groups in this music, and our tradition and temperament are simply too different for us to do it real justice. Anyway, Russian choral singing is nearly always something rather special.
Tchaikovsky had now been back in Russia for some seven weeks. So far he had avoided Moscow, and he dreaded the moment when he would have to confront his long-term colleagues. He need not have feared, for they obviously welcomed him warmly. As for the matter of the Paris Exhibition, Rubinstein seems to have concealed any residual anger at Tchaikovsky’s default. Now, with the promise of generous monetary help from his patroness if a reasonable settlement could be agreed with Antonina, it seemed that a satisfactory outcome to his divorce proceedings could be in sight. But it required more co-operation from Antonina, and Jurgenson agreed to deal with her on Tchaikovsky’s behalf. Thus Tchaikovsky spent only three days in Moscow before, on 16 June, heading for Kondratyev’s estate at Nizy.
In three months the new Conservatoire term would begin, and it was assumed Tchaikovsky would return to his duties. It was not a prospect he relished, and what marks his behaviour during these months is its restlesssness. In a matter of only days he had once again fled from Nizy and its disordered servants, and headed for Kamenka. Only here, or at the neighbouring family estate at Verbovka, could he find peace, revelling in the company of those closest to him, joining in their corporate life, and seeming for a time able to blot out all thought of the trials and tensions besetting his wider world. At Kamenka he could shoot ducks or bustards with neighbours, roam the countryside with the Kamenka dogs, compose at leisure, be alone when he wished, then join in the family recreations, playing the piano for dancing, and participating fully in their more ambitious entertainments. A letter to Modest provides a vignette of his lifestyle. All sorts of relatives had assembled at Kamenka, and been drawn into proceedings:
During the last week I’ve transformed myself completely into some sort of Goddess Diana. I go hunting every day. On Sunday there was a big shoot with Vishnitsky, Volokhov, Roman, Tikhon, etc. Quite a lot were killed – but I, as usual, just banged away . Rehearsals for our performance [of Gogol’s play, The Marriage , which Tchaikovsky was producing] started yesterday. Lev doesn’t want Tanya to play the matchmaker, and Sasha Peresleny has taken her role. Dima, for want of anybody else, is playing Yaichnitsa. Vladimir Andreyevich declined to take part in the performance. Besides The Marriage we’re putting on two scenes for Tanya and Sasha: (1) the scene of the two women from Dead Souls [by Gogol], and (2) the scene of the two women from [Molière’s] Le Misanthrope . Yesterday’s rehearsal showed that Natalya Andreyevna will be delightful, but her delivery is a bit monotonous. Sasha plays the matchmaker superbly. Though Kolya Peresleny over-acts, he still isn’t bad as Zhevakin. Tolya plays Podkolesin very respectably. Biryukov didn’t know his lines.The day before yesterday we went to the Verbovka wood to collect mushrooms. We found aspen mushrooms in such quantity as I have never before seen anywhere. The same day Sasha went with the three youngest children and Miss Eastwood [the English governess at Kamenka] to the Rayevskys’, and had a whole series of adventures. On the return journey they were overtaken by a storm. Sasha was almost killed by the horses, they were all drenched, somehow or other got back to Kamenka, and arrived here when it was already late evening, where they found us all in a terrible state.
The dramatic performances took place a week later. To make a good audience, peasants from the estate were invited: Tchaikovsky was the prompter.
Tchaikovsky remained over seven weeks with Sasha and her family. By then feeling the need for solitude after the populous family life at Kamenka, on 23 August he installed himself at Brailov. His patroness had a splendid library, and he buried himself in her books, sometimes squatting on the floor for hours, engrossed in reading. He often went for walks accompanied by an army of dogs. But the urge to compose would not be quieted. ‘This morning I wanted so much to sketch an orchestral scherzo that I could not resist it, and spent a couple of hours working,’ he confided to his patroness. It marked the beginning of his First Suite for orchestra. But after a week at Brailov he had had enough of solitude, and he again directed himself to Verbovka where, within only days, he had sketched three further movements. Wanting to visit St Petersburg before settling back in Moscow for the new Conservatoire session, on 9 September he set out for the Russian capital. But on the way to Kiev he chanced on a scurrilous newspaper report. ‘At one point the article talks about professors’ love affairs with girls,’ he wrote in alarm to Modest, ‘and it adds at the end: “Love affairs of a different sort also go on at the Conservatoire, but of these, for a very understandable reason, I will not speak ” – and so on. It’s clear what he is hinting at.’
This decided Tchaikovsky: he would resign his professorship – not immediately, because that would cause chaos, but at Christmas. But he would now depend on his patroness’s continuing bounty, and she had to be informed. So he wrote to her, detailing the reasons for his decision: the offensive newspaper article, overhearing (so he claimed) strangers in a train talking about his marriage and his madness, Rubinstein’s despotism, and the oppressiveness of the Conservatoire. ‘And so, my friend, what would you say if I were to quit the Conservatoire? I am going to Moscow and I shall try to accustom myself to it. But I must know for certain how you regard this. Not for anything in the world would I wish to act other than according to your counsel and instruction. Please give me your answer.’ Of course he knew what it would be.
Tchaikovsky’s decision merely exacerbated his aversion to the Conservatoire. He returned to Moscow, term began, and he felt worse still. After a week he poured out his feelings to Anatoly:
I’m utterly dispirited and regard everything around me with cold loathing. Moscow is thoroughly offensive to me. I try to avoid all society and all encounters with people. Everybody I see I find intolerable, and this includes Kashkin, Albrecht, Jurgenson and Laroche. I go straight to my class when I arrive, and I leave forthwith after the class, trying not to talk with anybody or encounter anybody. To various greetings such as ‘Hello!’, or ‘Who’s that I see?’, I respond with a sweet-and-sour face, and immediately rush off in another direction. I walk for a couple of hours, and go home to dine.
There was one good thing, however: Antonina was keeping to the rules of the financial arrangement made with her, and seemed to have left Moscow.
Rubinstein having returned to Paris, it would be early October before Moscow saw him again, and so negotiations about Tchaikovsky’s resignation could not be opened. When Rubinstein duly reappeared, there was a dinner in his honour, and in his first speech he heaped praise on Tchaikovsky for the international reputation he was building for himself, adding how fortunate the Conservatoire was to have such a celebrity on its staff. But there was a double edge to this accolade: Tchaikovsky felt he would have to postpone his resignation until the following summer. However, the very next day the matter was taken out of his hands. For all the prestige that Tchaikovsky brought to the Conservatoire, Rubinstein realized he could no longer detain him, and between them the two men devised a strategy that would allow Tchaikovsky to leave unobtrusively at Christmas: Taneyev would be invited to undertake a temporary piano class, and when Tchaikovsky slipped away, Taneyev would take his place. ‘I shall go off to the country as though on family business,’ Tchaikovsky explained, ‘and from there I’ll write and say I cannot return because of illness.’ The same day he heard that his patroness fully approved his intentions.
However, Tchaikovsky then saw the opening that would enable him to leave before the year’s end: why should not Taneyev also take over his theory class ahead of December? Straight away he informed Rubinstein that he would be leaving at the end of the week. On 19 October he took his last ever class. The next day he dined with his friends: Rubinstein, Kashkin, Albrecht, Jurgenson and Taneyev. ‘Despite all my joy at my longed-for freedom, I experienced some sadness at parting from the people among whom I have lived for more than twelve years,’ he would confess to Mrs von Meck three days later. ‘They all seemed very grieved, and this touched me.’ But already, on that day of farewell, he had enthused to her unreservedly on the prospect before him. ‘Yesterday I gave my last lesson. Today I leave for St Petersburg. Thus I am a free man !’
1 An edition of Album for the Young (edited by Howard Ferguson) is published by the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music. The above numbering follows that of this edition, except for the final item.