Tchaikovsky
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TH 112

String Quartet No. 2

Струнный квартет № 2

F major, Op. 22 (1873–74).

1. Adagio—Moderato assai (F major).
2. Scherzo. Allegro giusto (D♭ major).
3. Andante ma non tanto (F minor).
4. Finale. Allegro con moto (F major).

• Composed December 1873 to January 1874.
• Scored for Violin I; Violin II; Viola; Violoncello.
• First performed in Moscow, 10/22 March 1874.
• Dedicated to the Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich Romanov.
• Average duration: 37m.

History

Composed and scored in late December 1873 to January 1874 in Moscow.

"Recalling the Christmases we used to spend in Moscow", wrote Modest Tchaikovsky. "I remember hearing him come up with the first theme of the first Allegro" [1].

Work on the quartet went easily and quickly, as Tchaikovsky later remembered [2]. The sequence in which the movements were composed can be determined from the rough draft of the score: the first movement (without the introduction), the fourth movement, the third movement (first version), the second movement, followed by the introduction to the first movement, and a second version of the third movement.

According to the date on the manuscript, the rough draft was finished on 18/30 January 1874.

On 24 January/5 February. Tchaikovsky wrote to his brother Anatolii: "Now I’ve written a new quartet, and will hear it in a few days at a soirée at Rubinstein's" [3].

According to Nikolai Kashkin's memoirs, this "domestic" performance took place "in N. G. Rubinstein’s apartment... Besides the performers, who were F. G. Laub, J. Hřímalý and W. Fitzenhagen (I do not remember who played the viola, probably J . Gerber), I think that only K. K. Albrecht, N. A Hubert, myself and A. G. Rubinstein were present" [4].

The first public performance took place on 10/22 March 1874 in Moscow, at the second quartet concert of the Russian Musical Society.

Tchaikovsky liked this work very much, and in a letter to Modest Tchaikovsky of 29 October 1874 he responded to a report on the successful first performance of the quartet in Saint Petersburg: "I consider it one of my best compositions; none has flowed out of me so easily and simply. I wrote it almost in one sitting and I was very surprised that the public did not take to it, for I find that compositions written so spontaneously normally find favour" [5]. Later he told Anatolii Tchaikovsky: "If I’ve written anything in my life that flowed spontaneously from the very depths of my soul, then it was the first movement of this quartet" [6].

In a letter of 7/19 March 1875, Tchaikovsky asked the cellist Aleksandr Kuznetsov to make some changes [7]. "In the Andante (3rd movement) in the A-major episode where all four parts play against one another, instead of triplets I should like the cello to play two off-beat crochets, like so:

An arrangement of the quartet for piano duet was made by Anna Avramova. Tchaikovsky wrote favourably of this arrangement in a letter to Nikolai Rimskii-Korsakov [8]. It appeared in print in September 1875 (by the publisher Petr Jurgenson), and in October the same year the individual parts of the quartet were published. The full score of the Second Quartet was issued in March 1876.

From: Музыкальное наследие Чайковского (1958), pp. 370–372
English text copyright © 2006 Brett Langston

References:

1. M. I. Tchaikovsky, Жизнь Петра Ильича Чайковского, том 1 (1900), p. 423 [back]
2. See letter 368 to Modest Tchaikovsky, 29 October/10 November 1874 [back]
3. Letter 336 to Anatolii Tchaikovsky, 24 January/5 February 1874 [back]
4. N. D. Kashkin, Воспоминания о П. И. Чайковском (1896), pp. 97–98 [back]
5. Letter 368 to Modest Tchaikovsky, 29 October/10 November 1874 [back]
6. Letter 483 to Anatolii Tchaikovsky, 6/18 July 1876 [back]
7. Letter 393 to Aleksandr Kuznetsov, 7/19 March 1875 [back]
8. Letter 417 to Nikolai Rimskii- Korsakov, 12/24 November 1875 [back]