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Tchaikovsky |
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TH 82 The Golden Cloud Did SleepНочевала тучка золотаяFor unaccompanied mixed chorus, F minor (1887).
HistoryIn his diary entry for 2 July 1887, while at Borzhom, Tchaikovsky noted that he had been approached by three unknown men, who had asked him to write a chorus: "Can you imagine anything more absurd!!!" [1] On 5 July the composer noted in his diary: "Attended to various matters". On this day he completed the chorus (according to the date on the manuscript). During Tchaikovsky’s lifetime the chorus was not published, and there is no surviving evidence that it was performed. In a letter of 4/17 February 1910, Boris Jurgenson told Modest Tchaikovsky: "Yesterday M. M. Ippolitov-Ivanov unexpectedly sent me the manuscript of a short still unpublished chorus by Petr Il’ich (for mixed voices) to Lermontov's words "The golden cloud did sleep". At the bottom is written "P. Tchaikovsky, 5 July 1887. Borzhom". The manuscript was given to M. M. Ippolitov-Ivanov by a Mrs. Kaitmazova. who said that Petr Il’ich wrote this chorus in Borzhom at her request. The Russian Choral Society are really keen to perform it at their concert on 21 February, and I granted permission for this before having spoken with you, and am having this chorus engraved and printed as a matter of urgency, being sure that you would have no objection, as in previous instances, to this chorus being published. I do not want to deprive the public of an opportunity to hear a performance of this unknown chorus... In a few days I shall send you the printed proofs of the chorus" [2]. Some time later Boris Jurgenson again wrote to Modest Tchaikovsky about the chorus: "It’s just as well that I did not delay having it engraved. It turns out that Mrs Kaitmazova’s family are intent on making a lot of money from the manuscript, and I expect that no other copies have been preserved" [3]. Boris Jurgenson was compelled to return the manuscript to its owner and to suspend publication until Mrs Kaitmazova had come to an agreement with the composer’s heir. It could not be printed without permission, although the manuscript could still be sold. "She also said,", Boris Jurgenson continued in the same letter, "...that unless she is offered a serious sum for the manuscript (autograph), that you will be deprived of the opportunity to acquire it, and it will go to the dogs.". Evidently, Modest Tchaikovsky did not acquire the manuscript, and it was not published. But Boris Jurgenson, in his own words, "still managed to have it engraved", and subsequently in July 1910 he sent an offprint to Modest Tchaikovsky [4]. In 1922 the state publishing house in Moscow published this chorus, apparently using Boris Jurgenson's plates from 1910. From: Музыкальное наследие Чайковского (1958),
pp. 355-356 Notes: |