Tchaikovsky
www.tchaikovsky-research.net
Home > Works > Choruses > Night
Free public domain sheet music for this work can be downloaded from the Internet Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)

TH 88

Night

Ночь

Quartet with piano accompaniment, B-flat major (1893).

  • Text by "N.N." [Tchaikovsky].
  • Composed in March 1893. Based on music from Mozart's Fantasie in C minor for piano (KV 475).
  • Scored for SATB soli with piano.
  • First performed in Moscow, Conservatory, 9/21 October 1893.
  • Dedicated to Elizaveta Lavrovskaia.
  • Average duration: 4m 15s.

History

The idea for a vocal quartet on Mozart's music seems to have occurred to Tchaikovsky in 1892, while he was living at Maidanovo. Vladimir Nápravník played through many piano works by various authors, including Mozart [1].

On 18 May 1892, Vladimir Nápravník wrote to Tchaikovsky: "I remember, dear Petr Il’ich, that recently you wanted to arrange some Mozart that you wanted to arrange as a quartet for singers. Did you do this or not?" [2]. Tchaikovsky did not carry out his intention until 1893, at the beginning of March - the manuscript is dated "Klin. 3 March 1893". The autograph is subtitled: "Music adapted from Mozart’s Fantasia No. 4 and arranged by P. Tchaikovsky".

The first performance took place at the Moscow Conservatory by members of Elizaveta Lavrovskaia’s student class on 9 October 1893, in the presence of the author [3].

The quartet was published by Petr Jurgenson in March 1893 [4]. In the same year, before Tchaikovsky’s death, the quartet was orchestrated by Sergei Taneev [5]. In a letter from Taneev to Jurgenson of 19 January 1896, we read: "Have you found Night?... I don't want to send to my full score, with the inscription made by Petr Il’ich, to Saint Petersburg..." [6]. This orchestration of the quartet was performed for the first time on 6 November 1893 in Moscow, at the second symphony concert of the Russian Musical Society, conducted by Vasilii Safonov. The full score of the arrangement was published by Petr Jurgenson in the same year.

The quartet is dedicated to Elizaveta Lavrovskaia.

From: Музыкальное наследие Чайковского (1958), pp. 480-481
English text copyright © 2006 Brett Langston

Notes:
  1. M. I. Tchaikovsky, Жизнь Петра Ильича Чайковского, том 3 (1902), p. 655 [back]
  2. Letter from Vladimir Nápravník to Tchaikovsky, 18/30 May 1892 - Klin House-Museum Archive [back]
  3. See N. D. Kashkin, Воспоминания о П. И. Чайковском (1896), p. 179-180 [back]
  4. Passed by the censor on 17 March 1893 [back]
  5. The manuscript of Taneev’s arrangement, preserved in the Klin House-Museum, bears the date "Saint Petersburg. 27 March [18]93" [back]
  6. Letter from Sergei Taneev to Petr Jurgenson, 6/18 November 1893 – State Central Archive for Literature and the Arts. This manuscript includes a note to Boris Jurgenson: "Boris Petrovich! I am sending you the orchestration of the quartet Night, made by S. I. Taneev. I think it would be an excellent idea to print it and the parts. P. Tchaikovsky, 28 March [18]93" [back]