If you kindly let me know your comments about two people mentioed in your
site
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Karl Albrecht / mentioned in the story of 1st Symphony of tchaikovsky,
as a publisher or etc. At the same time he was a dedicatee of Tchaikovsky
with one of his works. Was he the same person who is german painter lived
in the same period?
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Anna Esipova / Russian pianist and Tchaikovsky first dedicated his ‘Concert
Fantasy’ to her and afterwards changed his dedication for another person.
Do you have any idea for the reason of this change?
Thank you very much for your kind attention.
Levent Özübek
Karl Konstantin Albrecht (1836–1893) was a cellist, teacher, and inspector
at the Moscow Conservatory from 1866 to 1889. Tchaikovsky taught at the consevatory
from 1866 until 1878, and formed a close friendship with Albrecht soon after
his arrival. To quote from Alexander Poznansky's book Tchaikovsky: The
Quest for the Inner Man (p.87):
For Karl Albrecht, inspector at the conservatoire, Tchaikovsky became
virtually a member of the family. He dined regularly with the Albrechts
at their home, greatly enjoying their company. Also, Tchaikovsky appreciated
very highly Albrecht's musical abilites and regretted that he chose not
to compose.
Even after Tchaikovsky left his teaching post at the conservatory, they
maintained a close correspondence, and in 1880 the composer dedicated his Serenade for String Orchestra
to Karl Albrecht.
2. Your second question is more difficult to answer. When the piano arrangement
of Tchaikovsky's Concert Fantasia
was published in 1884—the same year it was composed—the edition was inscribed
to Anna Nikolaevna Esipova (1851–1914), a pianist and professor at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory. But when the full score appeared in print in 1893,
it carried a dedication to Sophie Menter (1846–1918), who was also pianist
and professor at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, as well as a noted composer
in her own right.
Neither name appears on the manuscript score, and Tchaikovsky's correspondence
does not mention the change in dedication. But the reason may be that in the
intervening years Sophie Menter had performed the fantasia on many occasions,
to great acclaim, whereas it seems that Esipova was not such a strong advocate.
Such changes in dedication had happened before—with the Piano Concerto No. 1 (changed
from Nikolai Rubinstein to Hans von Bulow), and the Violin Concerto (from Léopold
Auer to Adolf Brodsky).
I hope this answers your questions.
Brett Langston