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Would you have any idea if the apartment Nikolai Rubenstein resided in and that formed the premiere venue of the Tchaikovsky 3rd String Quartet (the one in E-Flat minor) still stands, and what the address is?

Thank you,

David Glenn Lebut Jr.
16/12/2012 01:21


From Valerii Sokolov’s article on Moscow for P. I. Tchaikovsky. An Encyclopedia — to be published hopefully very soon under the editorship of Polina Vaidman — as well as thanks to further clarification provided by the author, we learn that the apartment of Nikolai Rubinstein where the informal premiere of Tchaikovsky’s String Quartet No. 3 took place on 2/14 March 1876 was located in the house of E. S. Meshcheryakova on Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street (дом Е. С. Мещеряковой, Большая Никитская ул.), which faced the Greater Church of the Ascension (where Pushkin’s wedding took place in 1831):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Ascension_Church

Nikolai Rubinstein lived in this apartment from 1872 to the end of 1880. The original house, however, has not survived (there is now a different building on this site, the modern address of which is: 31, Bolshaya Nikitskaya Street). This apartment was regularly frequented by Tchaikovsky and other friends and colleagues of Nikolai Rubinstein from the Conservatory, and it had also been the venue for the (again informal) premiere of the composer’s String Quartet No. 2 in January 1874, which was attended by Nikolai’s brother — and Tchaikovsky’s former teacher — Anton Rubinstein.

Many thanks to Valerii Sokolov for sharing this information.

Luis Sundkvist
03/01/2013 22:05


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