Letter 1565
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Russian text (original)
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English translation
Copyright © 2010 by Luis Sundkvist
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| Каменка,
15 авг[уста] 1880 г. |
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Kamenka,
15 August 1880 |
| Оказывается теперь, что когда в первом письме моём Вы
прочли мои сетования на невозможность уйти, даже на время, от человеческого
общества, то я напомнил Вам Хлестакова, жалующегося в разговоре с Городничихой
на отяготительные последствия своей знаменитости. Благодарю, не ожидал.
Между тем дело очень просто. Существует государственное учреждение, называемое почтой, очень часто берущее на себя задачу отравлять спокойствие
человека, убежавшего от дрязг общественной жизни в уединение на лоне природы.
Это-то учреждение и нарушило тогда счастливое течение моей одинокой жизни.
А Вы прочли у меня между строками какую-то хлестаковщину!.. |
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It now appears that when you read, in my first letter [1], my laments
about the impossibility of escaping, even if just briefly, from human
society, I reminded you of Khlestakov [2] when, in his conversation
with the town governor's wife, he complains about the burdensome consequences
of his celebrity. Thank you, that is something I hadn't expected. And
yet, it is all very simple. There exists a government institution called
the post, which very often sets itself the task of poisoning the
tranquillity of a person who has fled from the annoyances of public life
into the bosom of Nature, seeking seclusion. It is precisely this institution
which back then disturbed the happy flow of my solitary life. You, however,
contrived to read some kind of Khlestakovian posing between the lines
of my letter!.. |
| Что бы Вы ни говорили, Серёжа, а я лучше Вас умею
читать между строками. Правда, что мне помогло воспоминание об
одной беседе с Вами в Кокоревской гостинице, когда Вы мне говорили, что
собираетесь путём колоссальных контрапунктических работ найти какую-то
особенную русскую гармонию, коей доселе ещё не было. Я очень хорошо
помню, как Вы доказывали тогда, что у нас не было Баха, что нужно сделать для
русской музыки то, что сделал и он и его предшественники, что Вы попытаетесь
исполнить всё то, что при нормальном развитии исполнили бы несколько столетий
и несколько десятков людей. Я не говорю, что это были Ваши слова, но это
была Ваша мысль, или, по крайней мере, в своём неразумии я так понял Вас.
Мысль Ваша показалась мне тогда очень смелой, мне нравился Ваш юношеский
задор, но я тогда же подумал, что в сущности, это чистейшая славянофильская
теория, примененная к музыке, а твёрдое намерение Ваше добиваться осуществления
столь неисполнимых, как мне казалось, проектов я в тайне души счёл проявлением
донкихотства. Отсюда обидное прозвище: славянофильствующий Дон-Кихот,
за которое прошу извинить меня. Из Вашего теперешнего письма я вижу, однако
ж, что Вы уже значительно попятились и отступили от предположенной тогда
цели. Если так, то тем лучше. |
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You may say whatever you like, Serezha, but the fact is
that I am better than you at reading between the lines. True, it
did help that I recalled one conversation I had with you at the Kokorev
Hotel [3],
when you said to me that you intended, by means of colossal contrapuntal
labours, to find some special Russian harmony the likes of which
had never before existed. I remember very well how you argued then that
our country had never had a Bach,
that it was necessary to do for Russian music what he and his predecessors
had done [for German music], that you would try to carry out everything
that in conditions of normal development would be brought about by the
passing of several centuries and by several dozens of people. I am not
saying that these were your words, but it was the gist of your idea, or
rather, in my foolishness that is how I understood you. Your idea seemed
to me very bold then and I liked your youthful ardour, but at the same
time I could not help thinking that this was an utterly Slavophile [4] theory here
being applied to music, and in my heart of hearts I regarded your firm
resolve to achieve the realization of so many to my view impossible
projects as a manifestation of quixotry. Hence the offensive nickname
a Slavophile Don Quixote, for which I beg you to forgive me.
From your present letter I can nevertheless see that you have backed
off considerably and deviated from the goal which you had set yourself
then. If that is so, then all the better. |
| По поводу Вашего сравнения музыки с деревом скажу Вам,
что (продолжая заимствовать уподобления из растительного царства) я бы
сравнил европейскую музыку не с деревом, а с целым садом, в коём произрастают
деревья: французское, немецкое, итальянское, венгерское, испанское, английское,
скандинавское, русское, польское и т. д. Почему Вы совершенно произвольно
только русским народно-музыкальным элементам дозволяете быть отдельным
растительным индивидуумом, а все остальные заставляете соединиться в одно
дерево? Я этого совершенно не понимаю. По-моему, европейская музыка есть
сокровищница, в которую всякая национальность вносит что-нибудь своё на
пользу общую. Каждый западноевропейский композитор—прежде всего или француз,
или немец, или итальянец и т. д., а потом уже европеец. В Глинке национальность
сказалась ровнехонько настолько же, насколько и в Бетховене, и в Верди, и в Гуно; если в моих сочинениях
Вы слышите русские отголоски, то я в соч[инениях] Massenet и Bizet на каждом шагу обоняю
специфический французский запах. Пусть нашему зерну суждено дать роскошное
дерево, характеристически отделяющееся от своих соседей,—тем лучше; мне
приятно думать, что оно не будет так тщедушно, как английское, так хило
и бесцветно, как испанское, а, напротив, сравнится по высоте и красоте
с немецким, итальянским, французским. Но, как бы мы ни старались, из европейского
сада мы не уйдём, ибо наше зерно волею судеб попало на почву, возделанную
прежде нас европейцами: корни оно пустило там уже достаточно давно и глубоко,
и теперь уже у нас с Вами не хватит сил его оттуда вырвать. Вообще, желая
от души, чтобы наша музыка была сама по себе и чтобы русские песни внесли
в музыку новую струю, как это сделали другие народные песни в своё
время,—я не люблю, когда преувеличивают их значение и хотят основать на
них не только какое-то самостоятельное искусство, но даже музыкальную
науку. Не вижу никакой надобности учиться и учить иначе, чем это
делается в Лейпциге и Берлине, да и нельзя иначе по причинам,
достаточно выясненным выше. Не спорю, что можно усовершенствовать метод
преподавания, но только метод, а не принципы. |
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With regard to your likening of music to a tree [5], I should
like to say that (if I may continue to borrow analogies from the vegetable
kingdom) I would compare European music not to a tree, but to a whole
garden, in which there grow a French, a German, an Italian, a Hungarian,
a Spanish, an English, a Scandinavian, a Russian, a Polish tree etc. Why
do you, in this utterly arbitrary fashion, allow only Russian folk-musical
elements to have the status of an individual plant organism, whilst everything
else is lumped together into a single tree? I just cannot understand this.
In my view, European music is a treasure-house to which each nationality
contributes something of its own for the benefit of all. Every western
European composer is first and foremost either a Frenchman, or a German,
or an Italian etc., and only then is he a European. In Glinka nationality
manifests itself just as much as it does in Beethoven, in Verdi, in Gounod. If in my compositions
you hear Russian echoes, I assure you that in the compositions of Massenet and Bizet I can constantly smell
a specifically French odour. If our seed is indeed fated to give rise
to a luxurious tree which will stand out distinctively from its neighbours,
then all the better. For me, it is an agreeable thought that our tree
will not be as feeble as the English one, as puny and colourless as the
Spanish one, but, on the contrary, will match in height and beauty the
German, Italian, and French trees. But, no matter how much we try, we
shall never be able to get away from the European garden, because our
seed was decreed by fate to fall on soil which had already been tilled
by the Europeans before us: it has been putting forth roots in this soil
for quite a long time and quite deeply, too, and neither you nor I would
be strong enough to tear it out from there. In general, whilst wishing
with all my heart that our music should stand on its own feet, and that
Russian songs might introduce a new current into music, as other
countries' folk-songs did in their own time, I do not like it when people
exaggerate the significance of our songs and seek to base on them not
just some kind of independent art, but even a musical science. I see no
need to learn and teach differently from the way it is done in Leipzig and Berlin [6], and, besides, it would not
be possible to do it differently, for reasons which have been sufficiently
elucidated above. I do not deny that the teaching method can be improved,
but only the method, not the principles. |
| Вообще и в творчестве и в преподавании музыки
мы должны стараться только об одном,—чтоб было хорошо, нимало не
думая о том, что мы русские, и поэтому нам нужно делать что-то особенное,
отличное от западноевропейского. |
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In general, both in the creation of music
and in the teaching of it we must strive after only one thing—that
it should be good, without giving any thought to the fact that we
are Russians and imagining that we must therefore do something special,
different from what western Europeans do. |
| Вы пишите, что мне нужно не жалеть, а поощрять
Вас. Жалеть мне Вас действительно нельзя, ибо при Вашем таланте и уме
Вы во всяком случае не бесполезно тратите время; такие люди, как Вы, даже
заблуждаясь или сходя временно с своего прямого пути, всё-таки достигают
цели. Если Вам суждено быть творцом, то Вы им и будете, а если нет, то
в другой сфере принесёте свет и пользу. Но я просто недоумеваю ввиду настоящего
фазиса Вашего развития. Когда Вы нагромождали увеличен[ные] секст[ы]
на чрезмерные трезвучия, я твёрдо верил, что в Вас есть самобытное творческое
дарование, теперь оно куда-то от меня скрылось, я перестал понимать Вас.
Тогда Вы, подобно всем юношам, талант которых не созрел, оригинальничали,
но в нагромождениях Ваших я не мог не усматривать сильного, хотя
не созревшего таланта. Теперь в Ваших скчуных произведениях я вижу
превосходного учёного музыканта,—но в этом океане имитаций, канонов и
всяких фокусов нет ни искры живого вдохновения. Если квартет Ваш отличается
только теми, впрочем замечательными, техническими достоинствами, которые
имеются и в трио,—то я не буду обрадован. |
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You write that I should not pity you but
encourage you [7].
Indeed, I should not be pitying you, because with your talent and intelligence
you are in any case not wasting your time pointlessly. People like you,
even when they get lost or come off temporarily from their right path,
will reach their goal all the same. If you are fated to be a creator,
then you will be one, and if not, then you will benefit and illuminate
others in another sphere. But I am simply perplexed by the present phase
of your development. When you were stacking augmented sixths onto
augmented triads [8]
I firmly believed that you were endowed with an original creative gift;
now the latter is hiding from me somewhere, I have ceased to understand
you. Back then, like all youths whose talent has not yet matured, you
sought to be original, but in your stackings [i.e. stacked chords
in harmony exercises] I could not help seeing a powerful, albeit as yet
immature, talent. Now in your boring [9] works I see a superbly learned
musician, but in this ocean of imitations, canons, and diverse tricks
there is not a single spark of vital inspiration. If your quartet is distinguished
only by the same technical merits which are to be found in your trio (which,
by the way, are remarkable), then I shall have no reason to rejoice.
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| Пожалуйста, простите за все эти откровенности, я, может
быть, ошибаюсь, и всё, что я говорю, неосновательно и несправедливо, но
в конце концов не могу не сказать, что Вы до крайности преувеличиваете
Ваше якобы незнание и неумение и что Вам не столько нужны бесконечные
упражнения в контрапунктических фокусах, сколько попытки извлекать из
недр Вашего таланта живой источник вдохновения, иначе сказать: писать
как Бог на душу положит, а не как Вас научает измышлённая Вами
теория. |
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Please forgive me for being so outspoken. I am perhaps
mistaken, and everything that I have said is unfounded and unfair, but
after all I cannot help pointing out that you exaggerate inordinately
your alleged ignorance and inability, and that what you need are
not so much endless exercises in contrapuntal tricks as to make attempts
to extract from the depths of your talent a vital source of inspiration—in
other words, to write as God lays [the notes] on your heart [i.e.
as your heart tells you][10], and not as you are instructed by the theory
which you yourself have devised.
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| Я рассчитал, что письмо к Вам в Париж не дойдёт, и потому, погодя
немного, буду адресовать его в Селище. |
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I have calculated that this letter will not reach you
in Paris, and so I shall wait a
bit and then address it to Selishche [11]. |
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| 17 августа |
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17 August |
| Прочитав всё вышенаписанное, я было хотел
разорвать это письмо. В самом деле, к чему всё это я Вам пишу и как бы
пытаюсь поселить в Вас сомнение в себе и колебание относительно избранного
Вами пути? Между тем в глубине души я ни минуты никогда не сомневался,
что Вы, наверное, так или иначе будете крупной личностью в сфере русской
музыки. Почему я знаю—может быть, для достижения цели своей Вам именно
нужно делать то, что Вы теперь делаете. Из того, что в данную минуту я не понимаю Вас, быть может, следует вывести то заключение, что
я лишён проницательности, а совсем не то, что Вам следует делать что-то
другое. |
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After reading through everything that I
had written above I was about to tear up this letter. Indeed, what am
I writing all this to you for? Doesn't it seem as if I am attempting to
instil doubts in you and to make you waver with regard to your chosen
path? And yet, in my heart of hearts I have never doubted for one moment
that you will almost certainly, in some way or other, become a major figure
in the sphere of Russian music. For all I can tell, to attain your goal
maybe it is necessary that you should be doing precisely what you are
doing now. From the fact that I don't understand you at the present
moment one should perhaps draw the conclusion that I lack perspicacity,
and not at all that you ought to be doing something else.
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| Тем не менее пыл моего полемического увлечения
ещё не совсем улёгся и потому посылаю Вам и предыдущие два листа. Я пробуду
здесь до ноября. Нельзя ли Вам прислать мне на время Ваш квартет? Очень
бы интересно! |
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Nevertheless, the ardour of my polemic enthusiasm
has not quite died down yet, and that is why I am also sending you the
two preceding pages. I shall stay here until November. Wouldn't it be
possible for you to send me your quartet for a while? It would be very
interesting to have it! |
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| 24 августа |
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24 August |
| Теперь уж не стоит посылать это письмо в
Селище. Адресую его прямо в Москву.
Мне очень любопытно знать, как Вы окончили Ваше путешествие и как вернулись
в Москву. Если напишете об этом
хоть несколько слов, буду очень благодарен. |
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Now there is no longer any point in sending
this letter to Selishche. I am addressing it directly to Moscow. I am very curious to know
how your trip ended and how you returned to Moscow. If you can write me even
just a few words about this, I shall be very grateful. |
| Кланяйтесь всем нашим, т. е. консерваторским,
а также Вашим родным начиная с Варвары Павловны. Я написал
6 вокальных дуэтов и 7 романсов. Они через неделю будут у Юргенсона. Если просмотрите
их, то напишите, как Вам кажутся они в сравнении с прежними вокальными
сочинениями. |
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Give my regards to all our lot, that is,
to the Conservatory lot, as well as to your relatives, starting with Varvara Pavlovna. I have
written six vocal duets [the Six Duets, Op. 46] and
seven songs [the Seven Romances,
Op. 47]. In a week's time they will have arrived at Jurgenson's. If you are
able to look through them, then write to me and tell me what you think
of them in comparison with my previous vocal compositions.
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| Ваш П. Чайковский |
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Yours, P. Tchaikovsky |
Notes:
- See letter 1544 to Taneyev from Simaki on 21 July/2 August 1880,
and Taneyev's reply to it,
which is quoted in the notes to Tchaikovsky's subsequent letter to him from Kamenka on 1/13 August 1880 (letter 1554). In that earlier letter to Taneyev from Kamenka (letter
1554) Tchaikovsky had defended himself against the insinuation that
he was being a bit hypocritical when he lamented about the "inconveniences"
of belonging to human society.
Taneyev, in his reply on 6/18 August 1880 (again sent from the French
coastal village of Iport, in the Haute-Normandie, where he was spending
part of the summer) apologized for having used the word "hypocritical" and
explained that he had misunderstood the nature of Tchaikovsky's laments
in that letter from Simaki. However,
he added: "As for banquets, solemn receptions etc., I can fully believe
that this must inhibit and burden you as a person who is unused to spending
time in large and unfamiliar company, though I do continue to think that
even there, alongside the unpleasant feeling, there is also a particle of
satisfaction, since all this is closely linked to the love and appreciation
which people feel for your music". As the above letter shows, Tchaikovsky
interpreted this as yet another insinuation that he was being slightly insincere. Taneyev's letter of 6/18 August
1880 has been published in П. И. Чайковский. С. И. Танеев. Письма (1951), p. 58–60 [back]
- Khlestakov is the impostor 'hero' of Nikolay Gogols
famous comedy The Government-Inspector (Ревизор; 1836) [back]
- Tchaikovsky, who after the end of his marriage
in 1877 never again took up permanent residence in Moscow, had last stayed at the city's
Kokorev Hotel from 2/14 April to 10/22 April 1880, and it was probably then
that he had this conversation with Taneyev [back]
- The Slavophiles were an important group in the
Russian intelligentsia whose heyday was in the 1830s–50s, but who nevertheless
continued to exert considerable influence on Russian public opinion until
the end of the century. They believed that the peasantry was the repository
of Russian culture and spirituality, and that the educated classes had to
return to those traditions of their ancestors which were still alive among
the common folk. Opposed to the Slavophiles were the Westerners, who argued
that Russia had to continue along the path marked out by Peter the Great
and learn from Western Europe [back]
- In his letter to Tchaikovsky of 6/18 August 1880 Taneyev had written: "At the
foundations of the European musical forms we find the folk and sacred melodies
out of which these forms grew. To explain my thought I shall use a convenient,
even if banal analogy. European melodies are a seed from which there has
grown a whole tree; our melodies are a seed which is only beginning to sprout.
Europeans have no choice: they can only continue to cultivate their tree.
We do have a choice: we can, on the one hand, contribute to the growth of
the European tree; or, on the other hand, we can nurture our own shoots.
It is in this sense that I say that a fatal attraction draws Europeans
onto their present path: they have one road lying ahead of them, we have
two. Glinka went down these
two roads; you, too, are going along them. When listening to your music
one sometimes says to oneself: this is written in a universally European
manner, whereas that is written in a Russian one. We can feel this Russian
character: it introduces a completely new and original current into your
compositions and into those of Glinka. And the gist of my
idea is that this Russian nuance in music will with time acquire a more
and more definite character, and a style will develop from it which is essentially
different from the European one. I am not at all advocating estrangement
from Europe; on the contrary, we must learn from the Europeans, and that
is what we are doing" [back]
- Tchaikovsky is responding here to the following
passage in Taneyev's letter
of 6/18 August 1880: "It is not at all my intention to provide, in my compositions,
examples of a style which no one before me has ever seen, to create new,
unheard-of music. But, I repeat, Russian melodies must be used as the basis
for musical teaching. I think there will come a time when the teachers at
our conservatories will cease to teach blindly what is taught in Leipzig or Berlin, for they will finally understand
that there is no point in us writing counterpoint exercises on Gregorian
cantus firmi, that we have other tasks to fulfil than the Germans or Frenchmen,
that we mustn't forget about the existence of Russian songs, that we have
to adapt to the circumstances in which we find ourselves" [back]
- Taking up Tchaikovsky's observation in letter 1554 about how it was with "a feeling of
pity and sadness" that he saw his former pupil "falling prey to reflection"
and "quarrying for musical subtleties", Taneyev had retorted in his
letter of 6/18 August 1880: "In order to learn something thoroughly, be
it harmony, counterpoint, or orchestration, one always needs to put in painstaking
and dry work, which is supposed to precede artistic creation. I am attracted
by the gracefulness and well-roundedness of Mozartian forms, the freedom
and purposefulness of Bach's
voice-leading, I try to penetrate as far as I can into the secrets of their
creativity, I see that they knew a lot of things which I don't know, I try
to learn these things—all this cannot possibly leave me dried up. On the
contrary. If I possess any musical abilities at all, in this way I shall
be developing them rather than killing them off" [back]
- i.e. when Taneyev was a student in Tchaikovsky's
harmony and orchestration class at the Moscow Conservatory from 1871 to
1875 [back]
- Taneyev
himself, in his letter to Tchaikovsky of 25 July/6 August 1880, had said
that the String Quartet No. 1 in E♭ major
which he was working on at the time belonged to the "boring genre", i.e.
to the chamber music genre [back]
- Tchaikovsky had used the same Russian expression—«писать
как Бог на душу положит» (which might be translated literally as 'to write
as God lays [the notes] on one's heart [or soul]', but which can be rendered
more simply as 'to write following one's heart')—in
letter 1554 to Taneyev,
1/13 August 1880 [back]
- The estate in Oryol Province which belonged to Fyodor Maslov and his three
sisters. After returning from his holiday in France, Taneyev was intending
to spend a week in Selishche before resuming his teaching duties at the Moscow Conservatory [back]
This page was last updated
on 11 February 2013
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