Tchaikovsky
www.tchaikovsky-research.net

Avgust Gerke

Avgust Antonovich Gerke (Август Антонович Герке) was a Russian jurist, born in 1841.

The son of the pianist and music professor Anton Avgustovich Gerke (1812–1870), Avgust was a contemporary of Tchaikovsky's at the Imperial School of Jurisprudence. He went on to become an attorney in the Saint Petersburg merchants' court (from 1869), an adviser to the Ministry of Justice (from 1890), and the head of the civil appeals division (from 1894), as well as being a member of the executive board of the Russian Musical Society.

Tchaikovsky's friendship with Gerke, formed in the 1850s at the School of Jurisprudence, endured for the rest of his life. His piano piece Tendres reproches (No. 3 of the Eighteen Pieces, Op. 72 (1893) is dedicated to Avgust Gerke. After Tchaikovsky's death, Gerke was a member of the committee formed to create a memorial in honour of the composer.

Avgust Gerke died in 1902.