Question by Hi: How did Nadezhda von Meck influence Tchaikovsky?
How did Nadezhda von Meck influence Tchaikovsky?
who loaned money to Tchaikovsky so he could focus on his compositions.
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Answer by meangirl
In 1877 she began a platonic relationship with Pyotr Tchaikovsky. Despite her insistence that they not meet, the two carried on a significant correspondence, which lasted until 1890. They did encounter each other on two occasions, purely by chance, but did not converse. As their relationship developed, she subsequently provided him with a financial allowance large enough (6,000 rubles a year) that he could leave his professorship at the Moscow Conservatory to focus on his creative work full-time. (This was a small fortune. A minor government official in those days had to support his family on 300-400 rubles a year.)
As well as financial support, she expressed her interest in his musical career and admiration for his music. Her feedback became so important to Tchaikovsky that, after the critics lambasted his Symphony No. 5, she provided him with the support to persevere with his composing.
However, in October 1890, she abruptly cut off her support for the composer. It is widely believed that she did so because she found out about Tchaikovsky’s homosexuality. It is possible she was planning to marry off one of her daughters to Tchaikovsky. In 1883, her son Nikolay had married Tchaikovsky’s niece Anna Davydova.
Dedication to Nadezhda von Meck
Tchaikovsky, as a sign of appreciation, dedicated his Symphony No. 4 and his Похороний Марш (Funeral March), written in 1877; now lost to her.
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CubCur says
To summarise the complex and multi-faceted, 13 year relationship between these two, for so small a canvas as this, would only obscure more than it illuminated by the mere act of compression itself. If you are interested in investigating further, then you can do no better than start with the monumental, 4 volume study 'Tchaikovsky' by David Brown (Gollancz 1978-1986), probably the most detailed ever in the English language, now available unabridged in a two volume paperback. For a more compact, but still large single volume study of Tchaikovsky the *man*, almost to the exclusion of the music itself, Alexander Poznansky's 'Tchaikovsky, the Quest for the Inner Man' of 1991, is able to draw on material come to light around the fall of the Soviet Union that was obviously not at Brown's disposal at the time of his writing. Poznansky's detailed investigation of events surrounding the rupture between von Meck and Tchaikovsky in 1890, hardnosedly analytical rather than emotively speculative, is a particularly thorough piece of work that, en passant, scotches the notion, that Tchaikovsky's homosexuality amounted to a direct provocation prompting von Meck's actions, more or less comprehensively as incoherent and not supported by matters of record.
Redeemer says
She was the person that gave her money to live on while he composed his works on the weird condition that they never meet. During times when Tchaikovsky felt depressed, she was always his biggest supporter. This support was appreciated as evidenced by his Fourth Symphony being dedicated to her. If von Meck didn't support Tchaikovsky, who knows who would've been supporting him, if anyone at all.