Nadezhda Filaretovna from Meck

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Nadeschda von Meck

Nadezhda von Meck ( Russian Надежда Филаретовна фон Мекк , born Frolowskaja ( Russian Фроловская ), scientific. Transliteration Nadežda Filaretovna fon Mekk born January 29, jul. / 10. February  1831 greg. In Znamenskoye , Smolensk Oblast , † January 1 jul . / January 13,  1894 greg. In Nice or Wiesbaden ) was the wife and later widow of the Baltic German railroad entrepreneur Karl von Meck (1821–1876). She owes her place in music history in particular to the fact that she was the patron and pen pal of the Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky for 14 years . But she also supported other artists, including Claude Debussy and Nikolai Rubinstein .

Youth and Years of Marriage

Nadezhda Filaretovna came from a music-loving family. Her father Filaret Frolowski was a large landowner. Nadezhda received piano lessons at an early age and developed into a passable pianist. She also acquired extensive knowledge of literature, history and foreign languages.

At the age of 17 she married the 28-year-old Karl Georg Otto von Meck from Riga . At first he worked as an engineer in the state transport system on a low income. At the instigation of his wife, who provided him with substantial support in business matters, he gave up his civil servant position and switched to building railways, which turned out to be very successful financially. Karl von Meck died in 1876 and left his 45-year-old widow a house in Moscow and an estate in Brailow ( Ukraine ) with a very large fortune and control of two railway lines.

After the death of her husband, Nadeschda von Meck completely withdrew from social life and devoted herself to business (she sold one of the railway lines, the other she ran together with her brother and eldest son Vladimir) and the upbringing of her children; 18 children had been born in the marriage, of which eleven reached adulthood (six girls and five boys). She was supported by several servants, educators, German and French teachers and at least one musician who taught the children and made music with her. Her passion was music, especially that of Tchaikovsky, whose orchestral fantasy Der Sturm, Op. 18, premiered at the end of 1873, had made a lasting impression on her. She decided to get in touch with the composer and commissioned him through the violinist and Tchaikovsky student Josef Kotek , who worked as a music teacher in her household in the mid-1870s (on the recommendation of Nikolai Rubinstein , who she sponsored ), for a high price Fee for a work for piano and violin.

At the beginning of 1880 Nadezhda von Meck took the composer and violinist Henryk Wieniawski , who was seriously ill on a concert tour in Moscow, into her house. In the same year Claude Debussy was resident pianist and piano partner Nadeschda von Mecks for some time , accompanied her to Switzerland, France and Italy, and was also a guest on their Russian estates in the following two summers.

Pen pal with Tchaikovsky

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1875

The composition commissioned by Tchaikovsky to Nadezhda von Meck was answered with a letter of thanks:

Moscow, December 6th Jul. / December 18,  1876 greg. […] It is superfluous to tell you how enthusiastic I am about your composition, since you are probably used to other praise and the admiration for someone as insignificant in the field of music as I might only seem ridiculous to you. But my joy in your music is so dear to me that nobody should smile at it […].

This was the beginning of a correspondence lasting almost 14 years, during which 1204 letters were exchanged. The mutual agreement to forego personal encounters was unusual (although there are indications in the correspondence that Nadezhda von Meck was less averse to personal contact than the composer at the beginning of the correspondence). In fact, during the entire period of correspondence there were only occasional, fleeting encounters from afar, during which no word was exchanged. Nevertheless, they sometimes enjoyed the attraction of feeling the closeness of the respective correspondent. Nadezhda von Meck invited the composer to her estates several times during her absence, and both spent repeated stays abroad at the same time in the same city, with trips being timed so that no direct encounter took place.

The correspondence between Tchaikovsky and von Meck, which is often very personal and shows mutual respect, also includes music-aesthetic and philosophical-religious topics. The views of both personalities who are similar in their shyness often show great agreement (often referred to as "kinship" in literature). Tchaikovsky's regular reports on his travels, composition plans, encounters and his own mood swings are autobiographical and allow extensive insights into Tchaikovsky's creative processes and personality.

Nadezhda von Meck had a lasting influence on Tchaikovsky's life when she granted him an annual pension of 6,000 rubles from the end of 1877. This enabled him to give up the unpopular teaching activity at the Moscow Conservatory and to devote more time to his own work. The dedication to “my best friend” of Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony, composed in 1877 and premiered in 1878 , went to Nadezhda von Meck, whereby the dedicator wished to do without a name:

Brailow, June 14th Jul. / June 26,  1877 greg. […] Before I express my wish, I would like to ask you a question: Do you consider me your friend? […] If you can answer this question with a yes, I would be very happy if the dedication of the symphony could simply be: “Dedicated to my friends” […].

At von Meck's request, Tchaikovsky also set out a program of the work in a detailed letter .

Nadeschda von Meck, who ran a very strict regiment in her household, also tried to determine the marriages of her children (even though she often did not attend the respective weddings out of fear of people). In 1883 she succeeded in founding a marriage between her son Nikolai and Tchaikovsky's niece Anna Dawidowa. This son, before the Bolshevik takeover of power, president of the Moscow - Kazan Railway Company and also a patron of the arts, then advisor to the People's Commissariat for Transport and department head of the Gosplan planning authority , was arrested and shot in 1929 in connection with the preparations for the show trial against the industrial party.

Breaking off the pen friendship

In the course of the 1880s, the initially very emotional style of the letters exchanged between von Meck and Tchaikovsky gradually became more objective, and the time intervals between them had increased. The increasingly ailing health of Nadezhda von Mecks also contributed to this, and she was sometimes unable to write for a long time. However, Tchaikovsky received a letter from Mecks (now lost) in September 1890, in which she declared her pen friendship and at the same time the pension payment to be ended, completely surprising, especially since it turned out that the main reason apparently cited - heavy financial losses - did not apply. The actual reason is not clear. Threats from family members to make Tchaikovsky's homosexuality public may have played a role. The assumption, sometimes expressed, that Nadezhda von Meck only gained clarity about Tchaikovsky's disposition at this point in time is unlikely. John Warrack assumed: "Such an intelligent woman who tried to find everything about her composer could hardly have been surprised, if at all."

Nadezhda von Meck, who had been seriously ill for a long time, died of tuberculosis just a few months after Tchaikovsky's death in January 1894 . There are contradicting information on the place of death: In addition to Wiesbaden (e.g. Ena von Baer and Hans Pezold), some, mostly more recent publications mention Nice (e.g. Floros or Brown). In addition to family members, numerous people who had supported her financially throughout her life took part in the funeral procession at the funeral in Moscow.

In 1902 part of the correspondence from Tchaikovsky's brother Modest was published as part of his biography (also in German translation). From 1934 to 1936, WA Shdanow and NT Schegin published the entire correspondence in three volumes (in Russian) at Academia (Moscow, Leningrad). In 1938 a selection was published in Leipzig under the title “Beloved Friend” as a German translation of the book “Beloved Friend” published in New York in 1937 by Catherine Drinker Bowen and Barbara von Meck. At about the same time, a selection that Sergei Bortkiewicz translated directly from Russian was also published in Leipzig . In 1964 the editors Ena von Baer and Hans Pezold published an extended selection in Leipzig with the title “Teurefreund”.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Ena von Baer, ​​Hans Pezold (ed.): Teurefreund. Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky in his letters to Nadeshda von Meck . Paul List Verlag, Leipzig 1964.
  2. ↑ Alexander Issajewitsch Solzhenitsyn : The Gulag Archipelago , first part, chapter 10.
  3. ^ John Warrack: Tchaikovsky . London 1973, p. 104. Quoted in Everett Helm: Tschaikowsky . Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, Reinbek 1976.
  4. ^ Constantin Floros: Peter Tschaikowsky . Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, Reinbek 2006, p. 50.
  5. ^ David Brown: Tchaikovsky: The Final Years , New York, WW Norton & Company, 1992, p. 293

literature

  • The strange love of Peter Tchaikovsky and Nadjeschda von Meck. After d. Orig. Correspondence between Peter Tschaikowsky's and Mrs. Nadjeschda von Meck from the d. Soot. trans. v. Sergei Bortkiewicz. Koehler & Amelang, Leipzig undated [approx. 1938]
  • Catherine Drinker Bowen, Barbara von Meck: Beloved friend. Tchaikovsky's life and his correspondence with Nadeshda von Meck. Paul List Verlag, Leipzig 1938.
  • Ena von Baer, ​​Hans Pezold (ed.): Dear friend. Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky in his letters to Nadeshda von Meck . Paul List Verlag, Leipzig 1964. Reprint: Dausien, Hanau o. J. [1988], ISBN 3-7684-4899-1 .
  • Constantin Floros : Peter Tschaikowsky . Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verl., Reinbek 2006, ISBN 978-3-499-50668-0 .
  • Everett Helm: Tchaikovsky . Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verl., Reinbek 1976, ISBN 3-499-50243-7 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Meck, Nadeschda Filaretovna from
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Frolovskaya, Nadezhda Filaretovna (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian patroness
DATE OF BIRTH February 10, 1831
PLACE OF BIRTH Znamenskoye (Smolensk)
DATE OF DEATH January 13, 1894
Place of death Nice or Wiesbaden