ALS in Cyrillic, signed “P. Tchaikovsky,” one page both sides, 4.5 x 3.5, personal monogram letterhead, June 3/15, [1891]. Letter to Ekaterina Ivanova Laroche, third wife of his old friend Herman Laroche, and the dedicatee of one of the Opus 72 piano pieces. In full (translated): "Dear Katu! I received your thorough report, which I read with great interest and for which I am terribly grateful to you. Thank you for everything you had to endure on my account. Bearing in mind that I do not need a whole house for the winter, but just 3 or 4 rooms, I think that Strandman's dacha would still be habitable for the winter. All these matters can be put off until the autumn, and something else might well have turned up by then. I have sat down to work, and my work is coming along very successfully. Forgive me that it is only possible to write a few lines today. I will write again soon When are you leaving? For God's sake do not put it off. He must be taken to Karlsbad without delay, and I hope this can be done with the utmost haste, so that you can spend the end of the summer with me at Maydanovo. At present I have Modest, Bob, and Sania Litke with me." In fine condition, with smudging to a couple of words of text. Accompanied by the original mailing envelope addressed in Tchaikovsky's hand.
Only a few days earlier, Tchaikovsky had returned from his tour of America to stay in a rented house at Maydanovo (near Klin), where he had previously resided between February 1885 and April 1888. Believing the residence to be unavailable or unsuitable for the winter months, the composer had asked Ekaterina Laroche to find alternative accommodation; despite expressing interest in a nearby dacha owned by a certain "Strandman," Tchaikovsky would remain in Maydanovo until the spring of 1892, when he moved to his final residence in Klin itself. Most importantly, the work that he refers to as "coming along successfully" is his celebrated Nutcracker ballet, on which he had recently resumed work after an interruption due to his American tour. The last of his three ballets, The Nutcracker would be first performed in December 1892.
Reference source: Tchaikovsky Research.
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