In March 1877, the brilliant Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky received a letter from a stranger in which she expressed her deep admiration for his work. Other, increasingly passionate letters followed. The 37-year-old composer already had a well-established career, so letters from admirers did not drive him crazy: receiving them had become an almost daily occurrence.
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| Piotr Ilich and Antonina, in 1877, during their "honeymoon" |
Pyotr Ilyich, a sensitive nature
With a tendency to depression and subject to recurrent nervous breakdowns, Pyotr Ilyich did not, however, dare to contact the stranger. And it was not a matter of fearing gossip, for the Moscow society in which he lived in those years had long been commenting sotto voce, sometimes acrimoniously, on some of the master's behavior, deemed scandalous. The author who that same year was going to give the Russian bourgeoisie and aristocracy the most popular ballet in history, Swan Lake, was one step away from seeing his virility openly questioned.
Antonina
That is why he finally took the plunge. Pyotr Ilyich ended up meeting Antonina Miliukova, who turned out to be a young, moderately educated 28-year-old woman with pleasant features and an easy smile.
Pyotr Ilyich then took the other step. Just four months after receiving the first letter from his unknown admirer, Antonina and Pyotr Ilyich were married. The composer took Antonina as his wife and, in passing, as a retaining wall against the advance of rumors that encouraged the suspicion of an improper sexual inclination.
The denouement
The decision had disastrous results. For two endless months, Pyotr Ilyich was not able to approach the marriage bed, he had no strength for it and the marriage ended right there. They decided to separate, without grudges.
The composer fell into a depression of such magnitude that he almost committed suicide. Antonina, in turn, went back to sending letters to other celebrities to whom she lied, as did to Piotr Ilich, about her noble origin, and with whom she always ended up falling in love. Antonina did her part too and ended her days in an asylum for the mentally ill.
Violin Concerto - First movement
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto was composed in March of the following year, exactly one year after Antonina's first letter, in a lakeside resort in Switzerland, where he had fled to recover from depression. The work, in three movements, was initially rejected even by great virtuosos who considered that it presented insurmountable difficulties for the time.
The first movement lasts about 20 minutes. [Complete concerto with a listening guide, here]. The abridged version presented here is from the 1947 film Carnegie Hall, featuring one of the most remarkable violinists of the 20th century, Lithuanian master Jascha Heifetz, who plays himself in the film.
Le Concert
The more recent French-Russian film, Le Concert, does the same and presents as its final scene a mixture of the first and third movements, with a somewhat disastrous orchestra (responding to the plot) that happily ends up taking hold.
