Tchaikovsky: Elegie in G Major

Description

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) received a commission in 1884 from the Moscow Society of Artists to "write some sort of musical entr'acte" for Russian actor Ivan Samarin's jubilee to celebrate fifty years as a performing artist. Accepting the commission despite his then preoccupation with composing his opera Eugene Onegin, Tchaikovsky quickly wrote the piece for string orchestra during a stop in Berlin, titling the work A Grateful Greeting.

The work premiered under that title at the jubilee held on December 28th, 1884 at the Bolshoi Theatre, Ippolit Altani conducting. Despite the composer's own reservations in 1884, his publisher convinced Tchaikovsky that the work was worthy of publication in 1890, five years after Samarin's death. At the suggestion of the composer, it was given the new title of Elegy at that time, with A Grateful Greeting retained as a subtitle.

This publication of the work includes a string count of 8-8-5-5-5.