Railways and Tchaikovsky

[piston]

Madame von Meck was a remarkable woman. When her husband, the railway baron, died in 1876, she had given birth to 18, eighteen, children! Equally significant, she had always managed to combine both business and music interests and while her husband's death was surely a tragedy, she withdrew from social life and, with determination, she found herself at the head of his business empire and of her large family. A year later she had met Piotr Tchaikovsly and fallen in love with the composer, a love he could not reciprocate. But there resulted from this relationship a deep and lasting friendship which is best measured by their extensive correspondance -- some 1200 letters between 1877 and 1890.

Could this mutual affection -- this friendship burning with love -- have contributed to Tchaikovsky's ultimate success as a composer?

It helped him emotionally, when his marriage was collapsing, and it helped him financially with a generous yearly "pension" of 6,000 rubles. He stopped teaching at the Moscow conservatory and, for the next 13 years, could devoted his full attention to composition without the slightest financial worry.

The title of this thread may seem cynical but it is not. From a strictly factual point of view, Tchaikovsky composed his great symphonies and his fairyland ballets with the support of a devoted, intelligent, resourceful woman who, it so happens, derived her wealth from railway construction....

[Ralph]

It was a fascinating relationship, kept alive by non-personal contact.

[Gary]

...his fairyland ballets with the support of a devoted, intelligent, resourceful woman who, it so happens, derived her wealth from railway construction....

We ballet fans can't thank her enough!