Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky in Vienna - 1877

from Letters of composers : an anthology, 1603-1945 / compiled and edited by Gertrude Norman and Miriam Lubell Shrifte., pages 249,250:

I have seen Wagner’s Walküre. The performance was excellent. The orchestra was superb, and the best singers did everything within their power – and yet it was tiresome. What a Don Quixote Wagner is! He expends all his energy pursuing the impossible, and if all this time he would only follow the natural bent of his extraordinary gift, he could evoke a whole world of musical beauty. I believe Wagner is, by nature, a symphonist. He is gifted with genius, but he is ruined by his tendencies; his inspiration is paralysed by the theories that he invented himself and that he insists on putting …   more >>
cite as

Gertrude Norman and Miriam Lubell Shrifte (ed.), Letters of composers : an anthology, 1603-1945 / compiled and edited by Gertrude Norman and Miriam Lubell Shrifte. (New York, 1979), p. 249,250. https://led.kmi.open.ac.uk/entity/lexp/1424696277477 accessed: 14 October, 2024

location of experience: Vienna

Listeners

Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky
Composer
1840-1893

Listening to

hide composers
Wagner’s Walküre / Ride of the Valkyries /Nibelungen
written by Richard Wagner

Experience Information

Date/Time 1877
Medium live
Listening Environment indoors, in public

Notes

Letter from Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky to Nadezhda Filaretovna von Meck, an admirer of Tchaikovsky who granted him an annuity for thirteen years, Vienna, December 8, 1877.


Originally submitted by verafonte on Mon, 23 Feb 2015 12:57:57 +0000
Approved on Thu, 12 Nov 2015 14:18:43 +0000