“(1) I want to write a Vesper service and require the words in full. If there is a book on sale, a kind of ‘short guide to the Liturgy for laymen,’ please send it to me.
“(2) I have begun to study the rites and ceremonials of the Church, but to acquire sufficient information on the subject I need Razoumovsky’s History of Church Music.
I send thanks in anticipation.”
Tchaikovsky describes his condition at this time as “grey, without inspiration or joy,” but “physically sound.” He often felt that the spring of inspiration had run dry, but consoled himself with the remembrance that he had passed through other periods “equally devoid of creative impulse.”
To E. Napravnik.
“Kamenka, June 17th (29th), 1881.
“Last winter, at N. Rubinstein’s request, I wrote a Festival Overture for the concerts of the Exhibition, entitled The Year 1812. Could you possibly manage to have this played? If you like I will send the score for you to see. It is not of any great value, and I shall not be at all surprised or hurt if you consider the style of the music unsuitable to a symphony concert.”
To Modeste Tchaikovsky.
“Kamenka, June 21st (July 3rd), 1881.
“My Vesper music compels me to look into many service books, with and without music. If you only knew how difficult it is to understand it all! Every service contains some chants that may be modified and others that may not. The latter—such as Khvalitey and Velikoe slavoslovie—do not present any great difficulties; but those that change—such as the canonical verses to Gospodi vozzvakh—are a science in themselves, for which a lifetime of study would hardly suffice. I should like at least to succeed in one Canon, the one relating to the Virgin. Imagine that, in spite of all assistance, I can arrive neither at the words nor the music. I went to ask our priest to explain it to me, but he assured me that he himself did not know anything about it and went through the routine of his office without referring to the Typikon. I am swallowed up in this sea of Graduals, Hymns, Canticles, Tropaires, Exapostelaires, etc., etc. I asked our priest how his assistant managed, and how he knew how, when, and where, to sing or read (for the Church prescribes to the smallest detail on what days, with what voice, and how many times things have to be read). He replied: ‘I do not know; before every service he has to look out something for himself.’ If the initiated do not know, what can a poor sinner like myself expect?”