[76] The violin Concerto, Op. 77.
[77] N. F. von Meck had given the gifted artist the wherewithal to spend his last days in comfort. Ten days after this letter was written Wieniawsky died.
[78] “Slavsia,” the great national chorus in A Life for the Tsar.
[79] “Lord, have mercy” (Kyrie eleison).
[80] P. I. Jurgenson informed me that Tchaikovsky did succeed in acquiring sufficient English to read Pickwick and David Copperfield in the original. When he took to conducting, he had no time for the study of languages.
[81] Unfortunately the boy did not turn out an artist of the first rank. But his education was not wasted, for he is now drawing-master in a public school in South Russia.
[82] The overture entitled The Year 1812, op. 49, for the consecration of the Cathedral of the Saviour, Moscow. It was one of the three commissions suggested by N. Rubinstein, referred to in the previous letter.
[83] Alexander II., who was assassinated on the bank of the Catharine Canal.
[84] Wife of S. Tretiakov, the wealthy art patron, afterwards chief burgomaster of Moscow.
[85] These details, in the form of a long letter, were communicated by Tchaikovsky to the Moscow Viedomosti.