(1) A String Quartett in F, op. 7, by Nicolas Sokoloff, a St. Petersburg musician, born in the year 1858. The first movement of this work is well characterised, and contains some remarkable imitative writing. The whole Quartett, if not great, is certainly worthy of attention.
Tanyeëff
(2) A String Quartett in D minor, op. 7, by S. Tanyeëff, which consists of two movements only, the second being a notable set of eight variations, with a coda which is based on the principal theme of the first movement. Tanyeëff, who was a pupil of Tschaïkovsky, is now professor of harmony and composition in the Conservatoire of Moscow.
Kopyloff
(3) A String Quartett,[37] op. 15, by Alexander Kopyloff, one of the staff of the Imperial Chapel in St. Petersburg. This work is much simpler in construction than the others. It may be recommended to amateurs as a pleasant and quite practicable, if not very distinguished, composition.
Tschaïkovsky
Another work which cannot be omitted in a notice of Russian chamber music is the Trio for piano and strings, op. 50, by Tschaïkovsky; a lengthy and deeply brooding work of highly impressive character, which is already well known in England.
Tschaïkovsky (1840-93) was the most distinguished of the modern Russian school of composers, and a musician of remarkable originality and power. He was educated for the legal profession, and entered the Government Civil Service, but the musical impulses asserted themselves with such force that in 1866, having first seriously studied for some time, he henceforth devoted himself to the musical profession.
He was deeply imbued with the national influences of his country, and did what he could to foster and develop them. “His music shows the strange and violent contrasts of mood characteristic of his race; now full of a wild and barbarous energy and fiery intensity; now of almost maiden tenderness and ingenuousness; now of a black and hopeless melancholy.”[38]
Tschaïkovsky’s chamber music consists of a String Sextett, op. 70, three String Quartetts, the Piano Trio named above, and a number of compositions for piano and violin, piano and ’cello, and piano alone.