P. I. Tschaikowsky und N. von Meck / Petr I. Cajkovskij und Nadezda F. fon Mekk. Briefwechsel in drei Bänden. Band 2: Briefe 1879-1881

This complete edition, which is the first outside Russia, of the almost fourteen-year correspondence between P. I. Tchaikovsky and the music-loving patron (and wealthy widow of a Baltic railway entrepreneur) N. F. von Meck represents for German-speaking readers and music historians an indispensable primary source on the life and work of the greatest Russian composer as well as on his environment, while, at the same time, reflecting the political, cultural and social situation of the Russian Empire from the perspective of two privileged, educated and regime-loving subjects.

The life of the large families Tchaikovsky-Davydov and von Meck, the unpleasant consequences of the composer's unhappy marriage, faith and religion, literature, philosophy, the reception of earlier and contemporary Russian and European music, fine arts, foreign travel, political, economic and social conditions - even farming (in Brailov and Kamenka/Verbovka, the Ukrainian estates of the von Meck and Davydov families) and many more are the topics of this correspondence between two related and yet so different personalities who, as agreed, never met in personal conversation and yet ‘talked’ to each other in lively, often confessional speech.

The texts of the letters in the present edition (whose planning dates back to the 1950s), with the added contrasting excerpts from letters of Tchaikovsky to other persons, such as his trusted brothers Anatoly and Modest, have been revised according to the new Russian Complete Edition by Polina Vajdman (Čeljabinsk 2007 ff.). Various introductions, accompanying texts and overviews as well as comprehensive indices (one of them systematically by subjects), together with numerous explanations and notes at the bottom of the pages, make it easier for the reader to find his/her way through the all in all more than 1,200 documents. The three volumes are also available for subscription.