Marking the 175th anniversary of the birth of Pyotr Tchaikovsky
«Music… from the depths of the soul excited by artistic inspiration».

«The Tempest»

In 1899, the Imperial Public Library received Pyotr Tchaikovsky's music manuscript - a symphonic fantasia after William Shakespeare's drama «The Tempest» 'from the librarian V. Stasov' as it is recorded in the Report of the Library for the same year.

In the letter to Stasov dated to 19 December 1884, P. Jurgenson wrote,'…the manuscript of «The Tempest» has been lost, and since then I have become Argus' - a vigilant guardian protecting the manuscript heritage of the great composer like the mythological many-eyed giant. Later, this apparently helped Jurgenson to save a lot of Tchaikovsky's works written by his hand. As for «The Tempest», it probably has not been found. Tchaikovsky's autograph, acquired by the Public Library, is not the same manuscript that has been lost by Jurgenson. In his catalogue, it is stated that «La tempête (F-moll). Fantaisie pour grand Orchestre (The Tempest. Fantasia for Grand Orchestra)raquo; was published in the form of the full score and individual parties. Stasov gave to the library not a score, but a four-, three- and two-lines summary of the composition with directions for its instrumentation.

The brother and biographer of composer – Modest Tchaikovsky called this manuscript «a synopsis worked up to the smallest detail». The title page of the manuscript carries an inscription that it was written over 10 days (from 7 to 17 August), in the village of Usovo. Here, the composer stayed at the estate of his disciple and friend Vladimir Shilovsky in the summer of 1873. Apparently, after the Tchaikovsky composed the full score, the synopsis of «The Tempest» remained with Shilovsky. After his marriage to Countess Anna Vasilyeva Vladimir Shilovsky and his wife got the name of the Vasilyevs-Shilovskys. According to Modest Tchaikovsky's report, he received the manuscript of «The Tempest» from Countess Anna Vasilyeva-Shilovsky and later donated it to the Imperial Public Library. But Stasov did not fail to write the full name of Vladimir Stepanovich Shilovsky, in whose house the work was written, in pencil on the title page.

In spite of caring for the manuscripts, Stasov did not consider them absolutely no-touch and often inscribed them with his notes, when transferring them to the library. Thanks to his records, information about the history of the creation or acquisition of a particular autograph has been preserved. As for the history of this Tchaikovsky's work, it became known through the composer's correspondence with Stasov.

The idea of creating a symphonic play «The Tempest» based on William Shakespeare's tragedy by William Shakespeare originally occurred to Stasov, and he proposed Tchaikovsky to implement it. To be more precise, during a meeting with Rimsky-Korsakov in December 1872, Pyotr Ilyich asked Stasov to find a topic for a programme symphonic work. Without thinking long, (in the words of Stasov, for a hour or a half), he decided to offer Tchaikovsky just three stories based on the literary works: W. Shakespeare's «The Tempest», W. Scott's «Ivanhoe» and N. Gogol's «Taras Bulba». In the letter to Tchaikovsky, dated to 30 December 1872, Stasov formulated three programmes relevant to the proposed stories.

Responding to Stasov, Tchaikovsky informed the critic about his choice, and asked him a very important question, 'Does «The Tempest» need a storm? <…> Is it not strange to do without the storm in a symphonic work illustrating «The Tempest»?'

These questions evoked Stasov's emotional response, 'you ask whether you need a storm? You bet! Certainly, certainly, certainly, without the storm, and the overture will not be an overture, and the entire programme will change'.

Then Vladimir Stasov poetically describes his vision of the sea and the storm in Tchaikovsky's overture in detail,

The description of the storm made by Stasov, is accurately reflected in the music. Researchers of Tchaikovsky's works depict the episode as follows,
«The very storm begins, as advised Stasov to Tchaikovsky,' suddenly, in full force', reaching raging power and fury over several bars, then as quickly, as if by magic, it abates and ceases. To describe the tempest, the composer uses <…>'the abundance of diminished seventh chords, chromaticisms, “roaring” brass instruments and “whistling” alts of woodwinds' (Yu. V. Keldysh).

To this we can add another characteristic of the storm in Tchaikovsky's «The Tempest»,
In the powerful sounding of tutti, there are highlighted soaring tones of the strings, whistling chromatic passages of the flutes, the rumbling percussion instruments' (L. V. Mikheeva).

Since the autograph of the score has not survived ( there is only its authorized copy that is stored at the Glinka Museum of Musical Culture), the value of the rough copy of this composition is extremely high, especially because, according to the observations T. Skvirskaya, the instrumentation specified in it, and some notations of the tempos do not coincide with the final version. (Listen)