Towards the end of 1884, the Moscow Society of Artists decided to mark Ivan Samarin’s fifty years as a performing artist. On 12/24 October, Nikolay Kashkin informed Tchaikovsky that: "You have probably received or will shortly receive a letter from Ostrovsky with a request to participate in I. V. Samarin’s jubilee", he wrote. "The jubilee will include something specially written by [Nikolay] Vildye, his former colleague Ostrovsky, and a number of tableaux enacted by Makovsky, Pryanishnikov, and others—a balletic divertissement, and the final act from Ostrovsky's The Forest. The organizers of the jubilee want you to write some sort of musical entr’acte".

While in Saint Petersburg Tchaikovsky duly received the letter referred to from Aleksandr Ostrovsky. Replying on 18/30 October 1884, Tchaikovsky told Ostrovsky that he was deeply moved to learn of the celebrations to honour Ivan Samarin and "could not feel more strongly about taking part in them, and I hereby accept your commission". However, at this time he was wholly preoccupied with the production of the opera Yevgeny Onegin in Saint Petersburg. Nevertheless, he promised to do something as soon as he returned to Moscow, and provided the jubilee was no earlier than 20 November/2 December, he hoped to manage to complete the entr'acte on time.

On 1/13 November, Tchaikovsky left Saint Petersburg for Davos, where his friend Iosif Kotek was gravely ill. On the way he stopped off in Berlin for four days. Here, on 6/18 November, the piece was completed (according to the date on the manuscript). On 7/19 November 1884, he wrote from Munich to Modest Tchaikovsky: "I stayed so long in Berlin, because I needed to be able to compose quickly ...an entr'acte for the Samarin production. The latter has been done and dispatched". Initially, according to the title page of the manuscript, the piece was entitled A Grateful Greeting.

The first performance of the Elegy was conducted by Ippolit Altani at Ivan Samarin's jubilee concert at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow on 16/28 December 1884, under its original title of A Grateful Greeting.

The Elegy was also used as the Entr'acte (Act IV, No. 9) from the incidental music to Hamlet (1891).

(Tchaikovsky Research)

Please take note that the audio AND sheet music ARE NOT mine. Change the quality to a minimum of 480p if the video is blurry.

Original audio: [ Ссылка ]
(Performance by: Sergei Skripka conducting the Russian State Cinematographic Orchestra)
Original sheet music: imslp.org

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