Tchaikovsky: Six Romances, Op. 57
(1884)
IV. Sleep! (Усни!)
Andante sostenuto (F major)


Tchaikovsky's Six Romances (Шесть романсов), Op. 57 (TH 105 ; ČW 275-280), were mostly written between September and November 1884, except for No. 1 which is from an earlier date.

Instrumentation:
Scored for high voice (Nos. 1, 5), medium voice (Nos. 3, 4), baritone (No. 2) or low voice (No. 6), with piano accompaniment.

Tchaikovsky made minor changes to the texts of the poems used in On the Golden Cornfields (No. 2), Do Not Ask! (No. 3), Sleep! (No. 4), and more significant changes in Only You Alone (No. 6).

Movements:

IV. Sleep! (Усни!) Andante sostenuto (F major)

I would like to fall asleep forever in the grass, like in a cradle,
How I slept as a child on those sunny days
When in the rays of noon they rang
Merry larks trilled and they sang to me:
"Sleep, sleep, sleep!"

And wings of motley flies with bizarre coloring
On the corollas of flowers they trembled like lights,
And the noise of the trees seemed like a wonderful fairy tale;
Cherishing my sleep, with a quiet caress, they cradled:
"Sleep, sleep, sleep!"

And running away like golden waves,
Gave me shelter in a brooding shadow
Under the booth of willows, my fields, native fields,
Bending the bulk ears, they whispered to me:
"Sleep, sleep, sleep!"

Dmitry Merezhkovsky (1865–1941), from his poem of the same name (1884).

Composition:
The earliest of the romances to be written was Tell Me, What in the Shade of the Branches? (No. 1). In a letter to Pyotr Jurgenson of 1/13 December 1884 (see below). the composer expressed his surprise at this discovery of this romance, which it seems he had forgotten about. The exact time and place of its composition are uncertain.

On the Golden Cornfields (No. 2) and Do Not Ask (No. 3) were composed at Pleshcheyevo in late September 1884. Before the rough draft of No. 2 in the composer's notebook is the date "Pleshcheyevo, 26 Sept 1884". Do Not Ask (No. 3) was composed next, and its text was probably chosen by Tchaikovsky after he read Goethe's novel The Apprenticeship of Wilhelm Meister("God, how marvellous this is..."), which he found in Nadezhda von Meck's library at Pleshcheyevo [4].

The remaining three romances were written in Paris between 19 November/1 December (the date of his arrival) and 1/13 December 1884, when Tchaikovsky wrote to Pyotr Jurgenson: "I was very surprised to learn that Komissarzhevsky has my romance. Incidentally, I already have another five. Congratulations to you on my new opus".

Writing to Modest Tchaikovsky from Paris on 3/15 December 1884, the composer reported: "I cannot say that I am bored from idleness. I managed here to devise the main revisions to Vakula, and to write three new romances, and one church number".

Publication:
The romances were published by Jurgenson in April 1885, and in 1940 they were included in volume 45 of Tchaikovsky's Complete Collected Works, edited by Ivan Shishov and Nikolay Shemanin.

Autographs:
Tchaikovsky's manuscript scores of Nos. 2 to 6 are now preserved in the Russian National Museum of Music in Moscow (ф. 88, No. 143). The autograph of No. 1 is lost.

Dedication:
Each romance is dedicated to a different person:

IV. Vera Butakova (1843–1920), younger sister of Lev Davydov (the husband of Tchaikovsky's sister Aleksandra Davydova.

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