| Summary: | The article for the first time publishes the correspondence of P. I. Tchaikovsky with the Chairman of the Coronation Commission P. A. Richter, connected with the history of the cantata Moscow. This work for soloists, choir, and orchestra to the text by A. N. Maikov was written by Tchaikovsky on the order of the Coronation Commission and was first performed on the day of the solemn coronation of Emperor Alexander III on May 15 (27), 1883. Richter’s letters and telegrams to Tchaikovsky are stored in the Tchaikovsky State Memorial Musical Museum-Reserve in Klin, they have been mentioned in literature but have not been published.
It was Richter who on March 4 (16), 1883 turned to the composer, who was then in Paris, with a request to compose a coronation cantata. Response letters and telegrams from Tchaikovsky to Richter, previously unknown, were discovered by the author of the article in 2022 in the Russian State Historical Archives (St. Petersburg). In total, ten archival documents are introduced into scientific circulation, including six unpublished texts by Tchaikovsky: four letters and two telegrams. The correspondence covers the period from March 4 (16) to April 17 (29), 1883. The published epistolary documents are provided with historical and textual-critical comments. The telegrams of both correspondents are presented in the French original and translated into Russian. Tchaikovsky’s correspondence with Richter and comments on it reveal the details of the history of the creation and first performance of the cantata Moscow, the pages of the history of its manuscript and new facts of the composer’s biography. The correspondence materials are a valuable source for restoring the creative history of the cantata as part of the preparation of a new critical edition of this work in Academic Complete Works of P. I. Tchaikovsky.
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