Nadezhda von Meck

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Nadezhda von Meck : biography

1831 – 1894

She also knew that Tchaikovsky was often in need of cash, notwithstanding what she gave him. Tchaikovsky was a poor manager of money. He would then ask von Meck for the next year’s allowance several months in advance. Knowing of this habit, she might have anticipated his needing the money. She may have started preparing for the break from the middle of 1889, knowing it would come sooner or later.

Brotherly jealousy

Modest Tchaikovsky One person who may have welcomed the break was Tchaikovsky’s brother Modest. Like his brother, Modest was homosexual. When the two brothers discussed von Meck’s action, Modest did not try to explain her behavior. Instead, he said what had been to Tchaikovsky the unique and mutual relationship of two friends had been for von Meck the passing fancy of a wealthy woman.

This judgment on Modest’s part might be accepted with a certain degree of doubt. For all his adulation for his brother, Modest’s feelings were actually deeply ambivalent. Modest may have been intensely jealous of his brother’s creative success and equally insecure about this secret friend being his closest rival for his brother’s attention and affections. Just as Tchaikovsky’s break with his wife Antonina might have brought joy to von Meck, so now the break with von Meck may have brought joy to Modest.

Modest became the composer’s biographer. He maintained that Tchaikovsky considered von Meck’s cutting off their relationship to be an act of betrayal. He also said Tchaikovsky’s bitterness remained unassuaged, and that on his deathbed, the composer constantly repeated von Meck’s name, reproaching her. However, a very different story persisted within the von Meck family.

Possible reconciliation

Galina von Meck—the daughter of von Meck’s son Nikolay and Tchaikovsky’s niece Anna—maintained that the rift was secretly healed. In September 1893, only weeks before Tchaikovsky’s death, Anna was about to leave for Nice. Von Meck was dying and Anna was travelling there to nurse her. Tchaikovsky asked her to beg his former friend for forgiveness for his own silence. This apology was reportedly accepted wholeheartedly by von Meck and reciprocated.

The Tchaikovsky biographer Dr. David Brown maintains that Galina’s account "contains much hearsay and a good deal that is romantically heightened." Regardless of this, he concedes some plausibility in her account, especially since Galina received the story directly from her mother.Brown, David, Tchaikovsky: The Final Years (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1992), 292-293

Notes

Support of the performing arts

With her great wealth and a passion for music, Nadezhda von Meck became a major mover in Russian performing arts. The sole exception to her general reclusiveness was the series of Russian Musical Society concerts given in Moscow. She attended them incognito, sitting alone in the balcony. Through these concerts she made the acquaintance of Nikolai Rubinstein, with whom she maintained a complex relationship. While she respected Rubinstein’s talents and energy, that did not stop her from disagreeing strongly with him at times.

While her husband was still alive, she began actively supporting and promoting young musicians. Several of these musicians were continually employed by her. They lived in her household and played her favorite works. She hired Claude Debussy as a music tutor to her daughters, and he wanted to marry one of them.She would not give her permission, wanting her daughters to marry men of her own choosing (which they did, but these marriages all ended in divorce).

In February 1880, she came to the assistance of the Polish violinist Henryk Wieniawski, who had been taken ill in Odessa while on a concert tour. She moved him into her home and arranged medical attention for him. He died a few weeks later in Moscow.

Death

Nadezhda von Meck died from tuberculosis on January 13, 1894 in Nice, France. This was barely two months after Tchaikovsky’s demise.