Manuscripts Tchaikovsky and Nabokov at auction Christie's
ARTinvestment.RU   02 июня 2010

Today, the auction house Christie's conducts auctions in London, "Valuable manuscripts and books"

Today, June 2, Christie's conducts auctions in London, "Valuable manuscripts and books. Top auction lots will be three unique works created by some of the leading representatives of Russian art.

Previously unreleased part of the manuscript score of the opera by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) "Mazeppa" in 1883 with a full party to the orchestra (estimate 200-300 thousand pounds), whose existence was not known until today, is a masterpiece for the first time exhibiting at public auction. The scores of Tchaikovsky's works, signed by the composer himself, rarely appear on the art market. Since the beginning of World War II, it happened only once - 3 June 2009 at Christie's auction was sold to the score of the opera "The Maid of Orleans". Thus, it is expected that the upcoming auction will be a truly unique event for the art market.

The manuscript includes the completion of the love scene between Maria and Hetman Mazepa, occurring at the end of the second act and the last part of the final third of the full orchestration, while the love theme performed exclusively to piano music (especially for vocals). The document allows you to monitor the process of creating the work, during which the composer, apparently in a state of haste, in the course of work are a set of patches, sometimes deleting entire passages. The manuscript also contains the observations made Tchaikovsky red and blue pencils, during rehearsal of the opera performances.

first opera "Mazeppa" was held in Moscow on February 3, 1884 by the Bolshoi Theatre under the direction of the conductor Hippolyte Altani. Almost simultaneously with the formulation of Moscow, February 6, the premiere was held in the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg (conductor Eduard Napravnik). Despite the fact that the opera was a resounding success with audiences in Moscow, Tchaikovsky left for Europe immediately after the premiere, did not visit the Mariinsky than quite puzzled by Alexander III. After Napravnik assurances that the opera will be included in the permanent repertoire, Tchaikovsky began to revision. As a result, along with a few minor changes, a composer almost completely rewrote two scenes, which are included in this manuscript. Thus, from the love scene the composer was struck about 65 cycles, and in general on the basis of all the corrections opera was significantly reduced. All changes were fully reflected in the statement, which was held at the St. Petersburg stage on Sept. 10 under Napravnik. These pages were apparently removed from total score, which so far is in the State Central Museum of Musical Culture named after MI Glinka, while making the last corrections in April 1884. Full set of scores, including a final change was not published until September 1899, which suggests that these pages were never published in full orchestration.

« Mazeppa "was the seventh opera by Tchaikovsky, the work on which he took an unusually long time: he worked on it from September 1881 to April 28, 1883, and already 10 May 1883 the composer sent the score and libretto for his publisher, Pyotr Jurgenson for publication.

The sale also will put up three lots that are directly related to Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (1899-1977).

One of them - the anniversary edition of "Works" Pushkin, Pushkin Committee issued in 1937 under the editorship of Professor ML Hoffman (estimate 12-18 thousand pounds). This publication is literally carved marks on Nabokov's Russian and English languages, which shows how carefully he worked with the texts of poems by an outstanding poet. Partly this is scanty comments or translate individual words, in some cases, Nabokov makes the fields translations of entire poems, but somewhere there are comments on the significance of a particular word usage: "Rhythm of the ominous convergence of duels, and underlined the epithets" quiet "and" exactly, "reminiscent of a dull sound of footsteps, curiously anticipated by the end of the first part of the early poems of Pushkin's" The Caucasian Prisoner "...»

most detailed observations Nabokov apply to such poems of Pushkin as "Liberty", "A conversation with bookseller, poet," "K ***" (in this case, Nabokov leads translate the opening lines of verse in English, German and French), Epigram (from Anthology) "," Memoirs "(here Nabokov leads his detailed commentary Russian), "Hero", "Ode to LVI», «Imitation of the Arabic" (incomplete translation into English with numerous corrections). Comments Vladimir also listed at the end of the first part of "Prisoner of the Caucasus and throughout the entire text of" Eugene Onegin ", while" The Queen of Spades "contains only brief notes. On separate sheets of sketches are found - in one place is a sketch of a butterfly, and in another - a sketch of chess combinations.

Lot number 218 is a collection of 58 sketches of chess problems created in the period from the beginning of 1930 on April 30, 1974 and signed «Vladimir Nabokov», «V. Nabokov» or «VN» (эстимейт 5-8 thousand pounds). In his autobiography "Speak, Memory," Nabokov wrote that the compilation of chess problems "requires the writer to the same qualities that characterize a true artist: originality, creativity, harmony, accuracy, complexity, and splendid insincerity." The first 18 targets have been published Nabokov in the collection "Poems and Problems", as well as numbers from 19 to 28. The solutions of problems in most cases, given the turnover, accompanied by comments.

Source : Press Release Christie's