The portrait shows Alexandra and Ilya Tchaikovsky’s only daughter, sixteen-year-old Alexandra, the younger sister of composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky.
According to family friends, she always supported her brother and believed “in his genius”. Alexandra herself recalled, “when I was very young, I thought the best moments were when I would climb up on an armchair with my feet up, curl up and listen to Petya playing music”.
Alexandra graduated from the Smolny Institute for Noble Maidens in St. Petersburg. In 1860, at the age of 19, she married Lev Davydov, the son of the Decembrist Vasily Davydov. The young couple settled in the Kamenka estate in Kiev Governorate. The estate belonged to Lev’s brothers, and he served as its manager. The Davydovs had seven children: four daughters and three sons.
All Tchaikovsky brothers enjoyed staying in Kamenka. Pyotr came there for the first time in 1865 and since then he regularly visited his sister. ‘I found in Kamenka that feeling of spiritual calm which I in vain sought in Moscow and St. Petersburg, ’ the composer wrote.
‘My sister, together with her husband, is a living repudiation of the opinion that there are no absolutely happy marriages. They live in such absolute unity of two souls that no discord between them is ever possible. Their happiness is so perfect that sometimes I feel scared for them’, Pyotr Tchaikovsky wrote about the state of Alexandra’s family.
In Kamenka Tchaikovsky conceived the idea of composing the “Swan Lake”, the Second, the Third and the Forth Symphonies, three suites, “Serenade for Strings”, “The Year 1812 Solemn Overture” and a fantasy for piano and orchestra called “Capriccio Italien”. There he also composed the “Children”s Album’, dedicated to his nephew Vladimir, whom the family called ‘Bob’ in the English manner. The Symphony No. 6 ‘Pathétique’ was also dedicated to Vladimir.
Tchaikovsky dedicated the ‘Waltz Scherzo’ for piano to his sister Alexandra. She died on March 28, 1891 in Kamenka after a long illness. She was buried next to her daughter Tatiana in the cemetery at the Alexander Nevsky Lavra in St. Petersburg.
According to family friends, she always supported her brother and believed “in his genius”. Alexandra herself recalled, “when I was very young, I thought the best moments were when I would climb up on an armchair with my feet up, curl up and listen to Petya playing music”.
Alexandra graduated from the Smolny Institute for Noble Maidens in St. Petersburg. In 1860, at the age of 19, she married Lev Davydov, the son of the Decembrist Vasily Davydov. The young couple settled in the Kamenka estate in Kiev Governorate. The estate belonged to Lev’s brothers, and he served as its manager. The Davydovs had seven children: four daughters and three sons.
All Tchaikovsky brothers enjoyed staying in Kamenka. Pyotr came there for the first time in 1865 and since then he regularly visited his sister. ‘I found in Kamenka that feeling of spiritual calm which I in vain sought in Moscow and St. Petersburg, ’ the composer wrote.
‘My sister, together with her husband, is a living repudiation of the opinion that there are no absolutely happy marriages. They live in such absolute unity of two souls that no discord between them is ever possible. Their happiness is so perfect that sometimes I feel scared for them’, Pyotr Tchaikovsky wrote about the state of Alexandra’s family.
In Kamenka Tchaikovsky conceived the idea of composing the “Swan Lake”, the Second, the Third and the Forth Symphonies, three suites, “Serenade for Strings”, “The Year 1812 Solemn Overture” and a fantasy for piano and orchestra called “Capriccio Italien”. There he also composed the “Children”s Album’, dedicated to his nephew Vladimir, whom the family called ‘Bob’ in the English manner. The Symphony No. 6 ‘Pathétique’ was also dedicated to Vladimir.
Tchaikovsky dedicated the ‘Waltz Scherzo’ for piano to his sister Alexandra. She died on March 28, 1891 in Kamenka after a long illness. She was buried next to her daughter Tatiana in the cemetery at the Alexander Nevsky Lavra in St. Petersburg.
