Andante cantabile (from String Quartet No. 1, Op. 11)
- Instrumentation
- Cello, String Orchestra
- Composed
- 1888
- Duration
- 7'
- Publisher
- Public Domain
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About this piece
Tchaikovsky's own arrangement, for solo cello and string orchestra, of the slow movement of his First String Quartet (1871), a melody based on a folk song that famously moved Tolstoy to tears. He made it in Paris in 1888 for his friend the cellist Anatoliy Brandukov, who played it with the composer conducting at a private concert at the home of Marie de Benardaky in February 1888 and then publicly at the Châtelet five days later; they gave the Russian premiere in Moscow in 1891. A natural companion to the Nocturne, Op. 19 No. 4, which Tchaikovsky probably also arranged for Brandukov in Paris that year. The score is free on IMSLP (from the old Complete Edition, edited by Brandukov's pupil Viktor Kubatsky), and Eulenburg publishes a modern edition.
Technical overview
A single slow, singing movement of about 7 minutes that asks above all for sustained legato, a singing tone and control of colour over the string orchestra.