Souvenir d’un lieu cher, Op. 42 (Memory of a Dear Place)

• Tchaikovsky composed this three-movement piece for violin and piano in March-May of 1878.¹
• The “dear place” referred to is Brailov, Nadezhda von Meck’s estate. She offered it to Tchaikovsky as a place to stay in the immediate aftermath of his disastrous 1877 marriage to Antonina Ivanovna Milyukova.²

Movements 

1. Méditation. Tchaikovsky originally intended this as a slow movement for his Violin Concerto, but he changed his mind and it found a home in this collection instead.
2. Scherzo 
3. Mélodie³

1. Roland John Wiley, “Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Il′yich,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed January 13, 2022,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000051766.
2. John Henken, “Souvenir d’un lieu cher, Op. 42: No. 1, Meditation,” Los Angeles Philharmonic, accessed January 13, 2022, https://www.laphil.com/musicdb/pieces/3621/souvenir-dun-lieu-cher-op-42-no-1-meditation.
3. Wiley, “Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Il′yich,” Grove Music Online.