Note 164 — TSCHAIKOWSKY
Reading edition
The first of Tschaikowsky's programmatic orchestral works is the virtually unknown Fatum ("Destiny"), to which are attached lines from a poem by Batioushkov. This work was composed in 1868, and produced at Moscow in March of the following year. Tschaikowsky destroyed the score "during the seventies"; but the orchestral parts were preserved, and the score was reconstructed from them and published in 1896. Batioushkov's lines were affixed to the score after its completion, on the eve of the concert at which the work was produced.