Dedicated with love to Bobyk

Widmung’ (Dedication) is the title of one of Robert Schumann’s most popular songs, set to a poem by Friedrich Rückert (‘Du meine Seele, du mein Herz/Du meine Wonn’, o du mein Schmerz’ – ‘You, my soul, you, my heart/You, my joy, O you, my pain’), and it is no surprise that no word is repeated as often in it as the intimate ‘you’. Thirteen times is the honoured one adored, only to end up as a self-referential corrective, as the admirer’s ‘better self’. We need no name to know that this refers to the beloved.

Those to whom a work is dedicated need not necessarily be a lover. The reasons for a dedication may well be of a pragmatic nature; until the 19th century, in the majority of cases they served a practical purpose. When a composer such as Jean-Baptiste Krumpholtz dedicated a work to his wife (‘Dédié à Madame Son Epouse’), it was honourable and a testament to affection. And when a composer such as Anton Bruckner entrusted a symphony to none other than ‘the dear Lord’, this reflected his religious gratitude. It was, however, more lucrative – and common practice – to address someone from whom one could expect something, as Heinrich Schütz did on 1 May 1611, when he addressed ‘To the most illustrious Prince and Lord, Landgrave Moritz of Hesse, Count of Catzenelenbogen, Dietz, Zigenhain and Nidda etc.’ to whom he dedicated his first madrigals. He hoped that His Highness would not spurn ‘this small token of gratitude’, before devoting himself entirely to ‘the depth of Your princely generosity’ in a seemingly endless eulogy.

Two centuries later, Ludwig van Beethoven had gained considerable self-confidence. Yet he too was dependent on the favour and, above all, the purse of patrons, whether they were named Lichnowsky or Lobkowitz, or whether it was the wife of the Austrian Emperor. If he had originally dedicated his 3rd Symphony Eroica to Napoleon – a dedication which, as is well known, he withdrew after the latter’s coronation as Emperor – it was not least because he was convinced that he stood on an equal footing with the man he had once revered. In which case Beethoven was certainly not wrong – given the enduring success of his music. Beethoven’s name has eclipsed that of Napoleon.

Literary history, too, is familiar with the affectionate, matter-of-fact or devout dedication; one might even describe it as a genre in its own right. It exists from Hesiod to Brecht, as the Germanist Walter Kühn has demonstrated, and it will continue to exist as long as an author feels indebted to a particular person and wishes to express that gratitude, perhaps because that person inspired them to create a work. In ecclesiastical and courtly commissioned painting, however, artists naturally dispensed with fine words – where would they have put them, after all? – and instead had their patrons appear from time to time in the commissioned paintings, preferably as idealised biblical figures or ancient heroes.

The work is more important than the dedication. Yet behind every dedication there is undoubtedly an important story. We rarely know the details. Where it simply reads ‘To my parents in gratitude’, we are quick to assume that the son or daughter’s relationship with them was untroubled. Really? One is free to speculate. 

Whilst Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky dedicated his 4th Symphony to his pen-pal and patron Nadezhda von Meck, his ties to the dedicatees of the 3rd and 6th Symphonies were of a more intimate nature. He dedicated the 3rd Symphony to his pupil, temporary host and occasional lover Vladimir Shilovsky, and the 6th Symphony, Pathétique, to his favourite nephew and principal heir Vladimir Davydov, known as Bobyk, who was twenty-two years old at the time of its premiere in 1893 – just a few days before Tchaikovsky’s death.

‘I think of you more than of any other person,’ Tchaikovsky had written to Bobyk one day. “I would so much like to see you, to hear your voice; it would be such a great joy for me that I would give ten years of my life if you would appear to me, even if only for a second! Bobyk, I adore you! Here abroad, where I spend long days without you, I can measure the full strength and magnitude of my love for you.”

Any speculation about an intimate relationship with Bobyk, who was also homosexual and voluntarily took his own life in 1906 at the age of thirty-five, is out of the question. It is undisputed that the uncle’s affection for his nephew was boundless; whether it overwhelmed the boy, we do not know. Nor do we know whether the boy was able to reciprocate it in the way Tchaikovsky intended. One thing, however, is certain: without the Symphony Pathétique – which, incidentally, owes its name to Pyotr Ilyich’s brother Modest Tchaikovsky – Vladimir Davydov’s name would long since have been forgotten. Thanks to Tchaikovsky’s truly moving, love-filled music, dedicated to him, the symphony became, in a sense, his epitaph, a fact that is repeatedly mentioned in connection with Tchaikovsky’s final work; as is the case here.

‘During my travels, I had an idea for my new symphony, this time with a programme, yet the programme is to remain a mystery to all – let them rack their brains over it! It will be called the Programme Symphony (No. 6). The programme is deeply subjective. I often had to weep as I composed it in my mind during my many travels.’

Well, the ‘programme’ in the title gave way to pathos (páthos, Greek for pain; suffering; passion), but one can still rack one’s brains today over the programme contained within the music, unless one does as the composer did – and simply weeps.

Author: Alain Claude Sulzer