Childhood

Nadezhda von Meck was born Nadezhda Filaretovna Frolovskaya, in a family which owned large landed estates. Her father, Filaret Frolovsky, embraced his love of music from an early age, while from her mother, Anastasia Dimitryevna Potemkina, she learned energy, determination, and business acumen.

A serious student of music in her youth, Nadezhda became a capable pianist with a good knowledge of the classical repertoire. She also mastered some foreign languages, learned to appreciate the visual arts, and read widely in literature, history, and philosophy, especially the work of Arthur Schopenhauer and the Russian idealist Vladimir Solovyov.

Marriage

At seventeen, Nadezhda was married to Karl Otto Georg von Meck, a 27-year-old engineer and the son of Major Otto Adam von Meck by his marriage to Wilhelmine Hafferberg – Baltic Germans from Riga. Together they had thirteen children, of whom eleven survived to adulthood.

As a government official, Karl von Meck's life was uneventful, and his work was poorly paid. With several children quickly added to his responsibilities, however, he was reluctant to make a break with a steady post.

Nadezhda von Meck saw things very differently. To her, filling the roles of mother, nurse, governess, dressmaker, housekeeper, and valet was far easier to bear than the humiliation of seeing her husband as a cog in the machine of a government organization. Neither did fulfilling all those domestic duties lower her resolve or weaken her energy in urging him to make a break. Russia, desperately short of railways, was expanding its communications network rapidly, and Nadezhda was far-sighted enough to see that a future for her husband lay there. She continually exerted pressure on him to find a partner with capital and to join the boom in Russian railway construction.

Meck finally gave in to his wife's urgings and resigned from the civil service, at which point they had an income of only twenty kopecks a day on which to live. Nadezhda was right, though, to trust her husband's talent as an engineer. In 1860, there were only 100 miles of railroad track laid in Russia. Twenty years later, there were over 15,000 miles of lines. Much of this explosion was due to Karl von Meck, and his investments made him a multi-millionaire. The railway lines for which he was responsible included that from Kursk to Kiev and the highly profitable Moscow to Ryazan line, with its effective monopoly of grain transportation from the Black Earth Region of Central Russia.

In 1876, Karl von Meck died suddenly, leaving a will which gave Nadezhda control of his vast financial holdings. This included two railway networks, large landed estates, and several million rubles in investments. With seven of their eleven children still at home, von Meck concentrated on her business affairs and on the education of the children still dependent on her. She sold one of Meck's railway companies and ran the other one with the help of her brother and her eldest son, Vladimir.

Withdrawal from society

After the death of her husband, von Meck took no part in social life, withdrawing into almost complete seclusion. She even refused to meet the relatives of those whom her children were going to marry, and she never attended any of their weddings.

By all accounts, von Meck was imperious by nature, presiding over her household despotically. She expected to have her own way, so surrounded herself only with people who would give it to her, and she ruled her children's lives in every detail. As they grew into adulthood, she arranged their marriages, bought houses for them, and even chose furniture for their houses. When she wanted to see her married children, she summoned rather than invited them. Understandably, her children were not always grateful for the extreme degree of their mother's care (or meddling, depending on the viewpoint of the person concerned).

Von Meck was always compulsively busy. She took her more senior servants on periodic inspection tours of her house from cellar to roof, and the house never remained quite the same after such tours. String was saved for her to untangle and wind. Books were bought so that she might cut the pages. She purchased quantities of wool, which she then wound into balls and sent to her daughter, Countess Bennigsen. While engaging in this business, she would summon her daughter Julia to come and read to her. Julia did not mind. Of all the Meck children, she was the one most eager to please her mother, who demanded everything from her—and got it.

Meck was probably well aware that she was hard to tolerate. She wrote to Tchaikovsky,

I am very unsympathetic in my personal relations because I do not possess any femininity whatever; second, I do not know how to be tender, and this characteristic has passed on to my entire family. All of us are afraid to be affected or sentimental, and therefore the general nature of our family relationships is comradely, or masculine, so to speak.^[1]

Personal views

Von Meck was a professed atheist, which was not unusual in aristocratic Russia in the 1870s. Her fierce need for independence, on the other hand, was very unusual for a woman of the time. Her division between that and concern for her family resulted in contradictions between her beliefs and actions. Her views on affairs of the heart were strictly moral, but she did not believe in marriage as a social institution and regularly professed her hatred of it to Tchaikovsky. "You may think, my dear Pyotr Ilyich, that I am a great admirer of marriage," she wrote on 31 March 1878, "but in order that you not be mistaken in anything referring to myself, I shall tell you that I am, on the contrary, an irreconcilable enemy of marriages, yet when I discuss another person's situation, I consider it necessary to do so from his point of view."^[2] On another occasion, she stated more genially but no less forcefully, "The distribution of rights and obligations as determined by social laws I find speculative and immoral."^[2]

Even with her views on matrimony, von Meck was resigned to it as a means of social stability and procreation, and her own marital experience may have forced her to recognize its benefits.^{[citation needed]} This realization may have also been why she strove to marry off her children as soon as possible—to ensure their stability in the event of her demise. Even in marriage, though, she considered sexual relations between men and women to be mutual exploitation.^{[citation needed]} Russian radical thinkers of the period, such as Nikolay Chernyshevsky and Dmitry Pisarev, espoused views not far removed from hers. Both men considered marriage to be a pillar of bourgeois society and called for its abolition. Meck especially respected Pisarev's work, as well as 19th-century positivism in general.^{[citation needed]}

Epistolary friendship

They carried on a significant correspondence, exchanging over 1,200 letters between 1877 and 1890. The details they shared were extraordinary for two people who never met. He was more open to her about much of his life and his creative processes than to any other person. Her feedback became so important to him that, after the critics lambasted his Fifth Symphony, she provided him with the support to persevere with his composing.^[7] Meck died believing these letters had all been destroyed. However, when Tchaikovsky received her request to do so, he assured her that he had destroyed them, but then filed that letter with all the rest for posterity to find.^{[citation needed]}

Von Meck remained a devoted supporter of Tchaikovsky and all his works, but her bond with him depended on not meeting him. This was not simply because he would not live up to her expectations. She desired to think of Tchaikovsky as her ideal of a composer-cum-philosopher, much like the Übermensch or Superman about whom Friedrich Nietzsche would write. Tchaikovsky understood this, writing to Meck, "You are quite right, Nadezhda Filaretovna, to suppose that I am of a disposition sympathetic to your own unusual spiritual feelings, which I understand completely."^[8]

The two did meet on one occasion, purely by chance, in August 1879, while Tchaikovsky was staying at the Meck estate at Simaki. He had gone for his daily walk in the forest somewhat earlier than usual, unaware that she was late for her daily drive through that same area with the rest of her family. As a result, they came face to face for a few moments; he tipped his hat politely, she was nonplussed, but no words were spoken. He wrote to her the same evening to apologise for the inadvertent breach of their arrangement. She responded, saying there was nothing to apologise for, and she even invited him to visit her home to see her new paintings, but at a time when she would be away.^[9]

The previous year, while staying at her villa in Florence, Tchaikovsky had seen her and her entourage pass by every morning;^[10] and they also glimpsed each other once at the opera, but only from a distance. Alexander Poznansky says of this last encounter: "It is not clear whether their both being at the theater was wholly accidental or arranged by Mrs. von Meck in order to see him, as seems not unlikely."^[11]

Dedication of Fourth Symphony

Tchaikovsky, as a sign of appreciation, dedicated his Symphony No. 4 to her. This was important because, due to the nature of artistic patronage in Russian society, patron and artist were considered equals. Dedications of works to patrons were expressions of artistic partnership. By dedicating the Fourth Symphony to von Meck, he was affirming her as an equal partner in its creation.^[12]

Symbolic—and strained—union

In 1883, von Meck's son Nikolai married Tchaikovsky's niece Anna Davydova, after five years of matchmaking efforts by Meck and Tchaikovsky. Meck, who was in Cannes at the time, did not attend the wedding, thus staying true to her custom of avoiding all contact with the families of her children's spouses. However, Tchaikovsky did attend, meeting the rest of the Meck clan.^{[citation needed]}

At first both Meck and Tchaikovsky rejoiced in this event, seeing in it a symbolic consummation of their own relationship, but later events would make them question their intentions. Anna, extremely strong-willed herself, dominated her husband. She also opposed her mother-in-law regarding family matters—most tellingly in a feud between her eldest son and business partner, Vladimir, and the rest of the family. Rather than bringing von Meck and Tchaikovsky closer together, Anna and Nikolai's union may have helped drive a wedge between them. Tchaikovsky virtually disowned his niece in an effort to avert a falling-out, while Meck hid from him her true feelings about what was taking place.^{[citation needed]}

The break

In October 1890, von Meck sent Tchaikovsky a year's allowance in advance, along with a letter ending her patronage. She claimed bankruptcy. Most surprising about the break was its extreme suddenness. Barely a week beforehand, she had sent him a typically intimate, loving and confessional letter. The letter dealt in large part with how her children were squandering their future inheritance.^{[citation needed]}

This was a persistent irritation for Meck and not necessarily a reason for her ending patronage of Tchaikovsky. Nevertheless, one logical explanation of giving him a year's allowance at once would be that she feared not having the funds to send later, in their usual arrangement of monthly installments. Others discount this idea. Most tellingly, Meck asked Tchaikovsky, in her final letter, not to forget her.^{[citation needed]}

Two facts contributed to von Meck's decision to make the break:

1. By 1890, she was gravely ill. She was in the latter stages of tuberculosis and would succumb two months after Tchaikovsky's death. An atrophy of her arm made writing nearly impossible.^[13] Dictating letters via a third party would have been awkward—especially messages as frank, informal and personal as the ones she and Tchaikovsky had exchanged.
2. She was under intense family pressure to end the relationship. Her children were embarrassed by her closeness with Tchaikovsky. There was society gossip about the composer and "La Meck". Increasingly, at least in the eyes of hostile relatives, the situation seemed scandalous. Worse, to them, he continued to take Meck's money freely even after he had received a generous pension from Tsar Alexander III.^[14] As the children's own financial situations worsened, they grew more resolved to end the arrangement between their mother and Tchaikovsky. By mid- to late 1890, over a two-month period, she had been visited by all but one of her elder children and may even have been given a final ultimatum. The final letter and payment from Meck to Tchaikovsky were delivered by a trusted servant of hers, Ivan Vasilyev, for whom he held warm feelings. She had never sent anything to him this way before and had always sent letters and checks by post.^{[citation needed]}

Von Meck also knew that Tchaikovsky was often in need of cash, despite the large sums she gave him. Tchaikovsky was a poor manager of money and would ask her for the next year's allowance several months in advance. Knowing of this habit, she might have anticipated his needing the money.^{[citation needed]}

Brotherly jealousy

One person who may have welcomed the break was Tchaikovsky's brother Modest. When the two brothers discussed Meck's action, Modest did not try to explain her behaviour. Instead, he stated his opinion that what had been to Tchaikovsky the unique and mutual relationship of two friends had been for Meck merely the passing fancy of a wealthy woman.^{[citation needed]}

Possible reconciliation

Galina von Meck—daughter of Nadezhda von Meck's son Nikolay and Tchaikovsky's niece Anna—maintained that the rift was secretly healed. In September 1893, only weeks before Tchaikovsky's death, Anna was about to leave for Nice, where Nadezhda von Meck was dying, and Anna was travelling there to nurse her. Tchaikovsky asked her to beg his former friend for forgiveness for his own silence. This apology was reportedly accepted wholeheartedly by Meck and reciprocated. The Tchaikovsky biographer David Brown maintains that Galina's account "contains much hearsay and a good deal that is romantically heightened." Regardless of this, he concedes some plausibility in her account, especially since Galina received the story directly from her mother.^[15]