Any biography on a classical composer will include mention of a patron (or patroness, if the patron is a she and the biographer is Edward Lockspeiser). Tchaikovsky's patroness was Nadezhda von Meck, the widow of the founder of the Russian Empire Railway and a competent musician (pianist) in her own right. In 1880 she took up the eighteen-year-old Claude Debussy, whom she introduces to the archived world in a letter from Interlaken:
"Two days ago a young pianist arrived from Paris, where he just graduated at the Conservatoire with the first prize [in score-reading] in the class of M. Marmontel. I engaged him for the summer to give lessons to the children, accompany Julia's singing and play four hands with myself. This young man plays well, his technique is brilliant, but he lacks any personal expression. He is yet too young, says he's twenty, but looks sixteen." (24)
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