Tchaikovsky: Six Romances and Songs, Op. 27 (1875) VI. My Spoiled Darling. Allegro con spirito.

Tchaikovsky: Six Romances and Songs, Op. 27
(1875)
VI. My Spoiled Darling (Моя баловница)
Allegro con spirito. Tempo di Mazurka (A major)


Tchaikovsky's Six Romances and Songs (Шесть романсов и песен), Op. 27 (TH 98 ; ČW 232-237), were written in March and April 1875 in Moscow.

Instrumentation:
Scored for medium voice (Nos. 1, 3, 4, 5, 6) or low voice (No. 2), with piano accompaniment.

Movements:

VI. My Spoiled Darling (Моя баловница) Allegro con spirito. Tempo di Mazurka (A major)

My darling, surrendering to fun,
It will fill like a bird with a silver trill,
Like a bird, it will begin to chirp, babble,
So cute will start to babble, twitter,
That even with my breath I'm afraid to break
Sweet harmony of virgin words,
And all the days and all my life I'm ready
Listen to the beauty, and listen,
And listen, and listen, and listen!

When will the liveliness of speech light up her eyes
And the cheeks will begin to blush more,
When with a smile, through scarlet lips,
Like pearls in corals, her teeth will shine,
Oh, in these moments I boldly again
I look into her eyes and wait for a kiss,
And I don't want to listen to her anymore
And kiss, kiss, kiss, kiss!

I'm ready for my spoiled girl all my life
Kiss, kiss, kiss.

Lev Mey, from his poem Pieszczotka moja (1849) — a translation from the Polish of Adam Mickiewicz's (1798–1855) poem Do D.D.: Wizyta in the collection Sonety odeskie (1826).

Composition:
The history of these romances is undocumented. They were probably composed sometime between mid/late March (after the Six Romances, Op. 25) and 7/19 April 1875 (the date they were received by Pyotr Jurgenson, as noted on the manuscript).

Performances:
The romance Evening (No. 4) was performed, possibly for the first time, by Aleksandra Svyatlovskaya in Moscow on 17/29 December 1876, at the sixth symphony concert of the Russian Musical Society.

Publication:
The romances were published by Pyotr Jurgenson in May 1875. A new edition, containing the second version of My Spoiled Darling (No. 6), was issued by Jurgenson in August 1892.

The set (including both versions of No. 6) was published in volume 44 of Tchaikovsky's Complete Collected Works (1940), edited by Ivan Shishov and Nikolay Shemanin.

Arrangements:
The romance Do Not Leave Me (No. 3) was orchestrated by Sergey Taneyev in 1891, and this arrangement was published by Pyotr Jurgenson in 1892.

Autographs:
Tchaikovsky's manuscript scores of all six romances are now preserved in the Russian National Museum of Music in Moscow (ф. 88, No. 136).

The same archive also holds Sergey Taneyev's autograph arrangement of Do Not Leave Me (No. 3) for voice and orchestra, containing annotations by Tchaikovsky (ф. 85, No. 38).

Dedication:
All the romances are dedicated to Yelizaveta Lavrovskaya.