About this edition
Composed in 1878–79, immediately after Eugene Onegin, The Maid of Orleans is Tchaikovsky's most ambitious venture into grand opera — a sweeping four-act treatment of the Joan of Arc legend, scored for large orchestra, chorus, and ballet in a manner that openly courts the spectacle of Meyerbeer. Tchaikovsky fashioned his own libretto from Vasily Zhukovsky's Russian translation of Schiller's Die Jungfrau von Orleans, supplemented with material drawn from Jules Barbier's play Jeanne d'Arc, and built around it a score of unusual scale, culminating in Joan's Act I aria of farewell to her native fields and forests, a passage that has long enjoyed an independent life in the concert hall. Though it has never rivaled the popularity of Onegin or The Queen of Spades, The Maid of Orleans remains a rewarding and still under-explored corner of Tchaikovsky's output, full of dramatic ambition and orchestral color.
This full score reproduces the first edition published in Moscow by P. Jurgenson, the house that served as Tchaikovsky's principal publisher throughout his career and brought virtually all of his major works into print. Issued without a printed date but identifiable by its plate number, 3950, as a product of around 1899, this edition represents the first publication of the complete orchestral score, engraved under Jurgenson's characteristically exacting editorial standards. As the original printed source for the work's orchestration, it stands as the edition from which subsequent study scores and performance materials descend, making it an essential reference for anyone approaching this rarely heard opera in earnest.
About this edition:
- Full orchestral score
- Page size: 8.27 x 11.69 in
- Reproduced from a public domain historical source
- Published by Purple 4R Publishing
Because the original 1899 Jurgenson edition has long since entered the public domain, we're glad to bring this handsome historical score back into print — an affordable, faithful edition for conductors, orchestral musicians, students, and scholars who want to study or perform this fascinating chapter of Tchaikovsky's operatic career.
