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The Italian province of Imperia, part of the Ligurian coast, was the source of the idea for naming a festival “Imperia Tchaikovsky”.
Pyotr Iliych Tchaikovsky is indubitably one of the most famous and beloved composers throughout the whole world. His symphonies, piano and violin concerti, ballets and operas are invariably included in the repertoires of the best musicians, and for listeners, his creativity is on par with that of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, serving as an emblem of Russian Culture to the world.
Tchaikovsky became the first among Russian composers to win wide recognition not only in his native land, but far beyond the boundaries of Russia. More than once did he tour abroad, successfully directing his compositions in many of the countries of Europe and America, mixing with leading musicians of the world. At the end of his life, he was admitted into the Academie des Beaux-Artes in France and received an honorary doctorate in music from Cambridge University.
The idea for the musical festival “Imperia Tchaikovsky” arose from reflecting on the history of what marked one of the most significant events of the “Golden Age”. Sanremo was among the sojournings of one of the great Russian composers. When Pyotr Iliych came to Sanremo in December of 1877, it was to save him from a deep depression and lead to the resumption of his work; in this time he was writing his opera “Eugene Onegin” and Fourth Symphony. The climate and landscape of the Italian Rivera had a very beneficial influence on the composer’s health and he spent the whole of February 1878 there. The pages flowing from his pen in this “Sanremo” period, have become firmly stored in the treasury of global musical culture. In his letters to Baroness Nadezhda von Meck, his friend and patron (she commissioned the Fourth Symphony), the composer wrote: “I find myself in rosy spirits, I’m joyful that I’ve finished the opera, joyful that spring has come, joyful that I’m healthy, joyful that I’m free. . . If the circumstances are propitious, and today I wish to believe they shall be, I will leave behind an enduring memory.” (Sanremo, 13 February 1878).