At Bedtime (A Prayer before Sleep)

A tenderly expressive evening prayer for peace and forgiveness, based on a poem by Nicholas Ogarev, shows Tchaikovsky at his Romantic best! The composer wrote three settings of this text— an a cappella version for mixed chorus, a choral-orchestral version (both dating from 1863-4, when he was a student at the St. Petersburg Conservatory), and a later version for solo voice and piano (Six romances, op. 27). The present item is the a cappella version. The choral-orchestral version (piano-vocal score, full score, and parts) is also available from Musica Russica, cat. No. Ta-AB.