Ex. 10-6: None but the Lonely Heart
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
No. 6 from Tchaikovsky's first set of romances (Op. 6), composed in late 1869. The text is Lev Mei's Russian translation of "Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt" from Goethe's novel Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship — one of the most frequently set poems in the German Lied tradition.
Premiered by mezzo-soprano Yelizaveta Lavrovskaya in Moscow in 1870. The following year, it was performed at an all-Tchaikovsky concert hosted by Nikolai Rubinstein in St. Petersburg — the first concert ever devoted entirely to Tchaikovsky's works.
The song crossed into popular culture: Frank Sinatra recorded it four times between 1946 and 1959. Mario Lanza, Plácido Domingo, and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf are among the many artists who have also recorded it.