Nadezhda von Meck
| Nadezhda Filaretovna von Meck | |
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Nadezhda von Meck
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| Husband | Karl Otto Georg von Meck |
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Issue
13 children
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| Father | Filaret Frolovsky |
| Mother | Anastasia Dimitryevna Potemkina |
| Born | 10 February [O.S. 29 January] 1831 |
| Died | 13 January 1894 (aged 62) |
Nadezhda Filaretovna von Meck (Russian: Надежда Филаретовна фон Мекк; 10 February [O.S. 29 January] 1831 – 13 January 1894) was a Russian business woman who became an influential patron of the arts, especially music. She is best known today for her artistic relationship with Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, supporting him financially for thirteen years, so that he could devote himself full-time to composition, while stipulating that they were never to meet. Tchaikovsky dedicated his Symphony No. 4 in F minor to her. She also gave financial support to several other musicians, including Nikolai Rubinstein and Claude Debussy.
Nadezhda von Meck began life as Nadezhda Filaretovna Frolovskaya, in a family which owned great landed estates. Her father, Filaret Frolovsky, embraced his love of music from an early age, while from her mother, Anastasia Dimitryevna Potemkina, she learned energy, determination, and business acumen.
In her youth a serious student of music, Nadezhda Filaretovna became a capable pianist with a good knowledge of the classical repertoire. She also mastered some foreign languages, learned to appreciate the visual arts, and read widely in literature and history, and philosophy, especially the work of Arthur Schopenhauer and the Russian idealist Vladimir Solovyov.
At seventeen, Nadezhda Filaretovna was married to Karl Otto Georg von Meck, a 27-year-old engineer and the son of Major Otto Adam von Meck by his marriage to Wilhelmine Hafferberg – Baltic Germans from Riga. Together they had thirteen children, of whom eleven survived to adulthood.
As a government official, Karl von Meck's life was uneventful, and his work was poorly paid. With several children quickly added to his responsibilities, however, he was reluctant to make a break with a steady post.
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