What happens
Betty Davis stars in a radio adaptation of This Lonely Heart, the love story of Nadezhda von Meck and the composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky. The drama follows an elderly, wealthy widow in Imperial Russia who, moved by a young composer's music, begins a long friendship with him through letters, never meeting him, while she pours her loneliness and devotion into his life. Her memories unfold as she sits alone in a fashionable house, recalling the years of their correspondence and the feelings she could never speak aloud. The broadcast is from the Screen Guild Theater, sponsored by Gulf, and was first aired on January 14, 1940. Roger Pryor hosts the program, and Oscar Bradley leads the orchestra.
Imperial Russia, 1893, in a fashionable house in the city, and in the memories of the years of correspondence
Characters: Nadezhda von Meck, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Nikolai Rubinstein, Nicole
Listen for: The old woman's letters to the young composer, and her quiet, unspoken love expressed through the years of their correspondence
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.