The silver pen in the form of a peacock feather was donated to the Museum of Music in December 1963 from I.V. Falk, according to whom, the pen belonged to her great-grandfather, the Russian clarinetist and arranger Vladimir Yakovlevich Frolov, and was given to him as a gift from the composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
Vladimir Frolov studied at the Moscow Conservatory from 1872 to 1876. Tchaikovsky taught him general subjects on music theory. Frolov studied clarinet under Franz Zimmermann, a brilliant clarinetist, widely known not only in Russia but also abroad. He was a soloist of the Bolshoi Theater Orchestra and professor of the Moscow Conservatory.
After graduating from the Moscow Conservatory, Vladimir Frolov joined the orchestra of the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow. As a former student of the conservatory, the clarinetist turned to Tchaikovsky for help: he wanted to find some alternative work, for example arranging existing compositions. In a letter dated November 17, 1889, Frolov wrote that he was suffering from catarrh of the lungs and could not earn a living.
The composer immediately responded to the request of his former student, as evidenced by a letter dated November 28, 1889,
