The new Conservatoire of Music was founded at St. Petersburg in 1862, with Anton Rubinstein as director, and Tschaikowsky lost no time in entering as a pupil, studying composition and kindred subjects with Professor Zaremba. His progress was so rapid in the several branches he took up—piano, organ and flute—that Rubinstein advised him to make music his profession, and throw his law studies to the winds. Thanks to Rubinstein, he secured some pupils and also engagements as accompanist. Meanwhile he worked industriously at composition, and one of his pieces was a Concert Overture in F, scored for small orchestra. In 1865 he took his diploma as a musician and also secured a silver medal for a cantata. One year after this the Moscow Conservatoire was founded, with Nicholas Rubinstein at its head. The position of Professor of Composition and Musical History was offered to Tschaikowsky, then only twenty-six. It was a flattering offer for so young a man, when many older heads would have liked to secure such an honor. He moved to Moscow, and retained his position in the Conservatoire for at least twelve years, in the meantime making many friends for himself and his art, as his fame as a composer grew. One of these friends was the publisher Jurgenson, who was to play rather an important part in the composer's life, through accepting and putting forth his compositions.
During those first years in Moscow, Tschaikowsky made his home with Nicholas Rubinstein. His life was of the simplest, his fare always so. Later on when money was more abundant, and he had his own house in the country, he lived with just the same simplicity. One would think that all this care and thought for expense would have taught him the value of money. Not at all. He never could seem to learn its value, never cared for it, and never could keep it. He liked to toss his small change among groups of street boys, and it is said he once spent his last roubles in sending a cablegram to von Bülow in America, to thank him for his admirable performance of his first Piano Concerto. Often his friends protested against this prodigality, but it was no use to protest, and at last they gave up in despair.
Soon after he began his professorship in Moscow, he composed a Concert Overture in C minor. To his surprise and disappointment, Rubinstein disapproved of the work in every way. This was a shock, after the lack of encouragement in St. Petersburg. But he recovered his poise, though he made up his mind to try his next work in St. Petersburg instead of Moscow. He called the new piece a Symphonic Poem, "Winter Daydreams," but it is now known as the First Symphony, Op. 13. About the end of 1866, he started out with it, only to be again rebuffed and cast down. The two men whose good opinion he most desired, Anton Rubinstein and Professor Zaremba, could find nothing good in his latest work, and the young composer returned to Moscow to console himself with renewed efforts in composition. Two years later the "Winter Daydreams" Symphony was produced in Moscow with great success, and its author was much encouraged by this appreciation. He was, like most composers, very sensitive to criticism and had a perfect dread of controversy. Efforts to engage him in arguments of this sort only made him withdraw into himself.
Tschaikowsky held the operas of Mozart before him as his ideal. He cared little for Wagner, considering his music dramas to be built on false principles. Thus his first opera, "Voivoda," composed in 1866, evidently had his ideal, Mozart, clearly in mind. It is a somewhat curious fact that Tschaikowsky, who was almost revolutionary in other forms of music, should go back to the eighteenth century for his ideal of opera. Soon after it was completed "Voivoda" was accepted to be produced at the Moscow Grand Theater. The libretto was written by Ostrowsky, one of the celebrated dramatists of the day. The first performance took place on January 30, 1869. We are told it had several performances and considerable popular success. But the composer was dissatisfied with its failure to win a great artistic success, and burnt the score. He did the same with his next work, an orchestral fantaisie, entitled "Fatum." Again he did the same with the score of a complete opera, "Undine," finished in 1870, and refused at the St. Petersburg Opera, where he had offered it.
"The Snow Queen," a fairy play with music, was the young Russian's next adventure; it was mounted and produced with great care, yet it failed to make a favorable impression. But these disappointments did not dampen the composer's ardor for work. Now it was in the realm of chamber music. Up to this time he had not seemed to care greatly for this branch of his art, for he had always felt the lack of tone coloring and variety in the strings. The first attempt at a String Quartet resulted in the one in D major, Op. 11. To-day, fifty years after, we enjoy the rich coloring, the characteristic rhythms of this music; the Andante indeed makes special appeal. A bit of history about this same Andante shows how the composer prized national themes and folk tunes, and strove to secure them. It is said that morning after morning he was awakened by the singing of a laborer, working on the house below his window. The song had a haunting lilt, and Tschaikowsky wrote it down. The melody afterwards became that touching air which fills the Andante of the First String Quartet. Another String Quartet, in F major, was written in 1814, and at once acclaimed by all who heard it, with the single exception of Anton Rubinstein.
Tschaikowsky wrote six Symphonies in all. The Second, in C minor was composed in 1873; in this he used themes in the first and last movements, which were gathered in Little Russia. The work was produced with great success in Moscow in 1873. The next orchestral composition was a Symphonic Poem, called "The Tempest," with a regular program, prepared by Stassow. It was brought out in Paris at the same time it was heard in Moscow. Both at home and in France it made a deep impression. The next work was the splendid piano Concerto in B flat minor, Op. 23, the first of three works of this kind. At a trial performance of it, his friend and former master, Nicholas Rubinstein, to whom it was dedicated, and who had promised to play the piano part, began to criticize it unmercifully and ended by saying it was quite unplayable, and unsuited to the piano.
No one could blame the composer for being offended and hurt. He at once erased the name of Nicholas Rubinstein from the title page and dedicated the work to Hans von Billow, who not long after performed it with tremendous success in America, where he was on tour. When we think of all the pianists who have won acclaim in this temperamental, inspiring work, from Carreno to Percy Grainger, to mention two who have aroused special enthusiasm by their thrilling performance of it, we can but wonder that his own countrymen were so short sighted at the time it was composed. Later on Nicholas Rubinstein gave a superb performance of the Concerto in Moscow, thus making some tardy amends for his unkindness.
Tschaikowsky was now thirty-five. Most of his time was given to the Conservatoire, where he often worked nine hours a day. Besides, he had written a book on harmony, and was contributing articles on music to two journals. In composition he had produced large works, including up to this time, two Symphonies, two Operas, the Concerto, two String Quartets and numerous smaller pieces. To accomplish such an amount of work, he must have possessed immense energy and devotion to his ideals.
One of the operas just mentioned was entitled "Vakoula the Smith." It bears the date of 1874, and was first offered in competition with others. The result was that it not only was considered much the best work of them all but it won both the first and second prizes. "Vakoula" was splendidly mounted and performed in St. Petersburg, at the Marinsky Theater at least seventeen times. Ten years later, in January 1887, it appeared again. The composer meanwhile had re-written a good part of it and now called it "Two Little Shoes." This time Tschaikowsky was invited to conduct his own work. The invitation filled him with alarm, for he felt he had no gift in that direction, as he had tried a couple of times in the early years of his career and had utterly failed. However, he now, through the cordial sympathy of friends, decided to make the attempt. Contrary to his own fears, he obtained a successful performance of the opera.
It proved an epoch-making occasion. For this first success as conductor led him to undertake a three months' tour through western Europe in 1888. On his return to St. Petersburg he conducted a program of his own compositions for the Philharmonic Society, which was also successful, in spite of the intense nervousness which he always suffered. As a result of his concert he received offers to conduct concerts in Hamburg, Dresden, Leipsic, Vienna, Copenhagen and London, many of which he accepted.