“Moscow, December 2nd (14th), 1876.
“ ... I have just heard that my Romeo was hissed in Vienna. Do not say anything about it, or Pasdeloup may take fright; I hear he thinks of doing it.
“Yes, indeed, dear friend, there are trying times in life!
“Francesca has long been finished, and will now be copied out.”
Hans Richter, who conducted the Vienna performance of Romeo, declared that the comparative failure of the work did not amount to a fiasco. Certainly at the concert itself a few hisses were heard, and Hanslick wrote an abusive criticism of it in the Neue Freie Presse, but at the same time much interest, even enthusiasm, was shown for the new Russian work.
Hardly had Tchaikovsky swallowed the bitter Viennese pill, than he received equally disagreeable news from Taneiev in Paris.
Taneiev to Tchaikovsky.
“Paris, November 28th (December 10th), 1876.
“I have just come from Pasdeloup’s concert, where your Romeo overture was shamefully bungled. The tempi were all too fast, so that one could scarcely distinguish the three notes
