“I read Italian pretty well, but speak it badly. Once upon a time I studied it and could speak fluently. That was in the days of my admiration for Ristori.
“I place Massenet lower than Bizet, Délibes, or even Saint-Saëns, but he, too, has—like all our French contemporaries—that element of freshness which is lacking in the Germans.
8 p.m.
“Modeste’s telegram was a pleasant surprise. I had no idea the Symphony (No. 4) was going to be played yet. His news of its success is entirely trustworthy. First, because Modeste knows that I am not pleased when people send me exaggerated reports of such events; and secondly because the Scherzo was encored—an undoubted proof of success. After this news I am entirely lost in our Symphony. All day long I keep humming it, and trying to recall how, where, and under what impression this or that part of it was composed. I go back to two years ago, and return to the present with joy! What a change! What has not happened during these years! When I began to work at the Symphony I hardly knew you at all. I remember very well, however, that I dedicated my work to you. Some instinct told me that no one had such a fine insight into my music as yourself, that our natures had much in common, and that you would understand the contents of this Symphony better than any other human being. I love this child of my fancy very dearly. It is one of the things which will never disappoint me.”
The success of the Fourth Symphony, at a concert of the Russian Musical Society in St. Petersburg, on November 25th (December 7th), was most brilliant, and the Press was almost unanimous in its acknowledgment of the fact.
To N. F. von Meck.
“Florence, November 27th (December 9th), 1878.
“Permit me, dear friend, to give you my opinion of Lalo’s Concerto, which I have played through several times, and begin to know pretty thoroughly. Lalo is very talented, there is no doubt about it, but he is either a very young man—because all his deficiencies may be referred to a certain immaturity of style—or he will not go far, since, in a man of ripe age, these deficiencies point to an organic, incurable fault. I do not consider the Concerto as good as the ‘Spanish Symphony.’ All that was wild, lawless, and rhapsodical in the latter—which I attributed to the oriental and Moorish character of the Spanish melodies—is to be found also in the Concerto, which, however, is not at all Spanish. Let us analyse the first movement. It does not consist of two themes, as is usually the case, but of several—of five, in fact.
