To Modeste Tchaikovsky.
“Paris, February 26th (March 10th), 1879.
“Yesterday was a very exciting day. In the morning at the Châtelet Concert the performance of my Tempest took place. The agonies I endured are the best proof that a country life is the most tolerable for me. What used to be a pleasure—the hearing of one of my own works—has now become a source of misery. The evening before I began to suffer from colic and nausea. My agitation continued to grow crescendo until the opening chords, and while the work was proceeding I felt I should die of the pain in my heart. It was not the fear of failure with the public, but because lately the first hearing of all my works has brought me the sharpest disappointment. Mendelssohn’s Reformation symphony preceded The Tempest, and all the time I was admiring this fine masterpiece. I have not attained to the rank of a master. I still write like a gifted young man from whom much is to be expected. What surprised me chiefly was the fact that my orchestration sounded so poor. Of course, my reason told me I was exaggerating my own defects, but this was no great consolation. The Tempest was not badly played. The orchestra took pains, but showed no warmth of enthusiasm. One member of the band (a ‘cellist) kept staring, smiling, and nodding his head, as much as to say: ‘Excuse our playing such an extraordinary work; it is not our fault; we are ordered to play it, and we obey.’ After the last bars had died away, there followed some feeble applause, mingled with two or three audible hisses, at which the whole room broke out into exclamations of ‘O! O!’ which were intended as a kindly protest against the hisses. Then came silence. The whole business passed over me without leaving any special bitterness. I was only vexed to feel that The Tempest, which I have hitherto regarded as one of my most brilliant works, is in reality so unimportant. I left the room and, as the weather was very fine, took a two hours’ stroll. On returning home I wrote a card to Colonne, telling him that I could only remain another day in Paris, and could not therefore call to thank him personally.
“I must soon leave Paris. I am reconciled to the failure of The Tempest. I speak of it as a failure to myself, but I console myself with the thought that after the opera and the Suite I shall at last compose a fine symphonic work. And so, in all probability, I shall strive for mastery until my last breath, without ever attaining it. Something is lacking in me—I can feel it—but there is nothing to be done.”
The Gazette Musicale published Tchaikovsky’s letter to Colonne, which ran as follows:—
“Sir,—As luck would have it, I came to Paris for one day only, the very one upon which you presented my Tempest to the public. I was at the Châtelet. I heard it, and hasten to thank you for the kind and flattering attention bestowed on my music, and for your fine interpretation of my difficult and ungrateful work. I also send my hearty thanks to the members of your splendid orchestra for the trouble they took to interpret every detail of the score in the most artistic way.
“As to the feeble applause and somewhat energetic hisses with which the public greeted my unlucky Tempest, they affected me deeply, but did not surprise me—I expected them. If a certain degree of prejudice against our Muscovite barbarity had something to do with this, the intrinsic defects of the work itself are also to blame. The form is diffuse and lacking in proportion. In any case the performance which, as I have said, was excellent, has nothing to do with the failure of the work.
“I should certainly have gone round to shake hands with you and express my gratitude in person, had not the state of my health prevented my doing so. I am only passing through Paris. I am obliged therefore, dear sir, to have recourse to my pen, in order to convey to you my thanks. Rest assured that my gratitude will not be effaced from my heart.
“Your devoted
“P. T.”
In publishing this letter, the Gazette Musicale preceded it by a few lines in praise of “this rare witness to the noble and sincere modesty of a composer.”