“In 1868 Tchaikovsky was invited to conduct the dances from his opera The Voyevode at a charity concert given in Moscow. I still see him before me, the bâton in his right hand, while his left firmly supported his fair beard!
“Tchaikovsky’s ardent admiration for Glinka, especially for the opera A Life for the Tsar, included also this composer’s incidental music to the tragedy Prince Kholmsky. As regards Russlan and Lioudmilla, his views varied at first. Early in the sixties he knew only a few numbers from Glinka’s second opera, which pleased him unreservedly. He was equally delighted with the music and libretto of Serov’s opera Judith, which he heard in 1863. It is remarkable that while a few masterpieces, such as Don Juan, A Life for the Tsar, and Schubert’s Symphony in C, took their places once and for ever in his appreciation, his judgment of other musical works was subject to considerable fluctuation. One year he was carried away by Beethoven’s Eighth Symphony, the next he pronounced it ‘very nice, but nothing more.’ For years he declared the music to Faust by Pugni (a well-known composer of ballets) was infinitely superior to Gounod’s opera, and afterwards he described the French composer’s work as ‘a masterpiece.’ Therefore it is all the more remarkable that he remained faithful to Serov’s opera Judith to the end of his days.
“His attitude to Serov’s literary work was exceedingly sceptical. We both attended the popular lectures given by this critic in 1864, and were amused at his desperate efforts to overthrow the authority of the Conservatoire, to abase Glinka and to exalt Verstovsky.[8] Serov’s attack upon Rubinstein would in itself have lowered him in the eyes of so devoted an adherent as Tchaikovsky, but he disliked him still more for such expressions as ‘the spiritual contents of music,’ ‘the organic unity of the music drama,’ and similar phrases, under which Serov concealed his vacillation and extraordinary lack of principle.
“Tchaikovsky’s personal relations with the composer of Judith are only known to me in part. They met, if I am not mistaken, in the autumn of 1864, and I was the means of their becoming acquainted. One of our fellow-students named Slavinsky, who visited Serov, invited me to go with him to one of his ‘composer’s Tuesdays.’ About a year later I introduced Tchaikovsky to Serov. I recollect how on that particular evening Dostoievsky talked a great deal—and very foolishly—about music, as literary men do, who know nothing whatever about it. Serov’s personality did not please Tchaikovsky, and I do not think he ever went again, although he received a pressing invitation to do so.
“Besides N. A. Hubert and myself, I cannot recall a single student at the Conservatoire with whom Tchaikovsky kept up a lasting intimacy. He was pleasant to all, and addressed a few in the familiar second person singular. Among these passing friends I may mention Gustav Kross, afterwards the first to play Tchaikovsky’s pianoforte concerto in public; Richard Metzdorf, who settled in Germany as a composer and Capellmeister; Karl van Ark, who became a professor at the Petersburg Conservatoire; Slavinsky and Joseph Lödscher. Of these fellow-students, the name of Nicholas Hubert occurs most frequently in subsequent pages. In spite of his foreign name, Hubert was really of Russian descent. From his childhood he lived only in and for music, and very early in life had to earn his living by teaching. The number of lessons he gave, combined with his weak and uncertain health, prevented him from working very hard at the Conservatoire, but he impressed us as talented and clever. He was fond of assembling his friends round the tea-table in his large, but scantily-furnished room, when the evening would be spent in music and discussion. Tchaikovsky, Lödscher and myself were the most regular guests at these evenings. The real intimacy, however, between Tchaikovsky and Hubert did not actually begin until many years later—about the middle of the eighties.”
With this chapter Laroche’s reminiscences of Tchaikovsky come to an end.
VI.
In the autumn of 1863 the mother of Leo Davidov, who had married Tchaikovsky’s sister, came to settle in St. Petersburg.
Alexandra Ivanovna, widow of the famous Decembrist, Vassily Davidov, was a vigorous, kindly clever old lady, who had seen and suffered much in her day. Of her very numerous family, four daughters and her youngest son had accompanied her to Petersburg. Two of these daughters, Elizabeth and Vera, became very friendly with Tchaikovsky, thanks to their common love of music.
Peter Ilich never felt more at home than at the Davidovs. Apart from the pleasure of acting as a guide to Vera in musical matters—introducing her to the works of Schumann, Berlioz, and Glinka, whose charm he had only just discovered for himself—he thoroughly enjoyed talking to her mother and sister.