On February 28th (March 12th) the first rehearsal took place, and Tchaikovsky writes in his diary in his customary laconic style: “Excitement and dread.” Henceforth, to the very end of his life, it was not the concert itself so much as the first rehearsal which alarmed him. By the second rehearsal he had usually recovered himself. Abroad, he found it particularly painful to stand up for the first time before an unknown orchestra.
All the important musical circles in Petersburg showed a lively interest in Tchaikovsky’s début as a concert conductor. The three rehearsals attracted a number of the first musicians, who encouraged him by their warm words of sympathy. No début could have been made under more favourable conditions.
The concert itself, which took place on March 5th (17th), in the hall of the Nobles’ Club, went off admirably. The programme consisted of: (1) Suite No. 2 (first performance in St. Petersburg), (2) Aria from the opera The Enchantress, (3) the “Mummers’ Dance” from the same opera, (4) Andante and Valse from the Serenade for strings, (5) Francesca da Rimini, (6) Pianoforte solos, (7) Overture “1812.”
The hall was full to overflowing, and the ovations endless. The Press criticisms of the music, as well as of Tchaikovsky’s conducting, proved colourless and commonplace, but on the whole laudatory. Even Cui expressed some approbation for Tchaikovsky as a conductor, although he again found fault with him as a composer.
Tchaikovsky’s diary contains the following brief account of the concert: “My concert. Complete success. Great enjoyment—but still, why this drop of gall in my honeypot?”
In this question lie the germs of that weariness and suffering which had their growth in Tchaikovsky’s soul simultaneously with his pursuit of fame, and reached their greatest intensity in the moment of the composer’s greatest triumphs.
To N. F. von Meck.
“Maidanovo, March 12th (24th), 1887.
“The Empress has sent me her autograph picture in a beautiful frame.[118] This attention has touched me deeply, especially at a time when she and the Emperor have so many other things to think about.”
Diary.