From Paris Tchaikovsky crossed to England.
“The journey to London was terrible,” he wrote to Nadejda von Meck. “Our train was brought to a standstill in the open country in consequence of a snowstorm. On the steamer it was alarming, for the storm was so severe that every moment we dreaded some catastrophe.”
Tchaikovsky only spent four days in London. No one welcomed him, no one paid him special attention, or worried him with invitations. Except for a complimentary dinner given to him by Berger, the Secretary of the Philharmonic Society, he spent his time alone, or in the society of the violinist Ondricek and his wife. Yet, in spite of appearances, his visit to London had brilliant results for his future reputation. Next to Russia and America his music at present is nowhere more popular than in England.
He conducted the Serenade for strings and the Variations from the Third Suite. “The success was great,” he wrote, in the letter quoted above. “The Serenade pleased most, and I was recalled three times, which means a good deal from the reserved London public. The Variations were not so much liked, but all the same they elicited hearty applause.”
The leading London papers mostly gave Tchaikovsky the credit of a signal success. The Musical Times only regretted that he had not chosen some more serious work for his début before the London public. “The Russian composer was received with signs of unanimous approbation,” said the Times, while the Daily Chronicle felt convinced that Tchaikovsky must have been fully satisfied with the extraordinarily warm welcome accorded him by the Londoners.
“Thus ended the torments, fears, agitations, and—to speak the truth—the joys of my first concert tour abroad.” In these words Tchaikovsky concludes his letter to N. F. von Meck, from which the above extracts have been quoted.
III
After a long journey—six nights in the train—Tchaikovsky reached Tiflis on March 26th (April 7th), 1888. Here he stayed with his brother Hyppolite, whom he had not seen for two years. About the end of April he travelled north to take possession of the country house at Frolovskoe, which had been prepared for him during his absence by his servant Alexis. He describes it as a highly picturesque spot, lying on a wooded hill on the way from Moscow to Klin. It was simpler and not so well furnished as Maidanovo. There was no park planted with lime trees, there were no marble vases; but its unpretentiousness was an added recommendation in Tchaikovsky’s eyes. Here he could be alone, free from summer excursionists, to enjoy the little garden (with its charming pool and tiny islet) fringed by the forest, behind which the view opened out upon a distant stretch of country—upon that homely, unassuming landscape of Central Russia which Tchaikovsky preferred to all the sublimities of Switzerland, the Caucasus, and Italy. Had not the forest been gradually exterminated, he would never have quitted Frolovskoe, for although he only lived there for three years, he became greatly attached to the place. A month before his death, travelling from Klin to Moscow, he said, looking out at the churchyard of Frolovskoe: “I should like to be buried there.”
To Modeste Tchaikovsky.
“Klin, May 15th (27th), 1888.