“ ... The real summer weather has not lasted long, but how I enjoyed it! My flowers, which I feared would die, have nearly all recovered, and some have blossomed luxuriantly. I cannot tell you what a pleasure it has been to watch them grow and to see daily—even hourly—new blossoms coming out. Now I have as many as I want. When I am quite old, and past composing, I shall devote myself to growing flowers. I have been working with good results, and half the symphony is orchestrated. My age—although not very advanced—begins to tell. I get very tired now, and can no longer play or read at night as I used. Lately I miss the chance of a game of vint[134] in the evenings; it is the one thing that rests and distracts me.”
To N. F. von Meck.
“Frolovskoe, August 14th (26th), 1888.
“Again I am not feeling well ... but I am so glad to have finished the Symphony (No. 5) that I can forget all physical ailments. I have made no settled plans for the winter. There is a prospect of a tour in Scandinavia and also in America. But nothing is decided as to the first, and the second seems so fantastic that I can hardly give it a serious thought. I have promised to conduct at Dresden, Berlin, and Prague.... In November I am to conduct a whole series of my works in Petersburg (at the Philharmonic), including the new Symphony. They also want me in Tiflis, but I do not know if it will come off.”
IV
1888-1889
The winter season 1888-1889 opened with much arduous work and personal anxiety. Tchaikovsky’s niece, Vera, the second daughter of his sister Alexandra Davidov, was in a dying condition, and his old friend Hubert was suffering from a terrible form of intermittent fever. One gleam of joy shone through the darkness. His Moscow friends, Taneiev in particular, were delighted with the Fifth Symphony, a work which had filled Tchaikovsky himself with gloomy misgivings. At this time he was engaged in an active correspondence upon music and poetry with the Grand Duke Constantine.
To the Grand Duke Constantinovich.
“Frolovskoe, September 21st(October 3rd), 1888.
“ ... Fet[135] is quite right in asserting, as you say he does, that ‘all which has no connection with the leading idea should be cast aside, even though it is beautiful and melodious.’ But we must not deduce from this that only what is terse can be highly artistic; therefore, to my mind, Fet’s rule that an exemplary lyric must not exceed a certain limit is entirely wrong. All depends upon the nature of the leading idea and the poet who expresses it. Of two equally inspired poets, or composers, one, by reason of his artistic temperament, will show greater breadth of treatment, more complexity in the development of the leading idea, and a greater inclination for luxuriant and varied elaboration; while the other will express himself concisely. All that is good, but superfluous, we call ‘padding.’ Can we say we find this padding in Beethoven’s works? I think most decidedly we do not. On the contrary, it is astonishing how equal, how significant and forceful, this giant among musicians always remains, and how well he understands the art of curbing his vast inspiration, and never loses sight of balanced and traditional form. In his last quartets, which were long regarded as the productions of an insane and deaf man, there seems to be some padding, until we have studied them thoroughly. But ask someone who is well acquainted with these works, a member of a quartet who plays them frequently, if there is anything superfluous in the C♯ minor Quartet. Unless he is an old-fashioned musician, brought up upon Haydn, he would be horrified at the idea of abbreviating or cutting any portion of it. In speaking of Beethoven I was not merely thinking of his latest period. Could anyone show me a bar in the Eroica, which is very lengthy, that could be called superfluous, or any portion that could really be omitted as padding? So everything that is long is not too long; many words do not necessarily mean empty verbiage, and terseness is not, as Fet asserts, the essential condition of beautiful form. Beethoven, who in the first movement of the Eroica has built up a superb edifice out of an endless series of varied and ever new architectural beauties upon so simple and seemingly poor a subject, knows on occasion how to surprise us by the terseness and exiguity of his forms. Do you remember the Andante of the Pianoforte Concerto in B flat? I know nothing more inspired than this short movement; I go cold and pale every time I hear it.
“Of course, the classical beauty of Beethoven’s predecessors, and their art of keeping within bounds, is of the greatest value. It must be owned, however, that Haydn had no occasion to limit himself, for he had not an inexhaustible wealth of material at command. As to Mozart, had he lived another twenty years, and seen the beginning of our century, he would certainly have sought to express his prodigal inspiration in forms less strictly classical than those with which he had to content himself.