“Moscow, October 29th (November 10th), 1889.
“Your Imperial Highness,—I feel a certain pride in knowing that your admirable poem is partly the outcome of my letter to you last year. I cannot think why you should fancy that the idea of your poem does not please me. On the contrary, I like it very much. I cannot say that I have sufficient love and forbearance in my own nature always to love ‘the hand that chastises.’ Very often I want to parry the blows, and play the rebellious child in my turn. Nevertheless, I cannot but incline before the strength of mind and lofty views of such rare natures as Spinoza, or Tolstoi, who make no distinction between good and bad men, and take the same attitude towards every manifestation of human wickedness that you have expressed in your poem. I have never read Spinoza, so I speak of him from hearsay; but as regards Tolstoi, I have read and re-read him, and consider him the greatest writer in the world, past or present. His writings awake in me—apart from any powerful artistic impression—a peculiar emotion. I do not feel so deeply touched when he describes anything really emotional, such as death, suffering, separation, etc., so much as by the most ordinary, prosaic events. For instance, I remember that when reading the chapter in which Dolokhov plays cards with Rastov and wins, I burst into tears. Why should a scene in which two characters are acting in an unworthy manner affect me in this degree? The reason is simple enough. Tolstoi surveys the people he describes from such a height that they seem to him poor, insignificant pigmies who, in their blindness, injure each other in an aimless, purposeless way—and he pities them. Tolstoi has no malice; he loves and pities all his characters equally, and all their actions are the result of their own limitations and naïve egotism, their helplessness and insignificance. Therefore he never punishes his heroes for their ill_doings, as Dickens does (who is a great favourite of mine), because he never depicts anyone as absolutely bad, only blind people, as it were. His humanity is far above the sentimental humanity of Dickens; it almost attains to that view of human wickedness which is expressed in the words of Christ: ‘they know not what they do.’
“Is not your Highness’s poem an echo of this lofty feeling of humanity which so dominates me, and how can I therefore fail to admire the fundamental idea of your verses?
“The news that the Emperor has deigned to inquire after me gives me great pleasure. How am I to understand the Emperor’s question about little pieces? If it is an indirect incitement to compose something in this style, I will take the first opportunity of doing so. I should immensely like to compose a great symphony, which should be, as it were, the crown of my creative work, and dedicate it to the Tsar. I have long since had a vague plan of such a work in my mind, but many favourable circumstances must combine before I can realise my idea. I hope I shall not die before I have carried out this project. At present I am entirely absorbed in the concerts here and the preparations for Rubinstein’s jubilee.”
In the same year in which my brother began to study with Zaremba, in 1861 (or perhaps the previous year—I cannot remember for certain), he took Anatol and myself to an amateur performance in aid of some charity, given in the house of Prince Bieloselsky. Anton Rubinstein, already at the height of his fame, was among the audience. Peter Ilich pointed him out to me for the first time, and I still remember the excitement, rapture and reverence with which the future pupil gazed on his future teacher. He entirely forgot the play, while his eyes followed his “divinity,” with the rapt gaze of a lover for the unattainable beauty of his fancy. During the intervals he stood as near to him as possible, strove to catch the sound of his voice, and envied the fortunate mortals who ventured to shake hands with him.
This feeling (I might say “infatuation” had it not been based upon a full appreciation of Rubinstein’s value as a man and artist) practically lasted to the end of Tchaikovsky’s life. Externally he was always “in love” with Rubinstein, although—as is always the case in love affairs—there were periods of coolness, jealousy, and irritation, which invariably gave place in turn to a fresh access of that sentiment which set me wondering in Prince Bieloselsky’s reception-room. In Rubinstein’s presence Tchaikovsky became quite diffident, lost his head, and seemed to regard him as a superior being. When at a supper, given during the pianist’s jubilee, someone, in an indelicate and unseemly way, requested Rubinstein and Tchaikovsky to drink to each other “as brothers,” the latter was not only confused and indignant, but, in his reply to the toast, protested warmly, saying that his tongue would never consent to address the great artist in the second person singular—it would be entirely against the spirit of their relations. He would be happy if Rubinstein addressed him by the familiar “thou,” but for his own part, the more ceremonious form better expressed a sense of reverence from the pupil to his teacher, from the man to the embodiment of his ideal. These were no empty words. Rubinstein had been the first to give the novice in his art an example of the untiring devotion and disinterested spirit which animates the life of the true artist. In this sense Tchaikovsky was far more the pupil of Rubinstein than in questions of orchestration and composition. With his innate gifts and thirst for knowledge, any other teacher could have given him the same instruction. It was in his character as an energetic, irreproachably clean-minded and inspired artist, as a man who never compromised with his conscience, who had all his life detested every kind of humbug and the successes of vulgarity, as an indefatigable worker, that Rubinstein left really deep traces upon Tchaikovsky’s artistic career. The latter, writing to the well-known German journalist, Eugen Zabel, said: “Rubinstein’s personality shines before me like a clear, guiding star.”
But there were times when clouds obscured this “guiding star.” While recognising Rubinstein’s great gifts as a composer, and valuing some of his works very highly—such as the “Ocean Symphony,” The Tower of Babel, the Pianoforte Concerto, Ivan the Terrible, the violoncello sonatas, and many of the pieces for pianoforte—Tchaikovsky grew angry and impatient over the vast majority of the virtuoso’s mediocre and empty creations. He frequently expressed himself so sarcastically on this subject that I have cut out certain passages in his letters, lest they might give the reader a false impression of his attitude towards Rubinstein. But he soon forgot and forgave these momentary eclipses of “his star,” and always returned to his old spirit of veneration.
The deepest, keenest, and most painful aspect of their relations—and here artistic self-esteem doubtless played a part—was the knowledge of Rubinstein’s antipathy to him as a composer, which he never conquered to the end of his life. The virtuoso never cared for Tchaikovsky’s music. Many of Rubinstein’s intimate friends, and also his wife, maintained the reverse. But in that case it was the love of Wotan for the Wälsungs. Secretly rejoicing in the success of Tchaikovsky-Siegmund, and sympathising in his heart with Tchaikovsky-Siegfried, Wotan-Rubinstein never did anything to forward the performance of his works, nor held out a helping hand.... From the earliest exercises at the Conservatoire, to the “Pathetic Symphony,” he never praised—and seldom condemned—a single work of Tchaikovsky’s. All of them, without exception, were silently ignored—together with all the music which came after Schumann—as unworthy of serious attention.
The legend of Rubinstein’s envy, which had absolutely no foundation in fact, always annoyed Tchaikovsky and aroused his wrath. Even if it might be to a certain extent true as regards the eighties, when my brother was recognised and famous, it could not apply to the attitude of a teacher towards a pupil who—although undoubtedly gifted—had a doubtful future before him. To the composer of the “Ocean Symphony” Tchaikovsky’s earliest essays in composition were as antipathetic as Eugene Oniegin and the Fifth Symphony. Envy can only exist between two equally matched rivals, and could not have influenced a giant—as Rubinstein was in the sixties—in his relations with anyone so insignificant as the Tchaikovsky of those days.
The feeling was simply the same which Tchaikovsky himself cherished for the works of Chopin and Brahms; a sentiment of instinctive and unconquerable antipathy. Rubinstein felt like this, not only towards Tchaikovsky’s music, but to all musical works which came after Chopin and Schumann.