“Just two months ago I began the composition of the opera. To-day I finished the pianoforte score of the second act. This is to me the most dreadful and nerve-exasperating occupation. I composed the opera with pleasure and self-oblivion; I shall orchestrate with delight; but to make an arrangement! All the time one has to keep undoing what is intended for orchestra. I believe my ill_health is simply the result of this confounded work. Nazar says I have very much altered the last week or two, and have been in a dreadful state of mind. Whether it is that the worst and most wearisome part of my work is nearing an end, or that the weather is finer, I cannot say, but since yesterday I feel much better.... Modi, either I am greatly mistaken or Pique Dame is a masterpiece. At one place in the fourth scene, which I was arranging to-day, I felt such horror, such gruesome thrills, that surely the listeners cannot escape the same impressions.
“Understand, that I shall certainly spend my fiftieth birthday in Petersburg. Besides yourself, Anatol, and Jurgenson, I shall write to no one.”
On March 27th (April 8th), Tchaikovsky completed the pianoforte arrangement of Pique Dame, and resolved to move on to Rome. “I am going there chiefly for Nazar’s sake,” he writes, “I want him to see the place.” For the first time, after nine weeks of continuous work, the composer enjoyed a little leisure, and spent one of his last days in the Uffizi and Pitti galleries. “In spite of my efforts,” he says, “I cannot acquire any appreciation of painting, especially of the older masters—they leave me cold.”
To Modeste Tchaikovsky.
“Rome, March 27th (April 8th).
“ ... The cheerful feelings that came over me to-day as soon as I stepped into the streets, breathed the well-known air of Rome, and saw the old familiar places, made me realise how foolish I had been not to come here first of all. However, I must not blame poor Florence, which for no particular reason grew so detestable to me, since I was able to compose my opera there unmolested. Rome is much changed. Parts of it are unrecognisable. Yet, in spite of these alterations, it is a joy to be back in the dear place. I think of the years that have dropped into eternity, of the two Kondratievs, gone to their rest. It is very sad and yet it has a melancholy pleasure.... Nazar is enchanted with Rome. I seem to see you and Kolya at every turn. I shall stay here three weeks.”
To P. Jurgenson.
“Rome, March 28th (April 9th), 1890.
“All I hear about Safonov[146] does not surprise me in the least. But in any case it must be confessed that he may be useful at this critical juncture. A man of such childlike guilelessness and rectitude as Taneiev can hardly uphold the prestige of the Conservatoire. A Safonov is useful when there is no longer a Rubinstein. Such a man as Nicholas Rubinstein, who had furious energy, and at the same time could quite forget himself in the work he loved, is rare indeed.”
To N. F. von Meck.